Word: systemic
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...getting much less for our money. Markets are great at providing consumer goods and services. We don't want the government running our restaurants, movie houses, bookstores and manufacturers. Markets are not so good, though, at some very important things. A pressing example: our mostly private health system, at $8,000 per American, is twice the cost of Europe's mostly public system, yet with worse outcomes. And nearly 50 million Americans lack health insurance...
...Obama's big domestic program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, proposes doubling renewable-energy production and making public buildings more efficient. It calls for better schools and classrooms and the rebuilding of our crumbling roadways and bridges. The President-elect wants our fill-out-the-forms health-care system to be computerized, which will save both lives and money. (See the global financial crisis in photos...
...certainly have to add to that list. Don't forget bailing out the financial system, helping deficit-ridden state and local governments, revamping the auto industry and funding more global-development assistance to defeat terrorism and overcome instability. Add it up and it will require perhaps 5% of national income on top of our current spending, or approximately 25% of our total...
Here's the problem with that math: the tax system brings in about 18% of GDP, less in a recession - and Obama is even floating a two-year, $300 billion tax cut (roughly 1% of GDP per year). Even worse, our federal revenues are nearly exhausted by just four areas of spending: Social Security and other retirement programs, health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, defense, and interest payments on the public debt. Almost all the rest of our expenditures - from education and infrastructure to international diplomacy and much more - have to be funded by borrowing. We are racking...
...difference between the wholesale and retail prices in federal revenues. Various carbon and gasoline taxes could raise another 1% or so of GDP. The public will also probably accept taxes on health care if they convincingly help save even more in private outlays on health insurance. A well-managed system of public financing of health care can do that and allow us to cut the horrendous sums paid to health-insurance companies. And in the end, though almost no U.S. politician will say it now, the U.S. will probably have to follow Europe down the path of the value-added...