It's the Spending, Stupid!

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Budget insanity
By: John Stossel

Last year, Congress agreed to $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts, unless politicians find other things to cut. They didn’t, of course. So now, with so-called sequestration looming in January, panic has set in. Even the new “fiscally responsible” Republicans vote against cutting Energy Department handouts to companies like Solyndra and subsidies to sugar producers. Many claim that any cut in military spending will weaken America and increase unemployment.

It’s another demonstration of the politicians’ addiction to spending — and how we are complicit. “One more infrastructure bill” or “this jobs plan” will jumpstart the economy, and then we’ll kick our spending addiction once and for all.

But we don’t stop.

For most of American history, government was tiny. But since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the promise that government would cure poverty, spending has gone up nonstop. This is not sustainable.

Progressives say: If you’re so worried about the deficit, raise taxes! But it’s a fantasy to imagine that taxing the rich will solve our deficit problem. If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion. That’s only a third of this year’s deficit......Amazingly, we could grow our way out of debt if Congress simply froze spending at today’s levels. That would balance the budget by 2017. If spending growth were limited to just 2 percent per year, the budget would balance by 2020!

It’s the spending............stupid.