re: #100 albusteve

The Dems have a huge problem looming in their future - the ever-increasing deficit, already at record levels, is only going to get bigger under their leadership. This is already causing grumbling within their own ranks, and outright terror everywhere else, as the unsustainability of their policies becomes apparent.

And the Dems are hamstrung by 0bama’s pronouncement, reminiscent of Bush I, of no tax increases. The Dems simply don’t know how to cut spending, only increase it; and they’re forbidden to raise revenue through tax increases. What to do?

Well, you can employ various stealth measures like this one, allowing tax decreases with time limits on them to expire, then claiming it wasn’t really an increase but a “restoration” of ordinary taxation. You can increase a host of fines, fees, mandates and other things that technically aren’t taxes, but that walk and quack just like them all the same. And, finally, you can selectively raise taxes on vilified groups, like “the rich,” while constantly re-defining exactly what constitutes this class until it includes anyone in the middle class.

The other stone around the Dem’s neck is the economy. Any increase in taxes, fees or other source that transfers money from consumer’s pockets to government trousers will be a drag on a recovery that looks anemic, at best. And the political price that such increases will command is probably too high for the Dems to bear.