Erick Erickson is confusing tools with punishments:
Only the House Freedom Caucus has the will to reform entitlements. Entitlements are weighing down the country and pushing us off the fiscal cliff. The “big beautiful bill” does not reform entitlements enough, does not close the deficit, and grows the national debt further.
This is not sustainable. At some point, bond investors will give up on the American economy. In the worst-case scenario, they’ll stop buying leaving the government without an influx of cash. In the less worst scenario, they’ll demand much higher yields, which will suck up more tax revenue and expedite the debt spiral of doom.
Without massive reforms, all our taxes will go up and our economy will shrink. In the meantime, our costs of doing business will go up, including higher mortgage costs, etc.
I’m not entirely sure that he understands this, or is just so foursquare against taxes that he blindly afflicts the citizenry with hammer blows and saw blades under the assumption that taxes are punishments.
A lot of people think – as a shortcut, perhaps – of taxation as confiscatory. It’s not. It’s your contribution to improving society where the free markets are inefficient, or even inoperative. To do something that the free markets won’t doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time or money. Consider the campaign to land on the Moon. Was it worth it? Yes – not because of what we found, but from the technologies we developed to get there. Tomes have been written detailing all the lovely things we developed to support the endeavour, from physics to dental drills.
Back on point, railing about taxes is reflective of this key misunderstanding about their purpose. If we need to boost taxes to cover debts incurred by foolish politicians, regardless of their Party affiliation, then lets do it, learn from our mistakes, and get on with the business of governing the United States.
Eh?
