Raised Taxes Can Only Pay for So Much

Ask a Democrat, elected or not, what they think the best way to reduce the deficit is. The first answer you'll likely receive is that it's Congress' job to produce a "jobs" bill.

Never mind that Congress has never created a private sector job, the second answer you'd get, maybe even rivaling the first, would be "the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes."

Yes, it's become a common theme. Railing against the marginal tax rates the "rich" (those who have income exceeding $250,000) pay has become a religious practice among Democratic circles.

"If only the rich would pay the Clinton era marginal rates of 39.6% then all our problems would be solved. After all, at one point in our history, the wealthy were paying double that rate."

So you've asked them what their ideas are to reduce the deficit and they've provided us with the rather predictable answers. So how far is raising the taxes on the rich going to go.

Well if you listen to our President or any of the Democratic leaders in Congress, far. 


Yet any revenue that would be generated to the government from tax hikes on the rich, is let's just say, already spoken for.

On any given Tuesday, Barack Obama would tell you that the revenue would be used to reduce the deficit.

But on Wednesday when asked how he would plan to pay for a jobs bill, or any "investing in our future" initiative, the answer is the same, raising taxes on the rich.

Go to Capitol Hill and ask any Democrat on how they plan to pay for the increase in federal education spending, or for any other pet project they may have. The answer will sound exactly the same.

While the old adage, "the problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" applies to the Democrats sexual fantasy regarding raising taxes on the rich.

The Clinton era tax rates are much romanticized on the left and in the Democratic party, and are usually (and falsely) cited as the reason Clinton left the White House with a surplus.

But here's the kicker, Obama and the current Democratic brass don't believe we should raise taxes on anyone but the rich. Inevitably then, they'll never even come close to the revenue they fantasize about by simply taxing the rich.

So the next time you find yourself in a discussion on how we should reduce the deficit, and a Democrat suggests that our problems would be solved by raising taxes on the rich, ask him if he thinks the elected Democrats would actually devote that money to pure deficit reduction.

When it comes to spending the taxpayer's money, there is a sense of entitlement among Democrats in Washington.

While I don't believe we should be raising taxes on anyone in a tough economy, there certainly is no logic in the misleading mantra espoused by the Democrats that raising taxes will allow us to reduce the deficit, and spend a ton of money on new government initiatives.

If average Americans behaved like Democrats, our country would be in the midst of an unrecoverable recession.