Spending Cuts Alone Won't Solve Federal Budget Debt

Have you seen the comparison between the Democratic and Republican tax-cut plans? Well, look here. That chart, published by the Washington Post in August, should show just about all you need to know. The rows of balls that represent tax cuts -- from each party -- get bigger and bigger under the GOP plan, like a snowball rolling down the hill.

The categories are just about equal until we get to the $500,000 income level. Then the snowballs start looking like beach balls.

Anyone who suggests that the more fortunate could afford to pay more is almost reflexively accused of engaging in "class warfare" or "envy." The budget mess is an emergency, folks, and we're not going to balance the ends by uncovering and defunding a few bucks for snail-darter studies.

For all the TEA Party "taxed enough already" bellyaching, a USA Today study revealed that 2009 tax rates were the lowest since 1950, and income disparity between the rich and the poor has never been higher. Six-figure incomes are considered middle-class. Hard to imagine.

As Jimmy Carter notes on page 134 in his recently released "White House Diary," his first budget as president back in the late 1970s was $500 billion with a $25 billion deficit. This year's spending plan is $3,800 billion with a deficit of $1,300 billion. (I'm sticking with reference to "billion" instead of "trillion" for the sake of consistent comparisons.)

What should we do?

First, take a look at recent presidential history. The last two candidates who were honest about taxes and spending were either voted down or voted out. Carter's veep, Walter Mondale, acknowledged that either he or Ronald Reagan would have to raise income tax rates. Mondale was landslided, and then Reagan was forced to do as Mondale had predicted. George H.W. Bush, who accurately described Reagan's supply-side scheme as "voodoo economics," discovered that to be responsible, he would have to welsh on his "read my lips" pledge. Bush 41 was subsequently voted out, and Bush 43 seemed to follow Reagan's example more than his own father.

The solution: Nothing will be solved until more American become honest and unselfish about their tax share, and they stop claiming to be know-it-alls. Spending alone cannot solve our problems; we need to consider the tax code.

How about some facts?

We spend more on security (Pentagon, overseas contingency efforts and the Homeland Security Department) than we spent on the much-maligned stimulus, $844 trillion to $787 trillion. And one-third of the stimulus was tax cuts. How many people realize that TARP and the auto bailout have been repaid? By comparison, people seem to think welfare, but Health and Human Services gets a comparatively small $84 billion.

Wasteful spending should always be hunted and wiped out, but we should have no illusion that uncovering waste will yield $1,300,000,000,000 per year. It's time to pay the piper.