Posted by
ClearCommentary.com on Wednesday, August 06, 2008 3:02:15 PM
For those who are aware that the federal income tax wasn't formally sanctioned until 1913, it's a uniquely dispiriting experience to see the deficit ballooning under a presumably Republican Administration. Writing in today's Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby laments the sorry state of our fiscal affairs, in particular that neither presidential candidate is talking about it, at least not substantively.
Jacoby chronicles the fiscal debacle that's developed and its political contours, noting that either taxes will have to be raised or spending cut, and, even among putative Republicans, the latter is highly unlikely. Indeed, here in Colorado, Governor Bill Ritter is proposing confiscatory taxes on the oil and gas industry with the goal of using the money for college scholarships. It's the kind of classic modern liberal-socialist tax scheme that has absolutely no foundation in our Constitution, but is so firmly embedded in our cultural thinking that many, perhaps, most will enthusiastically support it.
At the federal level, as Jacoby notes,
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation, tallying the promises made by the presidential candidates, calculates that Obama 's "investments" would cost taxpayers another $344 billion a year. McCain's add up to an extra $68.5 billion.
Stipulating that candidates must distinguish themselves with policies that will garner support, it would be as refreshing as it would politically suicidal for a credible candidate to argue that less is more. Rep. Ron Paul made such an argument, and were it not for his blinkered foreign policy nostrums and his profound lack of charisma, he might have become the Republican nominee.
It's important to note, however, that his many other quirks notwithstanding, McCain, in sharp contrast to Obama, does understand that the government that governs least governs best. Presuming he wins in November--and the odds are looking better all the time--there is at least the chance that spending will be curtailed.
The conflagration of programs and initiatives, at the federal, state, and local level, that redress problems and ills that were historically the charge of the individual has become intolerable. Many, perhaps most, are efforts to resolve problems in the aftermath of poor judgment, which begins with people having children who haven't the financial means to support them, and that's both out of, and in wedlock. But also caught in its broad--read indiscriminate--sweep, is everything from our health care 'crisis' to environmental regulations, which either skew market variables or inhibit economic growth.
For those who yearn for the days when government kept its distance, when success and authority weren't stigmatized, when religion wasn't banned from the public square, and American exceptionalism was unquestioned, this is an unequivocally difficult time to be alive. It's only compounded when an urban activist, who, less than four years ago was a back bencher in the Illinois legislature, is a presidential nominee.