They also have a strong embedded VAT tax that funds the unemployment and required business employment regime. The most vulnerable thing to tax is labor earnings and business profit because it is among the first to decline sharply in a recession.

The United States has got to adopt the European tax structures to support the levels of spending needed to provide better stability. It would be to bring government revenues into line with projected expenditures via a value-added tax (VAT), a type of consumption tax that spreads taxes at every level of production. Energy, Materials and Processes are taxed. Heavy use of VATs is the key reason European countries have tax/GDP ratios far higher than in the US along with better employment/unemployment support without suffering any economic ill effects.

The European economies do not grow as fast, but the slower growth is not a detriment to standards of living relative to the US. Even the best efforts of conservatives trying to show that Europeans are poorer than Americans show that the differences are trivial. With certain quality of life factors, notably time off and access to education and health care are actually better.

This transition of taxation will be critical to fund the long term promises made to the retiring generation of baby boomers.