23 March 2013 –
Huzzah! The Senate
finally passed a budget bill for the first time in four years. Bah!
The bill does not attempt to balance the budget at all. Its creators do claim, however, that it will
reduce the deficit through nearly $1,000,000,000,000 (remember the zeros?) in
additional tax increases in the next decade.
These increases are in addition to the nearly $600,000,000,000 in higher
taxes already imposed in January on high income earners. The budget does cut some spending,
$875,000,000,000 in defense cuts, some federal health care programs, and in
other less contentious areas. But, federal
spending will continue at record levels and continue to be well above the
already record levels of tax revenues. Our problem ain’t with revenues; it’s with spending.
The Senate bill looks nothing like the House bill, which
was written by House Budget Committee Chairman, Paul Ryan (R-WI). His bill would claim $5,000,000,000,000 in
deficit reduction and no new taxes.
These reductions would mostly come by repealing Obamacare, imposing
major cuts on future Medicaid recipients, food stamps, other entitlement
programs, and would change the Medicare health program for future seniors into
a voucher-like system. Representative
Ryan claims his budget will be balanced within those ten years.
The two houses are far apart, and the next little while
will be dramatic. However, any grand
bargain between them, however poorly it may serve the already taxed and spent
citizenry, may finally put the onus on the President to sign a budget or come
up with a legitimate one of his own to throw into the mix. His last attempt at governing in the form of
a budget was rejected by the Senate 97-0.
It didn’t even pass the lax test of a Democratic-controlled Senate. With a budget on his desk, maybe for the first
time in his over four years in office, the President will have to govern instead
of simply campaign.
Before the bargaining and horse-trading starts in
Congress, I must stress again that our federal debt is already at crisis levels. Increased taxes will do little to reduce the
cause of the budget deficit, which adds every year to the debt: out-of-control spending. Tax and spend politicians have the
unmitigated gall to declare in their budget bill that $1,600,000,000,000 in tax
increases over the next ten years, added to the record federal tax revenues
already being collected from only 53% of the population, still will not be
enough to balance a budget grossly bloated by entitlement and income
redistribution programs. Their bread and
circuses will bankrupt this empire. The
next big act in this circus will be this summer when Congress votes again to
raise the federal debt limit. How does
$18,000,000,000,000 sound? $20,000,000,000,000?
Those are good, round numbers to work with, right? Sheeesh!
But, it will have to be done, or we default and become Greece or
Cyprus. Quite a tightrope we are walking
on in this circus.
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