The New York Times Tips Its Hand

Now that the election is over, the New York Times tips its hand.

Mr. Boehner did not rule out raising tax revenues altogether. But his talk of eventually lowering rates while closing unnamed loopholes ignores the fact that higher taxes for top earners are needed now to raise revenue for public investments that are vital to economic recovery. The most expedient and fairest way to do that is to allow the high-end Bush tax cuts to expire. Until the rich pay more, there will be no later consensus on spending cuts that eventually will be needed to curb long-term deficits.

The Times acknowledges that unspecified spending cuts will be needed "eventually" in order to curb long term deficits. Apparently the trillion dollars a year deficits we are running right now are no problem.

To take the Times seriously you would have to believe that eventually they will come around to accepting serious cuts in spending. Only a fool would believe that they will ever come around to that. Even if a reasonable person could believe it, he might want some indication of when it will happen.

The real kicker, however, is the first highlighted portion. A standard MSM description of the debt limit controversy goes this way: Democrats insist on spending cuts and tax increases; stubborn Republicans insist on spending cuts alone. In fact, Republicans oppose tax increases in part because they think that any increased revenue would only be used for more spending. The Times confirms this. Not only are they unwilling to accept genuine cuts in spending, they want to increase spending "on public investments that are vital to economic recovery".

There is a reason that the Senate has failed to pass a budget for three years in a row. A budget would have spell out the fiscal realities that the Senate Democrats and the Times wish desperately to ignore. Our Federal Debt stands above $16,000,000,000,000. The contribution of the interest on the debt is already larger than the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. We can bring the troops home but we can't stop paying the interest on our debt. Eventually, it will squeeze out all other federal spending. Unfortunately, this is not many years down the road. The American Left is devoted to ignoring the problem. Eventually, we will all have to pay the price for that.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

You are a bit confused. The American people have been sold on this "don't pay as you go" strategy by the establishment Republicans and the Ayn Randian right, not the "American Left." Dick Cheney, after all, told us that the lesson that Reaganomics was that deficits don't matter. And, that's true up to a point. A deficit of 1% GDP isn't a problem over the long haul, but running deficits like Bush piled up (4-6% of GDP) is simply not sustainable for long.

Let's review. It wasn't the "American Left" who put two wars off budget, had a giant expansion of Medicare (unpaid for), and gave a huge tax cut to the American people all at the same time. That was Bush-Cheney policy, which, by the way, Obama has tried to change, though you try to insist against facts that he hasn't.

The madness of lax federal oversight of the financial industry leading to Bush's recession (a big reason for the deficit), is simply the result of crony capitalism and pay-to-play politics in both the Republican and Democratic Party establishments, but the inevitable meltdown happened on Bush's watch, as predicted by the real American Left, rather than the rather hallucinatory one you rail against.

The problem we have is a revenue problem, not a spending problem. It's easily solved by collecting the money for the services we ask our government to provide. Let's not forget that two-thirds (4% GDP)of the present annual deficit is money the federal government collects and sends back to the states. Maybe some of these welfare states (South Dakota being Exhibit A) need to start paying their own way, and not depending on the federal government to bail them out year after year of their fiscal mess. That would be an interesting topic for a blog supposedly on South Dakota politics to take up. Why are you conservatives not concerned by this?

[larry kurtz]

'Fiscal cliff has been renamed. Now: austerity crisis.

[Stan Gibilisco]

Too many people all over the world expected (and apparently continue to expect) that they could get more out of the public sector than they put in.

The eventual solution will look like the Simpson-Bowles proposal with a value-added tax thrown in. Expect it within 10 years, sometime during the next Clinton (Hillary) administration.

Her famous quote will be, "Suck it up." Pretty crass, pretty mean, and spot on.

[Donald Pay]

KB: "To take the Times seriously you would have to believe that eventually they will come around to accepting serious cuts in spending." Yet KB lists not one "serious" spending cut. Typical.

[Mark Anderson]

Stan, only if they live in South Dakota, pay attention to Donald Pay, he has this down. If conservatives are so fiscally responsible, why did they turn a surplus into a deficit within one year? Apparently because it will get you elected Governor of Indiana.

[Stan Gibilisco]

Mark ... In my opinion, George W. Bush was not a fiscal conservative at all. Bill Clinton had things down okay. His "rock and roll nature," which got him into so much trouble, seems quaint to me now. Hate to admit it, but the Bush administration simply blew it. People will remember that history when Hillary, in 2016, brings up the fact that her husband oversaw a surplus. It will get her elected; she can simply insinuate that she might bring those good times back. In my opinion. If she wants to run. Which she might not.

[duggersd]

I was watching Neil Cavuto today and saw him interviewing some Democrat I think was in Congress. Cavuto asked him to name one thing he would cut. All he would cut was the tax cut for the top 2%. I guess that says it all. The liberals are going to take more and more from fewer and fewer people until they take absolutely everything from nobody. How about this for a deal? Washington extends the tax cuts for two more years. The President proposes actual cuts (not cuts as in Washingtonese) and if he is able to come up with enough cuts to bring the deficit to $100 billion, the Congress agrees to revenue increases to make up the $100 billion. The reason it won't happen is because liberal will not make the cuts. The deal for tax increases in exchange for spending cuts has been made in the past and surprise, surprise the Democrats failed to cut.

[Ken Blanchard]

According to the Tax Policy Center, Obama's plan to let Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire would raise something like $900 billion over ten years. Other tax increases and tax reductions in the President's 2013 budget would add up to $1.7 trillion in additional revenue over the same period. That's assuming, of course, this austerity measure doesn't further depress economic growth. But even assuming that, the increased revenue would erase the deficit from 2009 and one quarter of the deficit from 2010. Obama's tax the rich policy, virtually his only answer to the fiscal problem, was a great campaign talking point. It is hardly a serious solution.