I put a little effort into this and came up mostly empty, but it may have supported Rich(ie), which I dislike politically but will help me sleep better at night.
What if:
Tax receipts increase to 20% of GDP and we return to historic economic growth (about 3.5%, what happens to the deficit?
Tough call and a lot of potential political massaging of the data (what year, GDP growth, effect on behaviour).
The calculations I did were based on 2008 numbers which quite frankly are not germane but what was available, showing the deficit would have been reduced to about $100B. And yes this is an overly rosy scenario.
Now Mark...you will obviously have an professional advantage and so if you chose to participate, please, if you would, present the best and worse case scenario. My impression has been that we are screwed under any scenario, but perhaps not.
I had a difficult time finding the data and in fact ultimately went to the CIA web site. I tried various other government web sites.
Wonk away.
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Jim - Great post and I'll do some homework. As you know, I support 20%/GDP in revenues and 17%/GDP spending with the balance going to pay off debt. I also want to gradually raise the age on SS/Medicare to 72, which will help in the 20/17 effort.
The World Almanac & Book of Facts also has alot of data, but I think it inly goes to 2007, which is probably a better baseline than 2008.
I will be back on this topic.
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