Democrats and fiscal responsibility

Remember those first Bush tax cuts? How irresponsible they were?

President George W. Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut plan is fiscally irresponsible, dangerous for the economy, blind to America's future needs (especially those associated with the retirement of the baby boomers), and heavily targeted towards benefits for the wealthy Americans who least need tax relief.
(Democratic Leadership Council)

Evidently most of those concerns have been set aside by Democrats as they look to distribute (borrowed) government funds to taxpayers and non-taxpayers alike. Giving money raised via taxation to people who don't pay taxes is apparently what the Democrats see as the most effective way to stimulate the economy in the short term, as it avoids the spectre of allowing those who pay the most in taxes from getting their money back.

There is an economic rationale for lower-income citizens spending more and thus fending off cuts in production and jobs. Unfortunately for next year's government revenues, according to economic ideas supported by the Congressional Budget Office, the spending done by those same people results in economic activity that does the least to encourage government revenue growth.

The point, however, is that Democrats do believe in deficit spending whole-heartedly. The government can go into debt in order to buy your vote (perhaps the votes of those who find that Democrats give them money they never paid in taxes). They can make up the difference later by levying more taxes on the rich (and so on ...?).


On a sobering note (a note sounded by Rush Limbaugh the other day, as I recall), it seems to me that the current Democratic leadership should have little interest in economic growth. They tend to be extremely concerned with global warming and our dependence on fossil fuels. A big, healthy economy these days uses fossil fuels.

Seriously, think about it.

Give low wage-earners money and they tend to buy food, gasoline and other essentials. All of those things encourage the type of economic activity that utilizes energy. The Democrats can't seem to make good on their aims regarding our energy situation without either killing off a large segment of the population or magically coming up with an energy source that operates with efficiency comparable to that of fossil fuels.

Don't bet on nuclear energy with the Dems in charge. They don't want to be that much like Europe (or near-future Iran).

The U.S. has about a half-dozen more nuclear power plants than France.

So what will you do, Democrats? We don't want to spoil the Alaskan wilderness or risk getting oil on our Gulf shrimp (unless it's the Chinese who do it under Cuban auspices). We don't want to have another Three Mile Island. When crunch time grows near, will the Dems put their focus more on supply, or demand?

*****