The end of civilization as we know it

I caught the tale end of a conversation on television the other day as the commentator was quoting someone who roughly said that democracy eventually destroys all civilizations who embrace it because politicians figure out the only way to get elected is to continually lower taxes while increasing spending.

I tried many searches but could not come up with the exact quote or author. Let me know if you know who it is.

It's not the politicians fault, they just feed us the lines we want to hear. The problem is they have stopped lying about it. They used to make these ridiculous promises and then renege on them once they got into power. Now they seem to actually do what they promise.

Taxes are collected on a percentage basis of gross income for individuals and net income for businesses. In a booming economy those tax breaks add fuel to the fire and government revenue can actually go up for a while in spite of the smaller percentage of income collected.

But, what happens when our income shrinks? The government still takes the same or smaller percentage of our income (smaller cause they keep cutting taxes to get elected or "stimulate" the economy) and governments continually spend more to get elected or "stimulate" the economy.

So the question is how long can this continue? It leaves me to ponder what rational mind can see a good outcome in this.

Think.

If it continues it will be the end of us all.



When this movie was made the American national debt was 8.7 trillion, it's now 11.4 trillion. The projected 2009 annual deficit is almost 1.4 trillion

Good luck with that.