WaPost Giddy At Prospect Of Tax Increase

Gotta love the Bought and Paid For Media--including the newspaper of record here in our nation's capital. In this editorial, the Post views Barack Obama's recent prevarication on his pledge not to raise taxes on "the middle class" (those households making less than $250K a year--a pledge he has since broken several times, including his support for mandatory health insurance which is of course, a tax on the middle class) with glee. Calling the President's campaign pledge a "...foolish..." promise, the Post is like a puppy thumping its tail on the rug at the prospect of a broad-based tax hike. Here's the Post:

"Given the size of the government he wants to run, and given the size of the debt and existing obligations that he inherited, hewing to this position is untenable. But we heard -- at least we thought we heard -- the glimmerings of an opening in Mr. Obama's interview last week with CNBC's John Harwood, and the president's comments are worth revisiting as the commission prepares to hold its first meeting today."

Shall we look parse this statement a bit? First of all, the "size" of the government he wants to run is not a given--it can be restrained, it can be reduced. Secondly, the "size of the debt and existing obligations that he inherited" while substantial, pales in comparison to his additions thereto and their amplified additions in the years to come.

In the military, we have a canard about the Air Force that goes something like this--when they get the money from Congress to build a new Air Force base, they get enough to build the gyms, the schools, the housing, the hobby shops, the car wash, etc, then go back to Congress and complain they don't have enough for the runways and hangars. It sorta works that way with the Obama Administration; create a $900M stimulus that doesn't stimulate anything but community activist organizations, add a $1T health care plan and throw some student loans on top of it and pretty soon, you find yourself saying "we don't have enough coming in to pay for all this". So you seat a commission that you pack with folks you know will support what you wanted all along--and that is, more revenue to do more things. The non-virtuous cycle repeats itself, and our fiscal future is undermined.

This is what passes for Democratic solutions to tough fiscal problems.