Quote:Another trillion or so come from FICA, which is the regressive income tax that rich people don't have to pay. 10% comes from corporations.

 

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3822

 

If Coporate income tax receipts were quadrupled to put their share back around 30-35% then we'd have a surplus and could start paying down the debt again.

 

Of course we could also eliminate the notion of capital gains and start charging them at the full income rate to pay down the debt even more quickly.

 

Completely discounting what that would do to our economy by suddenly more than quadrupling corporate taxes, just operating in a surplus isn't enough.  We're paying 500 billion dollars in interest payments as well... And thats at a low 2.4%... Imagine what happens if that number jumps to what it was during the Clinton era of 6-7%?  You're talking 1.5-1.75 trillion dollars in interest payments alone.  So you have to, at the very least, come up with 1.2 trillion dollars per year out of nowhere just to break even and hope that interest payments don't go up.  So even with your plan we're still running at a deficit... We'd need to find another trillion per year just to pay it off by the time our grandchildren take over... and cross our fingers interest rates don't go up...

---