Another 1.1T Spending - National Debt - No worries or what point consequences?

[eyePod]

Given that the Federal Government can borrow money for around 0%, this is the best time in it's history to take on debt. And I would have no problem with it... if it was used towards infrastructure and investing in our future prosperity.

But, we'll piss it away on intell black budgets (aka the fear industry) and defense systems that the Pentagon doesn't want and insuring million dollar beachfront homes in hurricane zones and subsidies to pet industries, etc.

You must be guilty since you don't want to be spied on. /s

[aspiringnomad]

I only skimmed the comments but was surprised by the amount of misinformation here. In short, no worries. If you are truly Mustachian, the debt should be so far down on your list of worries that you smile when you see others get worked up over it. The most likely scenario is that entitlement programs and tax rates will have to change at the margins over the long-term. But that will be due to the inexorable aging of our society, not the actions of one political party or another.

[projekt]

In 2013, the CBO released information indicating that the top 40% of wage earners paid 106% of all taxes (!!!) (citation - http://www.cnbc.com/id/101264757#.)

Show me where in the linked report it shows that. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44604-AverageTaxRates.pdf

I generally think that CNBC is pretty stupid, so I won't attribute their poor reading comprehension to malice. But it clearly says in the report on page 13 that the top 40% paid 86.4% of all federal taxes.

That's what we would expect from a system that scales out based on income. Even if there were a flat tax, like Steve Forbes wanted, the vast majority of the taxes would be paid by those with the vast majority of the before-tax income. If the top quintile thinks it's "unfair", they have the means to increase the wages of the lower quintiles and reduce their own pay, as they own so much of the capital that they pay 78% of the corporate income taxes. If the difference in income between the top two quintiles were similar to the difference between the bottom two, the tax incidence would be more evenly distribtued.

FWIW, I agree with your earlier point that the top earners pay most of the taxes. But that's less a function of the tax system taking too much as it is a function of very high incomes in the top quitile (and decile and percentile).

[beltim]

In 2013, the CBO released information indicating that the top 40% of wage earners paid 106% of all taxes (!!!) (citation - http://www.cnbc.com/id/101264757#.)

Show me where in the linked report it shows that. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44604-AverageTaxRates.pdf

I generally think that CNBC is pretty stupid, so I won't attribute their poor reading comprehension to malice. But it clearly says in the report on page 13 that the top 40% paid 86.4% of all federal taxes.

I think it's just poor editing.  If it were written as "federal income taxes" the correct figure would be 106.2%.  People drop the "income" word from the phrase all the time to try to make a stronger point – which usually results in identifying who has an agenda and is willing to use bad data to support it.