Pirate's Cove

Of course, amongst the whole range of Democrat voters…liberals/progressives/socialists/anarchists…..refusing to raise taxes on That Guy (not themselves) is a bad thing

The Republican Party once had a home for the thinking of Tom Coburn, Mike Crapo and Saxby Chambliss. But that party is long gone.

The three U.S. senators banded together a few months ago in support of higher tax revenue as a means of balancing the federal budget. Even with drastic spending cuts, they concluded, Washington could not vanquish its soaring $14.3 trillion debt without additional income.

Of course it couldn’t, because Washington will not make those cuts (Reagan is still waiting for the $3 in cuts for ever $1 in tax increases from his deal to work with Democrats) until the bottom completely falls out. And, come on, seriously, what do you think would happen if Washington was given tax increases? That’s right, they’d spend them. We saw this same thing with the increased revenue from the “Bush tax cuts for the rich”: Congress and Bush just ramped up the spending with all the extra tax revenues.

Such reasoning was common in the GOP circa 1963, when Republicans denounced tax cuts proposed by President John F. Kennedy as a road to red ink and rampant inflation. But today’s GOP adheres to a “no new taxes” orthodoxy that has proved far more powerful than the desire to balance the budget. As House Speaker John A. Boehner has said: Raising taxes is “unacceptable and a non-starter.”

Today’s GOP has changed over the past almost 50 years. So have the Democrats. Shockingly, people change. I’d be more impressed with the Dem position on taxation if all the Dem voters said “tax ME” and actually sent more money to the federal and state revenue departments.

This orthodoxy is now woven so deeply into the party’s identity that all but 13 of 288 GOP lawmakers in Congress have signed a formal pledge not to raise taxes. The strategist who invented the pledge, Grover G. Norquist, compares it to a brand, like Coca-Cola, built on “quality control” so that Republican voters know they will get “the same thing every time.”

Loyalty to the brand is so strong that no Republican has voted for a major federal tax increase since 1991, Norquist says. It is so widespread that more than a dozen governors and hundreds of state legislators now count themselves as adherents. And it is so well defended that its followers are constantly patrolling at both the state and federal levels for new forms of trespass.

The article writer, Lori Montgomery, writes that like it’s a bad thing. However, the GOP is not strictly against tax increases: we are against stupid tax increases. Raising the tax rates on those who produce the jobs is….stupid! Just like passing laws that create burdensome and costly regulations is a Bad Idea. Democrats think that, somehow, doing both will spur economic growth, rather than stifle it. Companies, small to large, have to make a profit. Of course, Democrats always think that That Company (not theirs) shouldn’t make a profit, because profits for That Company (not theirs) are evil.

Major tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 also contributed to the decline in revenue — and helped drive up budget deficits. Today, the spiraling debt ranks well ahead of too-high taxes on the list of economic concerns. And the GOP’s hard line on the issue stands, alongside Democratic resistance to cutting federal retirement benefits, as the biggest obstacle to a bipartisan agreement to tackle that problem.

We’re provided with the standard Democrat talking point that tax revenues fell, which they did not. And, an important part, those tax cuts, which were for all income levels, increased tax revenues to the States, through higher spend that which increases sales tax revenues, property taxes through purchase of homes and vehicles, and income taxes through more people working. You do have to love how the GOP has a “hard line”, but, Dems only have “resistance” when it comes to reigning in the out of control entitlements, among which Obamacare will add tremendously.

You want more revenue, Democrats? Get people back to work in the private sector. Government jobs simply shift money taken from the private sector from government to government employee and back to the government. No new revenues are created.

Oh, and be a dear and pony up some extra cash for the IRS. Walk the talk, liberals!

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.