We Get The Government We Deserve

Really disheartening news here from a recent Gallup poll.  We all like to think that the election in November was one that ratified the idea that costs must be cut and that government must be smaller.  Well, in the aggregate maybe, because when you start pinning the American public down on cuts in particular areas, we lose our nerve and begin to act the the government addicts many of us are.

The only politician I see these days swimming against this stream is Chris Christie.  Mark Sanford used to, but he's not a Governor anymore and besides, he's got better things to do. 

Good News From Capitol Hill

The Omnibus Spending Bill is dead; the Senate will pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government and perhaps the appropriations bills will be taken up by the Congress after the break.  This is a real sign of the the power of November's election results--I only wish it had restrained Republicans in the tax deal they made with the President.

For a minute there I thought the Administration might run out of reasons to raise taxes.

Those fun-loving cutups over at the International Monetary Fund are not usually in the position of lecturing their host and main benefactor but according to a report in the Washington Post:

THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO REDUCE GOVERNMENT SPENDING (or raise taxes).

Or, if you are a Democrat,

THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO (reduce government spending or) RAISE TAXES.

From the article:

"The level of the correction needed is large, perhaps 10 percent of gross domestic product. In the United States, that would amount to roughly $1.4 trillion annually, to be cut from government programs or raised through new taxes."

I can't help but feel as if complaining about another trillion in taxes would be like complaining about a paper cut on your right hand as your right arm is being severed at the shoulder.

No matter what, given that we are now living with the consequences of over half the voting population's 2008 drinking binge, higher taxes are coming. The higher taxes, especially combined with the taxes coming from last year's spending spree, will reduce personal discretionary spending, stalling the marketplace and pretty much completing the Eurofication of the USA. Better start dusting off my French (I refuse to learn Spanish and CW has German covered).

As an aside, I wonder if the word "trillion" is going to get its own star on the walk outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. It certainly has become famous over the past year and a half.