Posted on 02/05/2013 5:53:13 PM PST by Kaslin
Those of you old enough to remember the Cold War may remember something called the Brezhnev Doctrine. This was the rule concocted by the Soviet tyrants that basically said a nation could never regain freedom once it fell under communist rule.
In my simple way of looking at such matters, this rule translated into: Whats mine is mine, whats yours is negotiable.
We have a somewhat similar situation with American fiscal policy. The proponents of bigger government have openly stated that their top goal both from a policy perspective and political perspective is higher taxes.
But what they havent told us is that there is no limit on the amount of additional revenue they want to confiscate from people in the productive sector of the economy.
In other words, Whats yours is yours until they decide to grab more.
So even though President Obama just got his class-warfare tax increase on the so-called rich (as well as a big tax hike on all American workers), is seems all that did is whet his appetite for even more of our money.
Heres the key excerpt from The Hill.
President Obama insisted Sunday that additional tax revenue will need to be part of future deficit deals There is no doubt we need additional revenue , he said.
Gee, what a surprise. It appears you dont cure an alcoholic by giving him more to drink. Likewise, you dont rein in the spending demands of the political class by giving them more revenue.
Unsurprisingly, the Senate Majority Leader also thinks there should be more money in Washington and less in your pockets. Here are a couple of relevant passages from Politico.
Any budget deal in Congress must without any question include revenue, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview aired Sunday. To lift the sequester, Reid said, the deal needs to include new revenue.
Its worth noting that Obama and Reid arent randomly expressing their addiction to other peoples money. These statements are an explicit signal that they will not allow any changes to fiscal policy unless they get to further fleece the American people.
So what are the practical implications?
But those are short-term considerations.
The real moral of the story is that we have a serious spending problem in Washington. In theory, higher taxes could be the price to get needed reforms to control the size of government. But in reality, higher taxes are always a substitute for good fiscal policy.
So accept the fact that gridlock is the best possible outcome for the next four years and dont get seduced into a tax hike. Unless, of course, you want to make it easier for the crowd in Washington to increase the burden of government spending.
There is no option but letting the automatic spending cuts go through but don't hold your breath on ‘entitlement reform’(aka future cuts in benefits) .
The GOP makes noise about it but they know better than to go on record with a House vote on a written bill because the idea is so unpopular. Their hope was that O would give them cover, but he wont.
If the choice was between entitlement cuts and raising taxes on ‘the rich’ there is no doubt which most voters would pick, nor was there ever to me even back 2 years ago in the fantasy Ryan plan days.
The VAT tax is the next goal on the list.
"There's lots of things sold that the government knows anything about... I'm as lovin as a woman can be, the stuff I got will cost you a dollar and three!"
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