Mr. Hamilton’s Growth Strategy
THE staggering deficit. The possibility of impending tax hikes and significant budget cuts by the end of the year. Has the United States ever faced such a daunting financial crisis?
Yes though not, as many might guess, during the Great Depression. Rather, it was shortly after the nations birth. Its an experience worth examining, because the way the new country put its house in order under Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton holds several lessons for today.
The Revolutionary War left America immersed in debt. Ratification of the Constitution in 1788 finally gave the federal government the authority to tax, but almost all federal tax revenues came from duties on imported goods.
And yet Hamilton, who took office in 1789, deliberately avoided prolonged fights over tax policy, which he knew he couldnt win. Indeed, his thinking perfectly describes the political situation today: To extinguish a Debt which exists and to avoid contracting more are ideas almost always favored by public feeling and opinion, but to pay Taxes for the one or the other purpose, which are the only way of avoiding the evil, is always more or less unpopular. Could there be a better description of todays partisan intransigence toward adding a single tax dollar to federal revenues?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/opinion/mr-hamiltons-growth-strategy.html?hp
DCKit
(18,541 posts)But it's not SS, MediCare or MediCaid that are responsible for the national debt... it's unfunded, illegal wars.
BTW, I haven't heard anything on Wayne Powell/Eric Cantor... how'd we do? Even if Cantor won, I hope he had to change his underwear a couple of times before it was over.
elleng
(130,908 posts)not sure, and not confident in the numbers. Some precincts had problems with machines.
Yes, I think we gave him 'pause,' and hope Wayne Powell decides to go after cancer again.
Of course its the wars! HOPE folks don't forget that.
DCKit
(18,541 posts)So they've imported their filthy tricks to VA, too. Jeebus.
WTF, maybe they'll get caught this time because Eric Cantor is "too important to lose", twisted little fuck that he is.
Thanks, I'll keep checking, but me and the S.O. think he's right up there with Paul Ryan as among the most dangerous Republicans in Congress. If Cantor loses, I'm buying lobster and steak and going (somewhat) lean for the rest of the month.
And thanks, too, for the work you did on behalf of Wayne Powell.