Obama's Backdoor Strategy on Spending and Taxes (Congress, Reagan, revolution)

[sanrene]

washingtonpost.com

Since the Reagan era, some conservatives have hoped to shrink government by "starving the beast." Refuse to raise taxes, they figured, and eventually spending would have to fall.

It's beginning to look as though the new team may have a similar strategy, in reverse: Increase spending, and eventually taxes will have to be raised.

No official has articulated that to me as a strategy. But look at the evidence.

That is why the rush to get everything passed, without even reading the bills - once the citizenry wake up - big trouble.

"The systematic widening of budget shortfalls projected under CBO's long-term scenarios has never been observed in U.S. history," the CBO pointed out in its usual dry style. And: "All in all, the U.S. economy could contract sharply for a long period."

Just take a look at the CBO analysis of obama's budget and the truly frightening numbers. It's the budget, dummies!

Obama's response has been to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem -- and make it worse. I'm not talking about his record-breaking stimulus plan, which was essential (if not ideally shaped) given the recession he also inherited. Rather, it is Obama's long-term budget that would more than double the projected deficit over the next 10 years, to $9 trillion, by extending most of the Bush tax cuts and limiting the alternative minimum tax while creating new programs and entitlements (to college tuition scholarships, for example) and refusing to cut back on existing ones.

The bottom line is this: You cannot run a progressive government of the kind Obama favors by collecting only 18 percent of the gross domestic product in taxes, which has been the norm over the past 40 years. Nor can you increase the tax take to 24.5 percent of GDP -- which is what Obama proposes to be spending in 2019 -- simply by making the rich pay more.

The math just doesn't add up - which is what a lot of people have been saying.

But rather than level with the American people about this, or lay out a plan to raise the needed taxes, the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are putting the spending pieces of progressive government in place and apparently counting on the tax piece to fall into place later.

Hopefully, it won't be so easy. When the people see and understand just what a complete failure obama's stimulus is - maybe they will start demanding answers and accountability.

[momonkey]

Originally Posted by sanrene

washingtonpost.com



That is why the rush to get everything passed, without even reading the bills - once the citizenry wake up - big trouble.



Just take a look at the CBO analysis of obama's budget and the truly frightening numbers. It's the budget, dummies!





The math just doesn't add up - which is what a lot of people have been saying.



Hopefully, it won't be so easy. When the people see and understand just what a complete failure obama's stimulus is - maybe they will start demanding answers and accountability.

This is a post I put up in April.

"'79 was worse. 82 was worse. We had a budget surplus in the late '90s because the Republican Congress forced it onto Bubba. Where did you get the idea that they came to power at a time when the budget was balanced? The Republican Revolution occurred in 1994. During Bush's last year we had a 400 billion dollar shortfall during a recession. We'll add 3 trillion to the national debt just this year alone. The new administration is employing a reverse starve the beast tactic to get the tax increases they've been after all along. Tax and spend is the "change" for which you voted.

Since when has a tax increase been followed by an increase in revenue?"

I know exactly what you're talking about. A lot of people have been speculating that the Democrats are deliberately working to destroy the economy. I'm inclined to agree since that is the only way to force the tax and spend that has been repeatedly rejected by the American people back onto us again. The whole thing make me feel like we've been date raped.