| One of my biggest takeaways from Saturday's session was a reminder to myself to give credit to earnest people with whom I disagree. One of the big takeaway messages supported by the whole group basically encouraged Congress to look past partisanship -- a goal that I agree with (even as I struggle with it).
But there's something very frustrating about engaging in politics with people who pay lip service to big challenges and even lie about history. Here's an AP writeup on Congressman Rehberg's budget solutions: Rehberg, a Republican seeking his sixth term as Montana's lone representative, said slashing taxes on corporations, capital gains and payrolls while balancing the budget is the solution. He said those types of measures were used in 1961, 1981 and 2001. Some of this stuff is just silly. Capital gains tax rates are already very low when compared to tax on income. But the really annoying thing is that "cut taxes" and "balance the budget," as though such a thing is possible. Even worse is that Rehberg cites history (and the AP lets him get away with it).
Now, it is true that tax rates were cut in 1961, 1981, and 2001. JFK pushed to cut the top marginal rate, for example, to something like 33% higher than the current rate. JFK did this while continuing to run surpluses and pay down the debt.
But let's look at what happened in 1981 and 2001:
We cut taxes and...didn't balance the budget.
Look -- in the near term in particular, I have absolutely no problem running deficits. Hell, I think we should run deficits. But planning for the long-term by advocating for specific tax cuts and only vaguely referencing spending cuts is not a plan to balance the budget. It is really just a very limited plan to expedite a great transfer of wealth from poor to rich in this country.
But the question of how to balance the budget is one we can have a serious discussion about. I had one of those on Saturday. Sadly, it looks like our Congressman had the opposite kind of conversation - absolutely nothing but empty rhetoric and misleading information. |
