I'm not disagreeing that this is necessary, but if I had suggested it many would have leaped at me because I had suggested raising taxes. After all, that's what you suggest.

As I said, yes corporate taxes is a place that ultimately Congress may be looking to increase revenues. Right now, of the $2.4 trillion in tax revenues, here are the sources...

• Personal income taxes..............43.5%
• Social Security taxes................42.3%
• Corporate income taxes..............6.6%
• All other sources........................7.6%

As I suggest that this may happen, I'm sure there are some who are reading this who will jump down my throat with suggestions that I study the Laffer Curve Theory, etc. It probably should be noted that about half of the Social Security tax revenues are actually collected from corporations, increasing their "real" tax rate to closer to 28% than only single digits.

I think by far the more likely way that Congress will consider to raise revenues will be the use of a consumption tax such as the Value Added Tax (VAT) so common in Europe. That tax will be less noticeable by any specific segment of taxpayers, but would have the capacity of raising revenues pretty dramatically. VAT tax rates in Europe are typically in the range of 18-25%, with much lower VAT rates applicable to basic necessities, such as foodstuffs. In addition to the VAT, the average income tax for a family with a couple of children in Europe averages in the range of 20-35%.

How comparable the total personal tax burden in th U.S. is compared to Europe is hard to calculate. Europeans tend to pay just an income tax plus the VAT. Those are the principal sources of tax revenues for European countries. For the most part, the more fiscally responsible countries live within those means. Greece is an example of one which does not.

Here in the U.S. we have a plethora of different taxes from different taxing bodies...federal income tax, social security tax, state, county and city income taxes, real estate taxes, sales taxes, special product taxes (gas, liquor, cigarettes, etc.) and on and on. It's possible I suppose, that Americans are already paying as much in taxes as their counterparts in Europe.

What is painfully obvious is that whatever the amount of taxes are being collected in the U.S., we are demanding that our government spend a lot more than that amount on various kinds of government services and entitlements. We can blame our political leaders for being spendthrifts, but remember that they wouldn't be so loose with the pursestrings if expenditures weren't being demanded by the electorate in exchange for their election votes.