Pirate's Cove

After using 2009 as The Year We Exploded The Deficit, Democrats are getting a bit uneasy over their election prospects. First they had their Porkulus, then the Omnibus, the $3.5 trillion 2010 budget, and the coming massive health system overhaul and global warming tom-foolery. But, hey, they did manage to cut several defense initiatives (just for clarity, I was not against those cuts, some of those projects needed to go, but, notice they didn’t cut garbage like to the NEA.)

Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and the potential for it to become an electoral liability for Democrats, the White House and Congressional leaders are weighing options for narrowing the gap, including a bipartisan commission that could force tax increases and spending cuts.

Spending cuts? Good luck with that. Whatever they do cut will have about as much meaning as the $100 million he cut from his $3.5 trillion budget. But, Democrats never met a tax they did not like. They will surely allow the 2001/2003 tax cuts to expire in full, and not pass any legislation to make Obama’s “if you make less then $250k, your taxes will not go up one dime” promise go away. Obama’s promise of a “tax cut for 95% of working Americans” has yet to be taken up, and certainly won’t be considered.

And any Republican who decides to work with Democrats on raising taxes might as well resign. Lefties and others can whine about “ideological purity,” but, if a Republican wants to raise taxes, they aren’t Republicans, much less Conservatives.

As far as the taxes go, they are already looking at nickle and dime types, such as the soda tax. They considered an increase in the federal gas tax. Just a bit more tax on alchohol. You name it, they will find a way to tax it.

But even the idea of a panel to bridge the partisan divide has run into partisan objections. Many Democrats, including in the White House, are loath to cede such far-reaching decisions to a commission and doubt Republicans’ willingness to compromise. And most Republicans remain adamantly opposed to tax increases, leaving the prospects for any bipartisan approach limited at best.

What the White House and Congressional Democrats want is political cover, which they will not get.

The proponents, however, are pressing for a Senate vote this month. “If we have the same process and the same people, we are going to get the same results,” said Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, who recently met with Mr. Obama to discuss the idea. “The Democratic Party wants to spend more than we can afford; the Republican Party tends to want to cut taxes more than we can afford. So we are stuck.”

The Republican Party believes that the People should keep the majority of the money they earn. Democrats believe the money the People earn is the governments.

The main driver of long-term deficits is the chasm between the benefit programs Medicare and Medicaid, which are growing faster than the economy, and federal tax collections, which are at one of their lowest levels in many decades relative to the size of the economy.

So, by all means, let’s create more federally run health systems.

When those of us in Real Life have money issues, we (usually) cut back and live within our budget. Government, particularly Democrats, should learn to do the same. Raising taxes will reduce spending through the economy.

Just remember

And