Tax And Spend Is Here Again

Conn Carroll / June 06, 2008

Heritage senior policy analyst Brian Riedl has taken a close look at the budget passed by Congress this week and notes that it:

• Assumes tax increases topping $3 trillion over the next decade, or $3,135 per household annually
• Includes 64 reserve funds that could be used to raise taxes by hundreds of billions more
• Increases discretionary spending by 8 percent for the second consecutive year and does not terminate a single wasteful program
• Completely ignores the impending explosion of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs
• Creates rules that bias the budget toward tax increases
• Assumes that Congress will violate its own PAYGO rules

It is hard to choose which of these is the worst aspect of the budget. Is it the growth killing tax raise? The runaway spending? The continued refusal to deal with the reality of the coming entitlement nightmare? Or maybe it is the fact that Democrats just outright lied to the American people when they promised pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting that would prevent new deficit spending.