The Brian Sullivan Blog
  • April 6, 2009 12:39 PM EDT by Brian Sullivan

    Good Read: Filling The Budget Holes

    Excellent article in today's Financial Times by Clive Crook.

    The premise is that even the coming tax increase on the wealthy will not raise enough revenue to fill the holes in the budget from the proposed spending programs.

    As Crook writes:

    In short, whether it intends to or not, Congress is leaning towards making the long-term deficit even bigger. It is preparing to underwrite a large and permanent expansion of the government’s spending obligations while failing to provide for a corresponding expansion of the tax base. A crucial question is therefore whether, and for how long, Mr Obama will continue to be bound by his pledge to raise income taxes “by not one cent” for almost all Americans.

    One other interesting point Crook makes is that according to the OECD, the U.S. actually has one of the highest progressive tax rates in the world.

    Check out the article here.

Carla,Ballwin,MO

We middle class have a tax increase to look forward to, we are not naive! My pick for Prez in 2012 is Paul Ryan, a true Conservative.

April 6, 2009 at 1:47 pm

chuck

Brian here's something that I've been catching on the local am talk radio show. Every Monday,on the air,the two local cohosts, have bashing letters writers to the Vicksburg Post. I kid you not. Well the local hosts show thier biases for the mayor whose up for reelection. Now the letters to the editor dealt with the fact that VPD has been writing speeding tickets. Whenever someone trys to show their version--they local hosts go on a basha campaign against the letter writers. They criticized a former local who lived here who was visiting all becouse the patrol cars have been siting around; the hosts and cohost try to show that Vicksburg Police Dept. is better than the metropolitian police force. But this afternoon I wonder how the local cops would deal with narcos from across the border in mexico. After all Vicksburg Ms isn't too far from the tex/mex border.

April 6, 2009 at 4:53 pm

6ftrabbit

Obama is not bound by anything other than his inflated opinion of himself and his own self interest. Trust me, he has his fingers crossed whenever he says anything that resembles a "promise". Just because he doesn't have rattles, doesn't mean he doesn't speak with forked tongue.

April 6, 2009 at 9:31 pm

earle

Really scary stuff, but what currently concerns me are the pension programs,and 401k's that have been decimated. Retiree's,and pensioneer's are looking at substantial income losses that they count on ,and perhaps have already spent coming home to roost. This perhaps could be the next leg down,and perhaps even breaks the bank! (Ref:pensiontsunami.com) What is your take,Brian? Thanks Brian(:

April 7, 2009 at 8:36 am

i worked for it, not you

The government needs to budget just like all American families are forced to do. Don't spend more than you make, & don't take what isn't yours.

April 7, 2009 at 11:49 am

moving

We either have very high taxes or a new currency comming. My Guess is that sooner or later we will spend our way into being forced into a new currency that is more of a global dominated form that the Chinese back (as they are the our land lords). I just don't get what most people are thinking the pres has great approval ratings on the economy and he is creating a hole that will be very hard to get back out of for many years to come.

April 7, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Corey in GA

The key word in the promise is INCOME. Income taxes won't go up. Just wait for the other taxes, though. Energy taxes, "carbon" taxes, any other environmental tax they can think of.

April 7, 2009 at 4:30 pm

about this blog

  • Brian Sullivan joined FOX Business Network (FBN) in April 2008 as an anchor. He co-anchors the 10am-12pm ET hours of the FOX Business block. Prior to joining FBN, Sullivan served as an anchor for Bloomberg Television where he hosted the programs Morning Call and In Focus.

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