Taxing Thoughts

From CalPundit:

TAXES….Taxes, taxes, taxes, how much is enough?

This post isn’t about persuading anybody about anything. I just want to present a few numbers to put the whole tax/budget debate into perspective.

The chart on the right shows total federal tax receipts. As you can see, they have been relatively steady for the past 50 years, averaging about 18% of GDP (yellow line). There’s also a pretty obvious dynamic at work: whenever taxes start to rise to around 20% of GDP, they get reduced. This happened most recently in 2001, and during the 2000 election there was a bipartisan consensus that taxes ought to be lowered. (Bush and Gore differed on the size and nature of the cuts, but both agreed that taxes should come down.)

Thought this was interesting, shows the short sighted nature of government decison making!

From www.dailynews.com

Burbank airport almost cleared for $107 million in improvements
BY JASON KANDEL, Staff Writer

BURBANK - A Bob Hope Airport finance committee gave the preliminary OK on Monday for a proposed $107.2 million budget - 36 percent more than last year - that includes nearly $70 million for facility upgrades and runway improvements.

…

Last year, the figure hit an all-time high of 5.5 million, surpassing the 4.9 million in 1995 and 2004. The increase is fueled by new arrivals from Delta Airlines and JetBlue flights.