If conservatives can’t balance the budget, someone else can

Remember when conservatives used to say that it was the easiest thing in the world for liberals to raise taxes (and not balance the federal budget)?

Well, the worm has turned. We’re living in a day when it’s the easiest thing in the world for conservatives to cut taxes (and still not balance the budget).

U.S. House and Senate "conservatives," Republicans, have agreed to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, and on the "alternative minimum tax." The rich make out really well.

No justification. This is a $14 billion a year tax cut at a time when the federal deficit is expected to be more than $300 billion for this year alone. There is no recession in need of pump priming. There is a budget desperately in need of balancing.

The whole farce reveals that tax tinkering -- raising or cutting taxes -- is always the easy part of preparing a budget. The other half of the work, setting priorities and cutting spending on the low priorities, is the hard part -- the balancing part.

Obviously, no one is working hard.

Missing courage. Real liberals have the courage to raise taxes fairly to pay for important programs and the competence to reduce spending on items we can’t afford. Real conservatives should have the compassion to cut taxes fairly and the courage to cut enough pork for a balanced budget, too.

Obviously, the real liberals and real conservatives have abandoned government.

Frank Warner

Comments

[Christopher Taylor]

You're making a common mistake: confusing "republican" with "conservative." The problem with congress is a lack of conservatism, not a lack of liberals - liberals have shown no propensity or interest in balancing budgets when given a chance. In fact, I'd argue that a bulk of the GOP in power right now is liberal, and the results are obvious.

[Frank Warner]

Well, you won't get any argument from me on the confusion over liberals and conservatives.

I think both liberals and conservatives are basically dedicated to balance budgets, but we real liberals occasionally want more spending on programs important to defending the defenseless and freeing the oppressed.

That means real liberals have to have the courage to raise taxes to pay for those programs. That is, unless we're in a recession, and then tax cuts, spread around fairly, can help.

But the people jamming these tax-cuts- for-the-rich down our throats sure are claiming to be conservatives, and I haven't heard any conservative thinkers condemn those tax cuts. However, they have faulted the lack of spending cuts.

It's time to move the budget dramatically toward balance. That would do a lot to firm up the prospects of solving other problems, like Medicare and Social Security.

[jj mollo]

According to Warren Buffett, inflation hurts stockholders more than anyone else. Most of the stock is held by wealthy individuals, so an unbalanced budget is basically a tax on savers and the wealthy.

[Christopher Taylor]

Sigh.

Tax cuts are for everyone who pays taxes, not just the rich. It's just that the rich pay the lion's share of taxes, so when there's an across-the-board cut, they get a bigger slice.

Here's the problem: while many liberals in the last 10 years or so suddenly decided they wanted a balanced budget, they want to do it by raising taxes primarily, and cutting military budgets primarily.

Conservatives want to do it by cutting spending and by cutting taxes to stimulate growth and business, which historically generates increased tax revenues for the government.

It's like how to help the poor and needy: both sides want to help, they just differe on how to do so.

But conservatives have nothing to do with the spending insanity in congress, that's the realm of fiscal idiots, whatever you want to call them.