Car Fever

After having lost the Presidency for the fourth time in the last six elections, after losing seats in the Senate and barely hanging onto a weakened majority in the House, the GOP is now under tremendous pressure to submit to Priest-King's demands for higher taxes and more spending in order to avoid the "fiscal cliff" looming on January 1. But before buying a car you don't want because a pushy salesman won't get out of your face, you walk away, and I would urge my Republican colleagues to do the same:

1) One of the core principles of conservatism is that taxes should be as low as possible. Low taxes allow the people to keep more of their own money and the people make better decisions with their money than government bureaucrats do. Low taxes put a brake on spending and thus the size and scope of government, and low taxes result in higher employment, higher GDP, a higher standard of living and higher government revenues, all good things. So given the top ten percent of wage earners already pay seventy percent of all Federal income taxes and given the economy is sputtering along at 1.7% GDP growth, we know that raising income taxes on anyone would be bad, so the GOP should not agree to anything that includes higher tax rates.

2) If the GOP caves and gives Priest-King the tax rate increase he wants, would that solve the problem? No, not even close. Raising the top individual income tax rate to 39.6% would result in about $80 billion in increased Federal revenue, or about enough to offset the Federal deficit for about three weeks, so for Priest-King, it's clearly not about the money but about the principle. (Note: Increasing income tax rates on the highest earners will also result in a decline in revenue after the first year, since those individuals and corporations will shift their assets elsewhere, a fact the Left never seems to learn.) Priest-King harbors a deep-seated animosity toward some of the wealthy (Warren Buffett, George Soros and other lefty tycoons get a pass), believing in his soul that they lied, cheated, defrauded and stole their way to wealth, so they must be punished. Their ill-gotten gains should be seized and redistributed to more deserving people, people who just happened to vote Democrat in the last election, and forcing the GOP to surrender on higher taxes will a) take the GOP's signature issue off the table for a generation or more; b) trigger a Republican civil war that will collapse the Party and thence resistance to his hard-Left agenda; and c) demonstrate his absolute political supremacy for his second term, during which he intends to complete the transformation of America into the grand socialist collective of his dreams. Republicans should resist higher taxes with their dying breath for these reasons alone.

3) Republicans will be viciously blamed no matter what happens, so if the legacy media will never love them, why agree to something they know is wrong? If the GOP agrees to higher taxes without major entitlement spending reform, they'll be blamed for exploding the deficit. If they agree to higher taxes and get major entitlement spending cuts in return, they'll be blamed for starving the poor and the elderly. If they cannot agree with Priest-King on anything and we go over the fiscal cliff, they'll be blamed for gutting the Defense Department (which Priest-King wants to do anyway but the blame for which he will gladly shift to the hapless Republicans), hundreds of thousands of new unemployed, the aforementioned starving poor and elderly and for higher taxes on the sainted middle class. So given they will be excoriated no matter what they do, how should the Republicans proceed? In my view, it comes down to answering this question: Do they act in their own self-interest or in the best interest of the country? If they're more concerned with their own political future, they'll make a hellish bargain with Priest-King that will bankrupt us all. (Bear in mind that Obamacare in its full horror will be implemented alongside any deal the GOP might make, including its own massive taxes.) However, if they act in the best interest of the country, they'll walk away from the negotiating table and let us go over the cliff. Sequestration would indeed take effect but simultaneous with cuts to the Democrats' precious social programs. The Bush tax cuts would expire for everyone, not just the top wage
earners, forcing those who currently pay very little or nothing for the welfare spending they consume to ante up. Priest-King's second term agenda would be upset, at least temporarily, costing him time and political capital, and perhaps the 2014 midterm elections - occurring as the full cost of Obamacare and his colossal deficits bite - would result in Shellacking Part II. Bottom line: No agreement is better than a bad agreement. You didn't want that car anyway.