Let Them Eat Cake

[mr.jaynes]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

They must cut spending.  I repeat, they must cut spending.

Don't rag on tax cuts by themselves.  There is nothing wrong with letting people keep their money.  You are playing perfectly into the farce of big government when you look at all of the problems we have today being a result of low taxes.  Low taxes are good.  But you have to cut spending.

So this is something I've been thinking about since moving to OK a couple of months ago:  (Let it never be said that moving to an adversarial  -- read: uber-conservative -- environment doesn't encourage innovative thoughts in the liberal mind.)  

There's a lot of reliance on the "cut taxes to shrink government" idea, and I'm starting to wonder if depriving the government of revenue is the best tool in the toolbox.  It seems extraordinarily imprecise.

Because look:  like with Bush's tax cuts, the lack of revenue affects departments across the board.  Homeland Security kept its coffers full, but other departments surely didn't, from the EPA to the Transportation department (remember that bridge that collapsed in MN?) to Department of Education (lots of unfunded No Child Left Behind mandates), etc.  

My point is, reducing government spending isn't a bad idea in itself, but reducing tax receipts alone isn't the most effective way to address the problem, because it will affect good and bad programs alike.

Problem 1 with our gov't is it has grown so large, it's a near insurmountable task to figure where the waste is.  

What is the incentive for any bureaucrat to ferret out which of his or her co-workers we could do without on the gov't payroll?  How many wasteful programs could be eliminated if the government had a limit on tax revenue and on borrowing capacity?  Priorities would become clear real quick.

(neo-con motto)
"reduce the size of the US government until it will drown in a bathtub of water". Nordquistyour

Grover Norquist is a goob.