The Awful Republican Budget Is a Reminder That Federal Revenues Are Way Too High

Forbes ^ | 02/20/2018 | John Tamny

[SeekAndFind]

Eager to meet its target of 80,000 new soldiers without compromising quality, last fall the U.S. Army expanded its signing-bonus pool by hundreds of millions. Time will tell if the Army succeeds in its endeavor, but that’s arguably not the point.

The point of the story is to remind readers that governments don’t tax and borrow dollars in order to stare lovingly at the money. Just as we civilians seek “money” for what it can be exchanged for, so do governments. The money they spend is an explicit sign of how much control they have over the economy. The more they spend, the more of the economy they control.

All of this speaks to why the focus on budget deficits is so misguided. Indeed, it can’t be repeated enough that all government spending is deficit spending. Governments can only spend insofar as they can tax private-sector productivity, or they can borrow against it. Central banks don’t finance government waste (despite the naïve protests of so many otherwise wise members of the right), but private-sector productivity does. Governments with taxing power over the productive can borrow massive sums. Period.

The deficit distraction rates discussion mainly because it furthers the false notion that the federal government has a revenue problem. No, the deficits are a flashing sign that the federal government collects way too much in the way of revenues, and because it does, it can borrow in size amounts. Assuming real tax cuts meant to substantially reduce the federal government’s intake, its ability to borrow would be greatly reduced. It’s a paradoxical notion, but budget deficits are high precisely because federal revenues are way too high.

[gunsequalfreedom]

There is only one Rand Paul and we need a bunch of them.

As Rand Paul said, the Democrats want to cut nothing and the Republicans want to cut only next to nothing.

Personally, I think he was being generous to the Republicans.

[TBP]

And spending is even higher.

[Rurudyne]

So-called “’moderate” Republicans are fairly spendthrift.

Yes, they have a history of being able to go along with conservative when in partisan opposition to a Democrat POTUS, as they did under Clinton even though they did their best to derail the Contract With America (Not So Radical Republicans, Reason magazine, 1998 ... IIRC). But that previously went away under W when they suddenly discovered their oats as the go-to people or nothing agenda wise would get done. They formed coalitions with Democrats, spent freely, lost Congress and then the Democrats showed us all what spending is REALLY like.

Yet the same “moderates” who voted with Democrats for Medicare Part D were willing to vote lockstep against Obamaharm.

Under Trump though they seem to have been in opposition to him to the point that they seemingly didn’t immediately return to their spendthrift urges and cooperate with ever eager to spend Democrats no matter who is in office as they’ve done on the past. I guess it was a brief respite. Pity they couldn’t be reluctant intra-party-partisans a few years more.

[i_robot73]

40 yrs. and the DoEd is still alive, and BIGGER than ever, NPR\NEA operational and PP funded.

What good, exactly, is filling court seats w/ those that won’t rule based on the Constitution? Dept/Agencies that still crank out ream of rule/reg after ream w/ the (illegal) force of law? or ‘tax cuts’ that are ‘revenue neutral’? Or ‘budgets’ w/ a $1T deficit? Or a (dead) h’care mandate when DHS still exists? or....

[SaxxonWoods]

Interesting take.

[DNME]

It seems increasingly likely that we need to burn the damn thing down and start from (Constitutional) scratch. No remorse, no hold-overs, except the military. Just burn it down.

[central_va]

It’s amazing how stupid “economists” are. This is so much poppycock. They also tell us trade deficits don’t matter when a modest import tariff would balance the budget tomorrow and zero out the trade deficit.