Reply #14: The Worst thing About This, Sir, Is That It Actually Reduces Tax Revenues

[The Magistrate]

To take the tripe argument that 'government must do its budgeting like your family does' seriously for a moment, what family, faced with expenses greater than income, suggests Dad should ask his boss for fewer hours down at the plant, so he will take home less pay?

No proposal that does not increase taxes, and increase them substantially on the possessors of the bulk of the country's wealth, is a serious proposal for bringing the Federal budget into better balance.

Any proposal which does not do this, and instead introduces structural, long term reductions in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits, is not a proposal to bring the Federal budget into better balance, but rather a proposal to sanctify the looting of the Social Security Trust Fund, and turn the regressive pay-roll tax on wages into the chief source of general revenue for Federal expenditures on war and tax credit paid out to big business.

The cold fact is that three things make up the present deficits; revenue forgone by the tax cuts enacted by Bush and preserved by President Obama, the costs of warfare in the Near East and Central Asia, and the loss of revenues attendant on the collapse of employment in our economy over the last three years. Anyone who wants to end deficits must look to raising revenues, curbing wwar outlays, and increasing employment.