New Taxes

As a fiscal conservative I guess I am a heretic.  I am not fundamentally opposed to new taxes.  The problem with new taxes is there is nothing in our history, that I am aware of, where new taxes have solved the problem of deficit spending.  All new taxes do is allow the government to grow more, which means they borrow more, which leads to new deficits, and the call for more new taxes.

If, on the other hand, the Federal government was required to operate like 41 of our states and the President and Legislature were obligated to submit and pass a balanced budget, and could not carry over a deficit I might favor a tax or two to make ends meet.  But the federal government does not operate like most states, the President can submit any budget the executive wants and the legislature will usually inflate it for their own pet projects.

So let's say we raise taxes to close the deficit?  I think only the most naïve among us would think that money will go to help those in need.  Clearly our experience shows it will go to growing the government to make it bigger, more commanding, and more invasive. It will add regulations, oversight, bridges to nowhere, tunnels to nowhere else, and surveillance in areas where we don’t already have surveillance.  It will not fix infrastructure, unless your Senator and Congressman is in a key position, or someone needs a favor, and it will not improve the lives of the ordinary taxpayer.  But most of all it will not reduce the deficit, lower the debt, or bring fiscal realism to the realm for anything more then the briefest of times.

So I say, until we have a Constitutional amendment requiring the President and the Congress to balance the books if they want to be paid, I am not in favor of new taxes, even the sneaky ones like the affordable health care act that wasn’t a tax, but the Supreme Court seems to think is okay because it is.