Yes, I talk to my cats. I point this out because after reading the title of this piece and the modest proposal to follow, many of you will likely suspect that the author is some sort of deranged recluse hiding out in a third floor, cold water walk-up, subsisting on a diet of bread fried in fatback and three gallons of Thunderbird per week who talks to his cats all day. Actually, I live in a single family home in the suburbs. And while my diet is certainly enough give most doctors conniptions, it’s a bit more varied than that. But I do talk to my cats… I just felt you should know that.
During this excitable season when we are about to select our next president, I would like to ask all of the candidates to take a moment and consider doing something which goes against the grain of any politician in the modern era. I want you to raise my taxes. And notice, please that I said my taxes. (Unfortunately this will have to apply to most of the rest of you as well.) It’s all too easy to take a populist bent and shout, “Raise the taxes on the rich!” I’m hardly what you would call wealthy, but I want our next president to jack up the tax rates on the rich and the middle class. Let’s not waste time taxing those below or within shouting distance of the poverty line because – let’s face it – they can’t afford it and they don’t make enough to help us out much anyway. But for everyone else? Jack them up.
This dismal report from The Economist on the bailout of Fannie and Freddy finally brought me to this sobering conclusion. It serves as yet another reminder of exactly how far in debt our nation is – both the government itself and a huge swath of the citizens who have never taken an interest in saving for their futures. The total Federal debt continues to climb and deficits are on the rise each year, adding more stones to the great weight on our collective chests. The time has long since come and gone to acknowledge what we all know is true; we simply can not continue to kick this can down the road and hope that things will somehow work out in the end. We’re going to have to make some very serious sacrifices, and the hit will need to be taken not just by the government but by the citizens as well.
Does this mean I’m jumping on board the Obama Hope Train? Not at all – raising taxes to simply spend even larger amounts of money does nothing to address the problem. John McCain talks somewhat encouragingly about cutting costs and “wasteful spending” but both of them need to take a page from Bob Barr’s plans for getting us out of the red. (Barr, on the other hand, fails to realize the short term need for more tax revenue, but he’s on the right track about sewing up the gaping, ever hungry maw of our government.)
This sacrifice is going to hurt everyone. “But Jazz,” I hear you saying, “won’t raising taxes drive us further into a recession and hurt employment and domestic productivity?” Yes… yes it will. And I want the president to level with the public and tell them that we’re going to intentionally drive the country into a recession. Let us know ahead of time what we have in store and what the benefits will be when we finally emerge from this trauma on the other side. That would be a strong, stable national economy, a strengthening dollar, and a more disciplined nation.
Are we really going to spend yet another four years counting on mystical “trickle down economics” to magically start working? Will “just one more tax cut” do the trick and turn the corner on this sinking ship of commerce? No… it will not. We’ve been trying these tactics for a long time now and the economy continues to spiral downward. Our next president needs to come clean and say that it is time for everyone, including corporations, to pay their fair share and perhaps a bit more. And it must be made perfectly clear that absolutely zero tax relief or assistance will be given to companies who continue to outsource jobs and move facilities offshore. Under this sort of plan we’re going to need every one of those jobs. And any excess funds generated by the government need to go exclusively to paying down the debt. What do credit counselors immediately tell people who are drowning in credit card debt and facing bankruptcy? The first thing you have to do is cut up your credit cards, tighten your belt, and pay down your debts, even if it means learning to live far more frugally. We should expect no less from the government. And by extension, we need to face up to our share of the blame and take the hit on this because we kept electing these big spending hogs to go to Washington where they continued to bury us under a mountain of red ink.
There will be rough times ahead for everyone if we do this, and it is sadly unlikely to happen. We are not accustomed to having our leaders tell us we face any sort of discomfiture and tend not to elect them if they do. But right now we have so much paper scattered all over the world that we have placed our jugular vein in the hands of our enemies. Fannie and Freddy should open our eyes to the very real possibility that this massive free ride we’ve been on for decades could come crashing down on our heads at any time. But if we were willing to be the generation who bit the bullet and sweated out “hard times” while we wrestled this beast to the ground, we would leave a far brighter, more stable and generally disciplined and responsible world to our children and grandchildren.
Will it happen? Sure it will. And Bob Barr is going to carry 320 electoral votes this November too.
UPDATE: We had a long, productive discussion on this topic and the history of the last couple of generations and their reluctance to sacrifice during our radio show today. You can listen to a rebroadcast at the link.