Liberals’ Deficit Chicken Is Taxpayers’ Soaring Eagle

J.D. Foster / July 29, 2010

Liberals are desperate to bully or chide the rest of the country into accepting massive new taxes to support the recent federal spending surge. Many opponents who resisted the spending on the grounds that it increased the budget deficit are now being called deficit chickens because they oppose the tax hikes needed to pay for all that spending. This is a particularly nauseating development as the charge comes from those whose actions prove they care not one whit about the nation’s finances. Nauseating or not, however, there is no reason to cave to such frail bric-a-bracs.

Even under normal circumstances, at just over 18 percent the federal tax burden is already too high. Opponents of even higher taxes need to keep this in mind, just as they need to remember that the excessive budget deficit for 2010 and in the following years is not the result of a shortfall in revenue but is due instead entirely to an attempt by Obama and friends to increase the size of government substantially and permanently. Whereas federal spending as a share of our economy is typically just above 20 percent, under Obama’s budget it hits 25.1 percent, according to his own numbers, and stays around 23 percent for the balance of the decade. (more…)