Cop Out 2: This Time it's Fiscal

The debt commission has released its full report today and I for one am quite happy. A four trillion dollar reduction in the national debt by 2020 is just the kind of big swinging dick proposal we needed to right the solvency ship. And as I've previously stated, everyone in Congress is against it therefore it must be good. Both parties hold one half of the key resolving this issue. The republicans come armed with the knowledge that cuts to entitlement programs and not solely taxing the rich will help. Democrats bring with them the idea of cutting waste in the military, and be sure there is plenty, and a desire to raise revenues. Combined they attack this problem from both sides and will meet in the middle much faster. We wanted partisanship, unfortunately it is coming in the mutual dislike of the debt commission's proposals.

So I was speaking with Legalized Brother, who is a raging liberal but like hipsters, he won't admit it, and the subject of taxes came up. Now this might be a shocker but his first idea was to tax the rich. (We'll ignore his retracement on the idea once I told him he was in that bracket) There are three problems with this approach. Actually four. 1. Laffe's curve. Great economic research that showed taxing the rich hurts GDP, and thus economic and tax revenue, growth. 2. A recent study found the actual tax rate off the rich strays very little from 19.4% because of their deductions and fastidious accountants. 3. The rich are responsible for massive amounts of campaign donations so congressmen won't bite the hand that feeds. 4. It is never going to happen.

Taxing the rich is the greatest non-answer in government history. It is a solid idea in theory, but one that will never be implemented. It's like cutting Medicare waste. Sure it'd be nice but it's not going to happen so let's find another way. The clown car that is Congress loves to give solutions it will never implement because then they don't have to make tough choices. Yes, the retirement age needs to go up. It will suck. It's just like any other economic entity, home/business/some parts of Ireland still, that needs to work with the money it has. It always sucks to cut back on your pear schnapps but when times are tough, you need to start drinking Natty Ice.

This is what the debt commission did. They made the tough choices for Congress. Now all they have to do is not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This isn't one of those lame do it for the kids moments. Forget the kids, they'll probably be obese anyway. This is about securing our own lives. A 10 year horizon is incredibly short. Most of us not named Jimmy Carter will probably still be around then. This is our chance to do something great, and hopefully Congress will put on its big boy pants and do the job they were sent there for.