Willful Ignorance:  Democrats’ “Fiscal Cliff” Negotiation Stance Ignores Reality

With the 2012 election in the rear-view mirror, the Obama administration and members of Congress have now turned their attention to the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

The Democrats’ opening salvo?  Once again calling for tax increases, specifically $1.6 Trillion in new taxes over the coming decade generated by hiking rates on households with income in excess of $250,000.

This immature, irresponsible, and irrational demand for more money is unbecoming of our so-called “public servants.”  At a time when tax-paying Americans are having to do with less, Democrats defiantly refuse to address entitlement reform, and clamor for government to do with more.

Democrats, after justifiably criticizing the deficit spending incurred during the Bush administration, have long since dwarfed its fiscal recklessness.  Yet they refuse to behave in a responsible manner, and instead opt for the role of a teenage daughter with her father’s credit card.

FY 2000 represented the peak of fiscal responsibility in the wake of the conservative takeover of Congress, spending cuts, and welfare reform.  The Federal Government enjoyed a surplus of nearly a quarter of a Trillion dollars.  If spending had been maintained at FY 2000 levels, adjusted for inflation, the U.S. would have enjoyed a net surplus of almost $1 Trillion from FY 2000 through FY 2011, rather than the net deficit of nearly $5.8 Trillion that was actually incurred.

Even with two-bookend recessions (brought about by the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble) suppressing revenue, actual revenue generated from 2000 through 2011 was more than enough to cover fiscally responsible levels of spending, and to leave the U.S. with less national debt after a chaotic decade culminating in the economic collapse of 2008 than it held after the peaceful and prosperous 1990s.

Democrats are not serious about understanding why the U.S. is in its current fiscal mess.  Democrats are not serious about entitlement reform.  Democrats are not serious about reducing deficits.  One should not expect Democrats to be serious about resolving the so-called fiscal cliff in a responsible, rational, tax-payer friendly way either.