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Thursday, November 15, 2007
Fear and Spending
One of the more disturbing aspects of the spending debate has been the President's reliance on scare tactics. Essentially, Congress has not given him a big enough target, so he must conjure one up.
He calls the tobacco tax "habit-forming," while closing the carried interest loophole will raise everyone's taxes. He says that Congress wants to spend over $200 billion more than he would with this year's appropriations bills. SCHIP will ineluctably bring us down the path to "socialized" medicine.
But SCHIP is a small program for children's health, not socialized medicine. The only spending this year's appropriations bills will do is this year's spending- that's a $22 billion difference. Carried interest has nothing to do with 99 percent of all taxpayers, and tax increases aren't drugs.
The basic point is that the President and his backers are not interested in the policy- they're interested in scaring the public. Capitulating to the President, I think, will legitimize this fear. If offered a compromise, the President will be able to tell the public that he kept the Democratic majority from spending $200 billion, from socializing medicine, taxing everyone, and so on. It will appear as if the Democrats had given the President the giant target he wanted, and were forced to come down from it.
Congress should stand up to the President. They should stand up for their modest spending requests and tax proposals. They should not give an inch unless the President and his backers begin to speak substantively about policy differences. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Posted by Matt Lewis
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