{"id":5442,"date":"2010-05-25T15:10:10","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T19:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=5442"},"modified":"2010-05-25T16:06:23","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T20:06:23","slug":"the-simplest-explanation-for-everything-thats-wrong-with-the-american-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/5442\/the-simplest-explanation-for-everything-thats-wrong-with-the-american-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Simplest Explanation for Everything That\u2019s Wrong with the American Economy\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/money\/economy\/income\/2010-05-24-income-shifts-from-private-sector_N.htm\" target=\"_blank\">in the pages of today&#8217;s USA Today<\/a>. Behold four of the clearest, most incontrovertible, and most horrifying paragraphs you&#8217;ll ever read in print:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, government-provided benefits \u2014 from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs \u2014 rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.<\/p>\n<p>The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. &#8220;This is really important,&#8221; Grimes says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let&#8217;s review: you cannot have a welfare state without a private sector vibrant enough to fund it. You cannot have a private sector vibrant enough to fund it unless government allows the market to function relatively unimpeded. And the market can&#8217;t function relatively unimpeded unless the welfare state stays modest in scope. What exactly don&#8217;t the folks in Washington, Sacramento, and Athens understand?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; can be found in the pages of today&#8217;s USA Today. Behold four of the clearest, most incontrovertible, and most horrifying paragraphs you&#8217;ll ever read in print: Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[562,61,71,589],"class_list":["post-5442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-economics","tag-spending","tag-taxes","tag-welfare-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5442"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5447,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions\/5447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}