My response to: "We do not have a tax problem in D.C. What we have is a SPENDING problem in D.C."

[LuckyTheDog]

Whenever I hear or read that stale talking point I realize I am dealing with someone who is more interested in promoting an ideological agenda than getting at the truth. The facts are as follows: The deficits we have faced since late in Bush Jr.'s term were only in part due to an increase in spending -- and said increase was largely due to a doubling of the military budget since 2001 and the creation of new agencies in the wake of 9/11.

But, the main problem with the budget has been a steep fall-off in tax revenues thanks to the super-deep, Wall Street-induced recession that hit us in 2007/2008. While that recession has ended, the hole that was dug was so deep, that we are just now beginning to climb out.

Now, you could say" "Hey, when government revenue fell off a cliff, we should have just slashed spending down to size."

Well, that certainly SOUNDS simple (thus, its popularity among the simple-minded). But in reality, cutting more than $1 trillion from the federal budget all at once would have required basically shutting down the federal government except for Social Security and Medicare. And trust me, those soldiers in Iraq back in 2008 would have been in a bad way if they had run out of bullets.

Beyond that, a huge shock of austerity like that has been tried in other countries. In each case, it led to social unrest, vast increases in poverty and a huge drop-off in economic activity (think Russia after the fall of communism). We don't want to go there.

Think of the nation in 2008 as having been at the edge of a tall cliff. We needed to get to the valley floor so that we could cross the valley and then start climbing the other side. One way to get down would have been to just jump off. But our ability to move on after that would have been compromised even if we managed to survive.

In cases like that, it's far better to invest in mountaineering equipment (or a parachute), even if that's more expensive.

[rgbecker]

1. Nicely stated Lucky!

Will mention the huge tax cut Bush and GOP passed right when we needed revenue to fund the wars. Seems the Iraqis couldn't come up with the 50-60 billion the war mongers said it would cost.