Raising Taxes on Everyone

[Valin]

NRO/The Corner:

 

Veronique de Rugy

12/3/12

 

I was on Up with Chris Hayes yesterday morning to talk about the fiscal cliff and the states’ budget crisis. I have to say, I really enjoyed the show. I thought Chris Hayes was a really thoughtful host, and the format of his show allows for real conversations between people who do not agree on everything (or even on most things). Joining me on the show were Governor Dan Malloy of Connecticut; Elizabeth Pearson of the Roosevelt Institute;Dedrick Muhammed of the NAACP, whose company I really enjoyed; and economist Bruce Bartlett joined us remotely from DC.

 

We talked a lot about raising revenue, of course. As you know, I would rather talk about restraining the growth of spending, since I believe that the path to prosperity requires a smaller government. I also find it incredibly unfair to continue kicking the fiscal can down the road, letting our children deal with the consequences. But I thought Hayes was really interesting on the issue of taxes. In his introduction, he made a point that you don’t hear often on MSNBC or on the left in general: While taxes ill likely go up on the top income earners soon, taxes will also need to go up on everyone else next.

 

He is right (even though our rationale for why it may be is probably different). In my opinion, the problem with the fiscal-cliff debate has been that no one is acknowledging the fact that there is no way out of raising taxes on everyone eventually unless Congress gets serious about addressing our long-term fiscal problem, by restraining spending. As Kevin Williamson noted last week:

 

The so-called fiscal cliff is one installment in a series of manufactured crises, the purpose of which is to provide the political establishment with small problems it can solve or pretend to solve while steadfastly refusing to address the much thornier problem of the long-term non-sustainability of U.S. public finances.