I read statements by some politicians that they would not be in favor of any budget deal without tax increases. Raising income without corresponding deep structural changes in spending limits is folly. Any other institution in society operates by the rule that if they are broke from having overspent, the solution has to be a long term reduction in expenses and control of spending such that outgo is not more than income. It is not complicated. The U.S. debt to GDP ratio is the highest in history having gone up from 70% to 102% (a 31% increase) in just the last 4 years and the raw debt has gone from 10 billion to 16 billion (a 37% increase) in the same amount of time. If you had a son or daughter come to you and tell you that their debt had increased 37% in the last 4 years (personal or small business, it makes no difference), what would you tell them? Certainly you would be open to having them find increased employment or sales to boost income, but would you not sit them down and have them come up with some deep structural changes, including reducing spending to UNDER income and establishing hard fast budgetary rules that require, without exception, keeping expenses under income? No exceptions?
The deal just hammered out does not fix anything. The reason we had a fiscal cliff is that congress didn’t have the guts to deal with it in the past and put the real work off into the future. Now, they have done the same thing. Would you allow your child to do this? Does this sound adult at all?
There seems to be no political party and very few politicians that are willing to be this honest and be this bold…and this sensible.