Taxes, spending, and the U.S. government's march toward bankruptcy

About this book

What's in a word? Plenty, when it's a word such as 'taxes', 'spending', and 'deficits' that dominates Washington political debate despite lacking coherent economic content. The United States is moving towards a possible catastrophic fiscal collapse. The country may not get there, but the risk is unmistakable and growing. The 'fiscal language'of taxes, spending, and deficits has played a huge and under-appreciated role in the decisions that have pushed the nation in this dangerous direction. This book proposes a better fiscal language for U.S. budget policy, rooted in economic fundamentals such as wealth distribution and resource allocation in lieu of 'taxes' and 'spending, ' and in the use of multiple measures (such as the fiscal gap and generational accounting) to replace the U.S.'s misguided reliance on annual budge deficits.