Economy – The federal budget deficit will climb to $1.2 trillion dollars this year. President-elect Obama is pledging to provide an economic stimulus package starting at $775 billion (before Congress ratchets it upwards from there), and that is not counted yet towards the deficit. With the proposed tax cuts and spending programs, where is the money going to come from? One approach to keeping the spigot running without running the printing presses overnight would be to put the money in one pocket and then take it out of the other pocket.
Cutting income taxes would temporally free up disposable income, but the government could recoup the revenue by implementing Green taxes by which it could regain the tax cuts at every transaction. Things are so bad that the government may even start collecting the Green taxes at no transaction at all. The FDA is currently proposing a greenhouse gas tax on livestock due to the fact that they produce carbon dioxide and methane gas, and this would be passed on in food prices. Interestingly, people also fall into this greenhouse gas-production category, and a tax on breathing would arguably be far more insidious than the income tax.
