Where is the US economy headed?

Every industry in the country is subject to various kinds of regulation by the Federal and local governments. That doesn't mean that they are centrally planned in the usual sense in which that phrase is used.

The system is regulated by government, but it was neither planned nor built by the government.

If you want to call that central planning it is OK with me.

Quote:

Empty coal cars heading back to WVA.

They wouldn't take coal to WVA. Or cars to Detroit. Or gas to Lousiana. Or grain to the mid-West.

The tunnel was closed and sealed in 1944 when a new tunnel was built to handle taller cars.

It already did (proportionately) in 2010, and will take the next step in 2012

Obama is coming across like the Old School political hack he is with his budget.

His gamble that people are stupid enough to believe that calling for spending in excess of proposed cuts is fiscal responsibility...because the spending is called "investing" is falling short.

What contempt he and his advisors have for the American people.

Proportionately similar to the contempt these Middle Eastern despots have for their people.

I did a midnight tour once of an old, sealed train-tunnel. It was pretty much the creepiest thing I've ever done.

Of course I didn't read his budget, but I suppose you're going to tell us that you did.

In any case, raising taxes is going to go over real big with Americans!

It's only class warriors like you who long to suck the "rich" dry.

Who Knew? Americans Actually Agree on How to Fix the Deficit

By Eric Schurenberg | Feb 14, 2011 | 1 Comment

Three months after the bitter midterm elections, two months after the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform returned its split verdict, and the day that President Obama unveiled his $3.7 trillion budget for 2012, cooperative, bipartisan fiscal policy looks like a pipe dream. Everyone knows what voters don’t want. Republicans know that supporting any tax hike is a political death sentence, one their Tea Party wing would be only too happy to administer. Instead, the Republican proposed 2011 budget revision cuts $100 billion out of things like job training and the supplemental nutrition program for women and leaves taxes untouched. Democrats, in turn, know their voters won’t stand for spending cuts in sacred cows like Social Security, and they make no mention of any such cuts in Obama’s 2012 budget proposal, even though no serious budget balancing proposal can do without them.

As for what voters do want, the polls offer only magical thinking. Cut the deficit, but don’t touch any of the popular programs that account for 85% of the budget, and don’t raise taxes. Stop the bipartisan bickering, but don’t compromise. The people have spoken on fiscal policy, but what they say is incoherent.

Or maybe we aren’t giving them enough credit.

That would be one hopeful interpretation of an intriguing study released this month by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland. The problem with most opinion surveys on fiscal policy is that they ask respondents to opine on spending or tax options in isolation. (Do you want to cut Social Security? Do you want to raise taxes? Why be surprised when respondents say no?) The Maryland survey instead presented 2,000 voters a complete sample budget for the year 2015-necessarily simplified but accurately represented, with the help of the National Commission-and asked them to make their own tradeoffs and create their own federal budget. (If you like, you can balance the federal budget yourself using the Maryland questionnaire.)

The results defied the cynical conventional wisdom. Democrats cut spending. Republicans and Tea Party sympathizers raised taxes. People who lived in blue Congressional districts and those who lived in red ones reached remarkably similar solutions on what spending to cut and what taxes to raise, and by how much. Said the study’s researchers: “It is striking that no group-Republican, Democrat, or independents-acted on average in ways that fit their respective media stereotypes.”

Among the most notable results of the exercise:
On average, respondents cut spending and raised taxes, regardless of party affiliation.

Overall, the voters in the study cut the hypothetical 2015 budget deficit by 70%, with one third of the reduction ($145 billion) coming from spending cuts and two thirds ($291 billion) from revenue hikes. According to stereotype, Democrats should have cut spending the least and Republicans the most, with independents somewhere in between. But that’s not how it played out.

* Republicans actually cut spending the least ($100 billion)
* Democrats cut spending far more than Republicans ($157 billion)
* Independents cut more than either ($195 billion)
* On average, residents of blue districts cut spending more than residents of red districts ($153 billion to $141 billion).

There was broad agreement on what programs to cut, what to increase and what to hold constant.

Presented with 31 categories in the discretionary budget, members of both parties and independents agreed on how to handle 22.

* All agreed, for example, to cut funding for defense, the State Department and the highway system
* All agreed to increase job training, education and foreign humanitarian assistance.
* Spending decisions split along party lines on categories that included homeland security (only Republicans favored an increase) and mass transit (only Republicans wanted a reduction).

People favored raising taxes on the rich

Most polls find that Americans prefer to shrink the deficit by cutting spending rather than raising taxes. When actually presented with realistic budget choices, however, participants in the study (even Republicans) were willing to raise taxes. More than 90% of respondents included tax hikes in their budget plans, mostly in the form of higher effective tax rates on households with incomes over $100,000. Once again, the breakdown defied expectations.

* While Democrats were most inclined to raise individual income taxes (on average they’d raise $178 bilion), Republicans and strong Tea Party sympathizers were also willing to lift income taxes significantly ($125 billion and $105 billion, respectively).
* While respondents tended to most support raising income taxes on people in higher tax brackets than their own, they were surprisingly willing to accept an increase in their own bracket as well.
* Increasing payroll taxes on high wage earners was the most popular tactic for closing the Social Security funding gap

You are implicitly assuming that private economic activity cannot also serve the public good in the absence of government control. That is obviously false.

Obama is coming across like the Old School political hack he is with his budget.

The system in question was designed and constructed, and is cirrently operated, by mostly publically traded companies,