In today’s New York Times former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin endorsed a balanced approach. ” We should let the Bush high-end tax cuts expire, with an achievable, progressive reduction in tax expenditures,” writes Rubin. “And we should have spending cuts, including entitlement reforms, equally matched by revenue increases.”Here is a direct link.
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Robert Rubin? Ohh my goodness – one of the looters of Fort Knox…
It has been proven over and over again that the more you increase taxes – the less revenue the government accrues – people end up working more IF they can keep more of their earnings. It doesn’t matter as you can tax everyone in the US 100% of their income and they would still be in deficit. Taxation retards an economy – once again the US is not only doing the wrong thing – but the opposite of the right thing. With 28% of homes underwater, 47 million now (as of yesterday) people on Foodstamps, and U6 unemployment over 17% – It’s obvious what is happening:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859)
It will be tricky, because they also have to avoid pushing the economy back into a recession state with both these measures. They may have to take these measures very gradually. Too many cuts to spending and too many tax increases could have disastrous results.
Robert Reich’s view
http://robertreich.org/post/35591032374