Wednesday, May 21, 2008  How much will income taxes have to go
up to pay for Social Security and Medicare?   The Congressional
Budget Office updates its estimate. Here's how it projects
spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to increase
as a percentage of GDP from 2007 to 2030 and 2050. (I've deleted
the 75-year projection to 2082 because the numbers get too big
to be plausible.)  Combined spending increases by 6.1 points of
GDP by 2030, and by 10.2 points of GDP by 2050.  In 2007 total
income tax collections (individual and corporate) were 11.2
points of GDP.  Thus, to cover such spending increases, total
income taxes as a portion of GDP would have to increase 54% from
today's levels by 2030, and 91% by 2050.  Well, 2030 is only
about two-thirds of the length of a typical home mortgage away.
That's not so far. How easy will it be for Congress to increase
taxes this much by then? We can look at the record of past tax
increases for perspective...  [] The 1983 tax increases that
"saved" Social Secur