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Investing and Economics Blog

Charge It to My Kids

In Charge It to My Kids Thomas Friedman makes the correct point that I have made previously (Washington Paying Out Money it Doesn’t Have - Inheritance Tax Repeal). Politicians like to tax your grandchildren to pay for what they are spending today.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, was asked about a proposal by some Congressional Democrats to levy a surtax to pay for the Iraq war, and she responded, “We’ve always known that Democrats seem to revert to type, and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything.”
…
added Ms. Perino. “I just think it’s completely fiscally irresponsible.”

Friends, we are through the looking glass. It is now “fiscally irresponsible” to want to pay for a war with a tax. These democrats just don’t understand: the tooth fairy pays for wars.

Huge deficits created by spending tons of money that you don’t have, is just taxing your grandchildren. It is not a sign of being fiscally responsible. It is a spending today and charging it to your kids - which is a bad idea.

If you want to cut (or not raise) taxes the honest way to do so is to cut spending. It is not honest to claim you are not raising taxes when you spend more than you have and pass on debts. Those debts are just future taxes. Those electing these politicians that just add more and more debt to the future are mortgaging the country. Those debts will come due. That is obvious.

You can seem to have a free lunch (or free roads to nowhere or whatever other frivolous, or important, spending you want) for awhile (decades actually for a country with a very strong economy) but eventually people will have to pay for the debts the current credit card culture of those in Washington. Those decades of spending what they don’t have might well start causing real pain in the next 10 years, or perhaps such irresponsible behavior can go on several more decades (a strong economy can hide spendthrift habits). but eventually that spending will have to be paid for - either by your children or grandchildren.

Related: Buffett on Taxes - Warren Buffett on the similar trade deficit (where those in the USA directly, instead of though their elected government) spend beyond their means:

Making these purchases that weren’t reciprocated by sales, the U.S. necessarily transferred ownership of its assets or IOUs to the rest of the world. Like a very wealthy but self-indulgent family, we peeled off a bit of what we owned in order to consume more than we produced.
October 7th, 2007 by John Hunter | | Tags: Economics, Taxes, quote

Comments

5 Comments so far

  1. Week in Review 2007-10-12 | the Wealthy Canadian on October 12, 2007 2:35 pm

    [...] Cat has made another interesting post about the American deficit spending being equivalent to future taxes.  Good point, debt is merely charging something to our [...]

  2. CuriousCat » Proposal to Triple NSF GFRP Awards and the Size of the Awards by 33% on October 14, 2007 7:16 pm

    Currently the United States has over $8,000,000,000,000 (that is over $8 trillion - see current count) in debt (increasing by over $400 Billion a year)…

  3. CuriousCat: Raising Taxes on Future Generations on November 4, 2007 11:30 am

    to manage your investments you need to understand the great risk of a rising debt load (whether it is you personally or a country)…

  4. CuriousCat: Rodgers on the USA and Chinese Economies on February 6, 2008 10:46 am

    Jimmy Rodgers is one of the most successful investors ever. He and George Soros were partners during the amazing run with Quantum Fund (up over 4000% in 10 years)…

  5. Let the Good Times Roll (using Credit) at Curious Cat Economics Blog on December 4, 2008 10:50 am

    The real problem with the USA economy is that a country cannot live beyond its means forever. Those living in USA have consumed far more than they have produced for decades. That is not sustainable…

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