Do you enjoy using miscalculated numbers? GDP? Really, that ever knowing, always wonderful number? If the government decides to spend money it doesn't have, guess what happens? The GDP goes up. Also GDP includes salaries of employees, plus their expenditures. That means if a married couple brings in 150,000 dollars a year, and spends 75,000, their measure is 225,000. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out why that isn't all that accurate.
Going back to the above point about the government, our government spends so much more than other governments, artificially causing a spike in the GDP. So when you say that we as Americans spend a lower percentage of our GDP, I think that is a misguided statement.
Hope this helps
What are you trying to say? You're not helping.
GDP is reliable index for measuring tax burdens.
Leveraged spending happens all the time--loans for homes, wars etc. It's big piece of how growth happens. You should be more concerned what that spending comprises instead the fact that it happens.
I posted a national comparison on individual tax burdens somewhere on this godforsaken site.
We'll use this instead:
Believe it or not, Americans enjoy some of the lowest income tax rates in the world. Today of all days, it might not seem so.
When you look at the overall tax burden, the U.S. is quite low," said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and former director of the office of research for the Internal Revenue Service.
...The OECD collects data on 30 member countries and annually calculates what it calls the tax "wedge" for each -- the combined effects of personal income tax, employee and employer social security contributions, payroll taxes and cash benefits.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Taxes/P148855.aspUnless you are paying way over 21% of your income in sales tax, you are not paying well over 50% of your annual earnings in taxes.
