The Des Moines Register's Editorial Board Is Suddenly Concerned About The Deficit

The Des Moines Register has an editorial today that's already whining about how the Republicans in the House need to start addressing the deficit.

You know where this is going:

Meanwhile, the lame-duck Congress is poised to extend the Bush tax cuts - possibly forever, if the Republicans make good on their promise - which is estimated to add another $3.7 trillion to the national debt in the next decade.

That is unless there are offsetting budget cuts. Pore over the campaign literature of candidates from both parties, however, and you will find few if any specifics about how they would cut spending enough to come anywhere close to balancing the budget.

Yes, they want taxes raised.

Left-wingers are so predictable.

And the Register's analysis entirely false. No wonder, since none of them have any experience with business other than running the one they work for into the ground. Almost all of the Editorial Board's background is in college degrees like "creative writing" and "communications".

You see, even if the Bush-era tax rates were allowed to expire, there would be little effect on any Obama Administration projected budget, so says the Tax Foundation:

The federal deficit is projected by President Obama’s Budget to stay at previously intolerable levels for an entire decade: starting out above $1 trillion, dropping to the $700-to-$800 billion level, then rising back to $1 trillion.

And also:

...unless a growth surge brings down the deficit estimates substantially by mid-summer, even letting more of the Bush tax cuts expire won’t come close to erasing the deficits. Even in 2012 or 2015 when the effects of the housing bubble and the fiscal stimulus have dissipated, the tax rates hikes required to balance the budget are far higher that what they were in the Clinton era.

According to the Tax Foundation’s Microsimulation Model, to erase the 2010 deficit, Congress would have to multiply each tax rate by 2.4. So the 10-percent rate would be 24 percent; the 15-percent rate would be 36 percent, etc., on up to the top rate, currently 35 percent which would have to be 85 percent. These rates are simply untenable.

Tax rates that high would wreak havoc with the economy, sending it into a death spiral of mega proportions.

We already know what effect the expiration of the Bush-era tax rates and rescinding of the Child Tax Credit would have on families nationwide. As you can see in these charts, any family earning the median income would pay an average of around $1700 more in Federal income taxes. There is more analysis here as well.

I guess the Editorial Board thinks it's OK to saddle everybody during a time of high unemployment and no growth with additional taxes in order to pay for more places where Rekha Basu can worship.

Just once I'd like to see those libs come up with substantive cuts on their own - other than focusing exclusively on the military, of which spending on is Constitutionally mandated. The truth is that the Commie-Socialists who have ruined the Des Moines Register are never in favor of any spending cuts for so-called "entitlements". That's the Big Fraud about The Left. Put them on the spot and throw the question back in their faces at them about spending cuts. They're such cowards that they'll run away muttering about "the rich" and how they ought to pay their "fair share" - whatever the hell that means.