why do we need to keep growing gov't and adding more and more rules/programs/etc.?
Here's one good reason -- decades of underinvestment in infrastructure. The top tax bracket in the 1950's when the Interstate highway system was funded was 90% - now it's 37% and even that is mostly avoided by the most wealthy.
Another reason is the impending climate disaster -- former arable land will become unfarmable, many coastal areas will become uninhabitable or need expensive flood control, etc. This is going to cause huge costs and will almost certainly require government assistance.
But our tax base is greater now than it was then. And don't even get a trucker started on explaining how many taxes they have to pay. Could it be that corporate lobbyists successfully promoted their questionable projects like the Vietnam war, the Iraq War, etc, etc, to spend our infrastructure budget instead on making defense contractors wealthy?
Perhaps too we can stop irrigating desert and grow things like almonds (and actual food) in places like Iowa (with the most class 1 farm land in the US), instead of Iowa growing animal fodder and ethanol.
Most of these "crises" are self-inflicted crises in management.
For sure, projects like war and the military industrial complex don't help. But while the tax base has grown larger, infrastructure has also grown larger. There are many many more miles of road to maintain, many more miles of cable, many more bridges. Also back then, when this infrastructure was built, they were not hit with maintenance cost. The bridge over there, then it was brand new and would be fine for 10 years with maybe just a quick inspection. Now that bridge has 50 years of rust built up on. But not only that bridge, so does that one and that one and that one. Now our infrastructure has some age and it has a cost to maintain it that was not present decades ago. And some of that rust is because previous generations just kicked the can down the road. Frankly, I am 28 with two kids and I don't want to kick the can down the road for them deal with.
A really interesting read on the rust and cost is the book "Rust: the longest war." It outlines how quickly costs escalate over time when something as simple as Rust is not dealt with and it left to build up.
Err, but you're asserting that we _need_ to grow this revenue without saying why?
Also, 90% top marginal tax wasn't really paid. Look at our historic tax revenue vs GPD. it's remarkably consistent, around ~17-20% no matter what policies we have floating around.
I am certain that we could reduce billions in spending to find money for actually important things. we do not need to keep increasing spending/revenue. we need to decrease spending and keep the same revenue. that's the easiest path.
Here's one good reason -- decades of underinvestment in infrastructure. The top tax bracket in the 1950's when the Interstate highway system was funded was 90% - now it's 37% and even that is mostly avoided by the most wealthy.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure
Another reason is the impending climate disaster -- former arable land will become unfarmable, many coastal areas will become uninhabitable or need expensive flood control, etc. This is going to cause huge costs and will almost certainly require government assistance.
And carbon reduction will also be expensive.