In a strange, yet apparently cosmically fated turn of events, I stepped out of my comfort zone (which I rarely do) and bought a SOUR green apple snow cone at a local overpriced snow cone shop. The signage warned that the sour apple flavor was VERY SOUR, but I was not deterred. I bought that flavor anyway, and then bravely took that first bite...not a little chicken bite...nope, I took a loaded spoon full. Yes...it was sour!
At the same moment, I came across an interesting little bit in the local newspaper. It seemed that reporters for the Associated Press had polled last-minute income tax filers across several states. The question was this: Would you (the TAXPAYER) be willing to pay higher taxes to reduce the national debt? The answers were generally along two separate trains of thought. First, some late filers said that they were against higher taxes to reduce the debt. These people believed that cuts could be made in federal agencies and federal programs, and the debt could be controlled in that fashion. But, the second line of thinking was that taxes should indeed be raised so that the government could continue in operation and the national debt could be reduced.
Some of those who thought that taxes should be raised presented the following argument: Individual families could "default" on their debt and there was little national and international repercussion; however, the federal government could not default on its debt, particularly interest payments, or we (the US) would lose good standing with the international financial market.
True, a private person can default on his debt; however, a private person could not run up a billion dollars worth of debt if the private person's income were only one hundred thousand dollars. The banks, the credit unions, and even the Mafia would have long since cut off any access to credit. True, the person might never repay the debt, but he could not obtain any further loans, and he certainly could not (legally) print money to keep buying stuff and keep paying interest on the older debt.
On the other hand, the United States government is doing exactly that: the federal government continues to buy goods and services and run unsustainable programs while it is totally bankrupt, and continues to print more money to pay debts and interest. While this method of staying "financially sound" may "look good" to the international community (although I suspect it only looks good to those with their heads buried in the sand) it has brought the United States to the point of potentially no return, as far as paying off the debt and getting the federal budget under control.
About this time I took another bite of the extreme SOUR GREEN APPLE. It was so sour it made my lips pucker and my eyeballs pop. I tried to relieve the sourness by taking a BIGGER bite from the snow cone. Guess what, my friends? The sour apple snow cone did not get sweeter! So I took ANOTHER big bite. Once again, the snow cone did not get sweeter. No, I was just about to gag with this burst of sour apple coldness. And, in what was an obvious lesson, I realized that NO MATTER HOW MUCH MORE SOUR APPLE I ATE, THE SNOW CONE DID NOT GET SWEETER!
This rather simple observation has a practical application to the subject at hand. Just as taking bigger and bigger bites of sour apple shaved ice did not provide a sweet treat, no matter how much I ate and wished, it is equally obvious that bigger taxes will not reduce the national debt. How do we know this? Because the national tax rate has been raised so many times, but the national debt has continued to skyrocket. And now it is not an exaggeration to say that we (the US) are at the point that we cannot pay the national debt in the foreseeable future.
I hope my departure from my comfort zone was not in vain, and my little analogy was not wasted. I hope that people from all political persuasions, and all "parties" will see, from this very simple snapshot of my day, that higher taxes have never been the answer when agencies are not cut, when programs are not cut, when unsustainable (if well-intentioned) entitlements are not curtailed, and "government" goes on with business as usual. In this case, business as usual means digging that hole of national debt ever deeper, when the hole is already deeper than the tallest ladder available. We must bite the bullet. We must not raise taxes, which are already at a level that would long ago have cause our forefathers to revolt and through out the out-of-control government. Instead, we must understand that we have to make hard decisions, we must cut programs and entitlements, and then only spend the funds we have. Would this kind of sound economic practice make us "look bad" to the other nations? That's alright. Even if we appeared very ugly to our neighbors, we would have a balanced budget. And we could quit taking a bite from that sour snow cone.
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