Total U.S. Tax Burden at Lowest Level since 1959

Tax Revenues as  Percentage of GDP, by country - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP

As a percentage of GNP, the total tax burden in the United States is at its lowest level since 1959. http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/

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Political and Economic Reading List:

1.) “The American Dream” by foul-mouthed (but brilliant) George Carlin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q 

2.) Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, "Of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%" -http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105 

3.) "Our Banana Republic" by Nicholas Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html 

4.) "A Hedge Fund Republic" by Nicholas Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/opinion/18kristof.html 

5.) "How to End the Great Recession" by Robert Reich -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html 

6.) “A Dogma to Wreck the Country” by Thatcherite conservative, Niall Ferguson - http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/24/gop-antitax-dogma-endangers-the-country.html

7.) War, Peace and Political Manipulation - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2011/10/war-peace-and-political-manipulation.html

8.) Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman on America's inconceivable wealth inequality -http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n

9.) “War is a Racket,” by Smedley Butler - http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

10.) Benjamin Franklin “on Property and Taxes” - http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  ”Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” -  http://alanarchibald.homestead.com/ThomasMerton.html