By not passing budget, Senate Dems hide their intention

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

This Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted on five different budget proposals. Each of the four Republican plans were defeated by comfortable margins, but President Obama's plan suffered the worst defeat -- a unanimous 99 to 0. It was not the first such vote. Not only have Senate Democrats failed to pass a budget in over three years, but not a single Democratic senator has voted for any budget brought to the floor over that time period.

In a meeting with The Washington Examiner's editorial board on Thursday, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offered a theory as to why this is so. "They don't want to show you what their vision of government costs," he said. Because the Democrats are studiously avoiding entitlement reform, "the kinds of tax increases you would have to see, on paper, to avert a debt crisis, are the kinds you have never seen before ... They would rather take the knock that they're doing nothing than show you what they would do if they could do it."

How high would taxes have to go to sustain projected increases in spending? In a May 19, 2009, letter to Ryan, the director of the CBO explained that in order to balance the long-term budget with tax increases alone, the 10 percent tax bracket would have to rise to 25 percent; the 25 percent bracket would have to rise to 63 percent; and the highest individual bracket (as well as the corporate tax) would have to rise from 35 percent to 88 percent.

But that's just on paper. In reality, CBO's director wrote, "Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion. Revenues would probably fall significantly short of the amount needed to finance the growth of spending; therefore, tax rates at such levels would not be feasible."