That’s the call from the Left. In order to balance the budget, or begin to balance the budget, we’re gonna have to at least consider raising revenues.
I’m beginning to resonate more and more with this, so, for this sake, I’ll stipulate.
We need to raise revenues.
Now that we’ve agreed we’re gonna raise more money than we otherwise used to, I think it’s responsible to earnestly look at methods that make sense. That is, create the correct incentives, don’t damage any economic stability we currently have. I’m not sure I have the answers, but I think I know what the answer would look like [at the risk of summoning “You know porn when you see it”].
Further, in this effort, I would be careful NOT to offend the folks on the other side of the table that are reluctant partners in our “raise taxes” debate.
For example, I would not say:
If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and natural gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars,” Obama said this week, “then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship, that means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for medical research, that means that food safety may be compromised, that means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden.
I for sure wouldn’t create the wedge in class that Obama just did.
Corporate jets.
Serious.
If we DID remove the tax advantage currently in place for private corporate jets, we would save:
President Barack Obama’s proposal to end a tax break for corporate jet owners, a repeated refrain in his news conference yesterday, would achieve less than one-tenth of 1 percent of his target for reducing the federal deficit.
Such a change would put $3 billion into the Treasury over a decade…
Blink.
This isn’t serious offer. This is just more political shenanigans. And quite frankly, why no one ever believe the Democrats really wnna compromise. They just wanna figure out what they have to give the Republicans inorder to get to spend more money on their own pet projects.
Actually it’s the left who should be made if that’s the compromise. Small politically popular tax increases won’t do much, any tax increases need to be much broader. I think that tax increases unpalatable to the right and spending cuts unpalatable to the left are the only way to get out of this mess. After all, since the 80s they’ve been cutting taxes (Obama’s plans call for lower taxes than Reagan advocated) and increasing spending. Like you, I’m not sure about how to do this, but I agree it has to be done responsibly.
Actually it’s the left who should be made if that’s the compromise.
We should all be upset with that stance. 3 billion over 10 years, to your point, doesn’t address anything. And to mine, all it doers is flame class warfare battle lines. Theres no point.
I think that tax increases unpalatable to the right and spending cuts unpalatable to the left are the only way to get out of this mess.
I suspect you’re right.
There is an article in this month’s National Review which is instructive . It concerns our neighbor to the North, Canada . I will summarize as best I can . In the mid 90s Canada was in much the same shape as we are now . To quote NR, ” Canada stepped onto the scales , no doubt feeling like a fat former cheerleader two weeks from her ten-year high-school reunion, and took a hard swallow : Debt was 71 percent of GDP. ”
A center-left government, believe it or not, got Canada out of the woods . They cut 6 dollars for every dollar they raised in new taxes . The Conservative Government that has been in since 06 inherited and continued the fiscal discipline .
Granted Canada lives under America’s military shield and doesn’t have to spend much on defense compared to us .Another humorous quote from NR, “Canada which barely outspends Japan, a country that could be overrun by a crack detachment of Girl Scouts . ”
Anyway the left wingers responsible for saving Canada were not popular for what they did . The House Republicans seem more willing than the President to be unpopular. The President could pull a Clinton and let Republicans do the heavy lifting and if things turn out well as they did with welfare reform in the 90s , he could then brag about what ‘ he did ‘.