A Conservative for Higher Taxes
Great article from Bruce Bartlett, one of very few conservatives who didn't abandon his principles in the face of party pressure these past eight years:
Hat tip to Daily Dish. Extracts follow. Full article is at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17936.html
Hat tip to Daily Dish. Extracts follow. Full article is at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17936.html
Moreover, Americans’ zeal for tax cutting — the Republicans’ best issue for the past 30 years — has clearly waned. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Americans now favoring the Democrats on taxes, and polls by Gallup, Rasmussen, and Harris show an increased willingness to tax the rich and redistribute income.
I think conservatives would better spend their diminished political capital figuring out how to finance the welfare state at the least cost to the economy and individual liberty, rather than fighting a losing battle to slash popular spending programs. But this will require them to accept the necessity of higher revenues.
It is simply unrealistic to think that tax cuts will continue to be a viable political strategy when the budget deficit exceeds $1 trillion, as it will this year. Nor is it realistic to think that taxes can be kept at 19 percent of GDP when spending is projected to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation, according to both the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office. And that’s without any new spending programs being enacted.
If conservatives refuse to participate in the debate over how revenues will be raised, then liberals will do it on their own, which will likely give us much higher tax rates and a tax system that is more harmful to growth than necessary to fund the government. Instead of opposing any tax hike, I think it makes more sense for conservatives to figure out how best to raise the additional revenue that will be raised in any event.
9 Comments
gwiz665Everybody wants something for nothing, but the world just doesn't work like that. So I agree with him on this.
It's actually very easy
------Government---------
+ income:
+Taxes
+export
+others?
-outcome/spending:
-health
-infrastructure
-and so on
-----------
If your spending is bigger than your income, you just will fall flat on your nose in the end, and this is what happens now.
You can either raise income or cut spending, or both.
rgroom1higher taxes, lower spending
hmm makes sense.
but, the entire country has to start thinking like this, and i highly doubt that everyone has the mental capacity to adopt this thought and hang buy now pay later on the rack. Perhaps $20 trillion will do the trick.
PsychologicIn one sense, we are raising taxes. We're printing money to pay for deficit spending. Printing money devalues the currency (the more dollars there are, the less each dollar is worth).
So basically as the dollar declines, your purchasing power does as well, even if you have the same number of dollars at the end of the day. It is a hidden tax on anyone who has their savings held in dollars.
The real problem happens when a currency becomes weak enough that no one wants to hold it. They sell all of their holdings in that currency, and the currency drops even further. That is a road to hyper-inflation, which may not occur but definitely could. That's one reason why these bailouts scare me... we're printing more money to pay for them because we're already deep in debt.
We're getting taxed more, even if the visible taxes decrease. Currently companies are selling their products for much cheaper to stay afloat, which sounds like deflation. I'm not completely convinced though. I am, however, very curious as to how we are going to handle the huge number of people who are about to start receiving Social Security. If nothing else, I doubt I'll ever see a Social Security check.
gwiz665Ideally the companies that get "bailouts" should just crash and burn. It sucks for the people working for them, but that is the only way to properly get the economy back on track. Either the companies goes down or the country goes down.
quantumushroomBartlett is hardly alone. Nixon expanded government and though Reagan fought doing so, a Democrat Congress made sure to spend all the INCREASED revenue from tax cuts.
If the people are dumb enough to give up their freedom, they deserve to live in chains. I'd rather conservatives fight for principles and lose than just be a lite version of socialists.
BTW, the assumption is that America will end up another European-style socialist state, when there's nothing to prevent it from degrading further into a communist one.
PsychologicSocial Conservatism is turning people away from Fiscal Conservatism. People aren't going to follow an economic policy that is linked to religious lunacy.
People are gravitating to the party that is pushing for protection of personal freedom rather than restriction of rights, but the same party comes with a lot of people who are in favor of large government spending (though to be fair, both sides have been pushing for extra spending lately).
Where is the party for fiscal conservatives that hate social conservatism?
quantumushroomSocial Conservatism is turning people away from Fiscal Conservatism. People aren't going to follow an economic policy that is linked to religious lunacy.
Clever media manipulation may make it seem like a majority of Americans want religion eradicated, but since 90% of Americans believe in some kind of higher power, it just ain't so.
People are gravitating to the party that is pushing for protection of personal freedom rather than restriction of rights, but the same party comes with a lot of people who are in favor of large government spending (though to be fair, both sides have been pushing for extra spending lately).
As we've seen over the last 60 years, large government harms one of the most basic freedoms: to make a living and keep most of the fruits of one's labor. The paradox is we can't have a ginormous government that protects rights without encroaching on freedom. No matter how gentle he may seem or how slowly he moves, the 900lb. gorilla in the room sits wherever he wants.
Where is the party for fiscal conservatives that hate social conservatism?
There is no room for 'hatred' of anything except tyranny, by minority or government mobsters. Libertarianism has the real answers, but it has yet to achieve fusion..indeed it may never, because of the egos of politicians and the far-too-many now living for "free" off the State in one way or another.
volumptuousQM - Go to fucking Iraq already. You have no credibility on anything.
Krupo>> ^Psychologic:
In one sense, we are raising taxes. We're printing money to pay for deficit spending. Printing money devalues the currency (the more dollars there are, the less each dollar is worth).
So basically as the dollar declines, your purchasing power does as well, even if you have the same number of dollars at the end of the day. It is a hidden tax on anyone who has their savings held in dollars.
The real problem happens when a currency becomes weak enough that no one wants to hold it. They sell all of their holdings in that currency, and the currency drops even further. That is a road to hyper-inflation, which may not occur but definitely could. That's one reason why these bailouts scare me... we're printing more money to pay for them because we're already deep in debt.
We're getting taxed more, even if the visible taxes decrease. Currently companies are selling their products for much cheaper to stay afloat, which sounds like deflation. I'm not completely convinced though. I am, however, very curious as to how we are going to handle the huge number of people who are about to start receiving Social Security. If nothing else, I doubt I'll ever see a Social Security check.
Yup... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_tax - there's some graphs for ya.
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