The spectacular failure of the much-hyped, congressional debt-reduction panel completes the devolution of the Democratic Party back to its pre-Clintonion state: unabashed champion of the high-tax welfare state. And America is worse for it.
It’s like the 1990s never happened and the 1970s never stopped happening for the Washington Obamacrats. The U.S. economy faces two screamingly obvious problems: historically slow growth and historically high government spending leading to massive budget deficits. In this way, American is already frighteningly like Greece and Italy.
Yet Democrats used the SuperCommittee to push a trillion-dollar tax hike and block fundamental entitlement reform. As one GOP aide told Politico, “If they were willing to go a little further on entitlements, we’d see what we can do on revenues. That was the way it would have to work. What we found was, they needed a trillion-plus in revenues, and weren’t willing to do anywhere near that on entitlements.”
It’s been an underappreciated fact just how far left Democrats have moved on taxes in recent years. But it should now be blindingly clear. The SuperCommittee Democrats are perfectly happy to let the top tax rate soar to nearly 45 percent in 2013 (including both income taxes and Medicare taxes) on small business, entrepreneurs, and investors. This, even though the exploding eurozone debt crisis threatens to push the U.S. economy from sputter speed to stall. And even if financial contagion doesn’t wash up on our shores, few economists see growth fast enough to substantially reduce unemployment and boost incomes any year soon.
Yet Democrats seem unconcerned or even eager for taxes to rise, thanks in part to the work of liberal economists advocating taxes rates as high as 80 percent. It will also take dramatically higher tax revenue to fund what Democrats argue is an unavoidable surge in government spending due to a) the aging of the population and — as they see it — b) trillions in needed public “investment” catch-up after years of Republican stinginess.
But it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Without market-based entitlement reform — which even many centrists endorse — government health spending will indeed continue to soar.
If Uncle Sam does need more revenue, pro-growth tax reform is the best way to get it. A host of studies from both liberal and conservative economists have found that eliminating the tax code’s bias against investment would boost long-term GDP growth by as much as 10 percent and add perhaps a full percentage point to annual GDP growth for a number of years.
But cutting taxes on capital cuts against the Democrat embrace of Occupy politics. So no tax reform, no entitlement reform, and no progress on America’s biggest problems.
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“Vote em all out” sounds nice but it accomplishes zero.
Politicians get elected a certain way, and like everyone else they respond to incentives.
Vote them all out, to replace them with a new bunch, and there is no reason to think the new bunch wouldn’t behave exactly the same way as the current ones. In other words, “the players may change, but the game remains the same”.
If you want REAL change, then you have to change the rules of the game. . .ie the current political incentives that reward politicians for bringing home pork, and constantly increasing the size and scope of government.
Create a system where politicians are penalized for encouraging wasteful spending instead of being rewarded for it, and it will stop, and not until then. Even the current crop of politicians, as lousy as they are, would still engage in meaningful economic and tax reform, if they believed not doing so would cost them their seats.
The central planning statists just don’t get it. Rep. Becerra thinks the 1400 multi millionaires that didn’t pay taxes last year are the problem. Simple math proves the ruling political class is clueless. Math performed on my desk top calculator. http://thecivillibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/11/super-committee-idiots-more-math.html
Vote for a Tea Party or Tea Party endorsed candidate. If a Tea Party or Tea Party endorsed Candidate is not available than vote against the incumbent. If neither candidate has been endorsed or is an incumbent than and only than look at their positions and pick the better of a bad choice. Note Republican or Democrat Party affiliation should not be a consideration. The idea is to throw the bums out.
Me too. Dems are addicted to big gov’t and just look at the taxpayers as an ATM.
The “Bush tax cuts” expire in 2013, so unless the Republicans can win a filibuster-proof Senate that will happen. The massive increases in entitlement spending are also baked in with the aging of the population. In other words, the Democrats had the much stronger hand heading in to the Supercommittee negotiations. They have no motive for compromise, because it is highly unlikely that the Republicans will win both the White House and more than 60 seats in the Senate. Now, you might say that they should “do the right thing.” The problem is, they and their constituents have moved so far to the left that they actually believe that raising taxes on the “rich” and socializing medicine — the next move after Obamacare collapses under its own limitations — will solve our fiscal problems. In other words, the status quo is what the Democrats want and (mostly) think is best for the country, and they do not see any reason to compromise.
I don’t understand all the ins and outs of the Senate, but could the extension of the tax cuts not be done as part of the budget process? If so, that would put reconciliation back in play. It would be delicious to see the tax cuts extended and ObamaCare repealed via reconciliation. Harry Reid is the gift that keeps on giving.
Re-instating or extending the Bush Tax Cuts does not require a filibuster-proof Senate, it could be done via the budget reconciliation process.
If we take the Senate and WH and keep the House, the Senate Democrats can whine and complain all they want. There will (better?) be budget cuts.
Instalanche…
While Mr. Obama and the Democratically controlled Senate are a huge problem…so too, are the GOP leadership. They’ve spent so many years “going along to get along…” that they are, in large measure, a part of the problem. It’s time to, and I quote, “kick them all out.”
We need to start fresh and vote all the current members of Congress out of office and forbid them to ever run for public office again. Congressional insider trading is the least of the problems and corruption that has become endemic to American politics today.
Rich Vail
Pikesville, Maryland
the Vail Spot dot Blogspot dot Com
The time has come for the honest political candidates to tell the voters that the road ahead for America will be steeper, rockier, and harder for the rest of the decade, maybe longer. That if someone has a government job, benefit, or pension – don’t count on it being there for much longer. Debt, whether personal or governmental, is not a friend.
The injury, pain, and disease from Obama-trauma is so widespread among Americans that most are ready to heed some tough talk. A majority of voters know the time for tough love is now. There’s not enough of other people’s money to keep the party-hearty illusion going. Is there a candidate for your President, Senator, and House Member who can lead these Tough Love Americans?
The dem rigidity doesn’t make sense. They are so inflexible and bull-headed that they are self-defeating.
The federal budget this year is about 4 trillion dollars. They could have agreed to cut several hundred billion to demonstrate flexibility. They wouldn’t, they didn’t, they wanted it all!!
Nancy Pelosi was the only one to do right. At some point, early on, she abolished the House Page program, saving several million dollars. It was a scam but it looked good at the time. If only the Kenyan could have seen what a cut in several hundred billion would have done for him, Obama may have been at the top of the dem ticket in 2012.
All the dem Congressional thieves must know that their chances of future Congressional criminal wealth are reduced with Obama on the ticket. He loses, you lose!
It’s a race against time. On one side, can the American economy hold out long enough for the 2012 reinforcement platoons to arrive in DC — and for us to kick SCOAMF back to Chicago? On the other side, can the Pelosi/Reid Democrats, the NRLB, the EPA, and all the other leftist moles inserted by His Royal Highness do enough damage the country, to cause a Cloward-Piven event before the elections?
Walter Sobchak:
And your solution is? Given the disaster that was the eight years of the Bush regime, you have no basis to talk.
I regard this as good news. Nothing good can come from the Obama White House or the Senate Democrats other than their speedy exit from public life. They are the problem, they have no clue about a solution.
It’s as if Democrats learned nothing from the increased federal revenues during the Reagan and subsequent administrations.
Dogma trumps empirical data to leftist economists.
I’m 64 and I’ve watched the Democrats for 50 years. They have 3 ways to respond to Republicans.
1. If they won the most recent election, “Elections have consequences. Do it our way.”
2. If they lost, “Compromise is good. So let’s do it our way and we’ll say some nice things about you.”
3. If the result was unclear, “You’re blocking progress. You need to do it our way.”
For as long as I can remember, Democrats have demanded tax increases now for spending cuts later. And later never comes. There is always some “emergency” that demands that the spending cuts they agreed to cannot happen. No More!
No new taxes. No raised taxes. No compromise.
That’s funny. I could have sworn Clinton raised taxes to help reduce deficits. (As did Bush Sr. and Reagan, of course.)
Regarding Reagan’s tax cuts, you must not have Ken Hahn’s post where he correctly stated “Democrats have demanded tax increases now for spending cuts later. And later never comes” That is exactly what happened to Reagan — the Dems promised future cuts for current tax increases. Reagan learned his lesson about the lies of the Dems the hard way