When Will The National Review Understand “To Spend is to Tax”?

Stephen Spruiell blasts the House Democrats because he thinks they will raise taxes. It’s interesting that he doesn’t get around to saying the Democrats want to spend more than the old GOP leadership in the House that they have replaced. In fact, his subtitle is:

Democrats send a same-old budget to the floor.

It is true that current tax rates are not raising enough revenues to cover current spending and it is true that the Democrats want to raise current tax rates. But my quoting Milton Friedman – “To Spend is to Tax” – is simply an acknowledgement that deficit spending is really deferred taxation. Why the National Review nitwits cannot get such a simple point is beyond me. If the Democrats are not proposing higher spending, then they are not proposing higher taxes over the long-run.

But Mr. Spruiell does have another suggestion for cutting the deficit:

The budget resolution, which the Democrats sent to the House floor for debate Wednesday night, does nothing to mitigate America’s skyrocketing entitlement costs.

In other words, he wants to cut things like Social Security benefits even though the government will likely continue to collect those payroll “contributions” – which of course, converts them to employment taxes. The rightwing critics of Speaker Pelosi also have in mind a form of tax increase – that being a backdoor employment tax increase that they label entitlement reform. Thankfully, Speaker Pelosi is not taking their advice.