Failure Is Goodreuters.com
Failure Is Good
Made popular 546 days ago in Politics
nytimes.com — Why was the supercommittee doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.

In Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a job-creation strategy. Try getting a leading Republican to admit that the Bush tax cuts increased the deficit or that sharp cuts in government spending (except on the military) would hurt the economic recovery.

But don’t we eventually have to match spending and revenue? Yes, we do. But the decision about how to do that isn’t about accounting. It’s about fundamental values — and it’s a decision that should be made by voters, not by some committee that allegedly transcends the partisan divide.

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Posted by ChrisAndrews72
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Is it better to leave this decision to the voter in 2012?
Yes, we'll reach a mandate
90%
No, should not leave up to voter
9.5%
This is not a scientific survey, click here to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and voting descrepencies.
User Comments
minoriabc
Posted 546 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
We had a balanced budget. The first in four decades, we cut taxes while increasing spending. I think we all agree we need to get spending in line, but why are there so many people that have such a hard time seeing the obvious fact that the Bush Tax cuts are at least partly to blame for our huge deficits. We should have never cut taxes until we paid off our accumulated debt and cut spending. You don't quit your job until your bills are paid. And you don't take a lower paying job until you know you can reduce your spending accordingly. Check out common sense at http://truefiscalconservative.blogspot.com/
jmrkaa
Posted 545 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
It won't happen with new deregulation and tax cuts. It won't happen with a divided power base that currently exists. Yes, spending should be reduced too...
lastbaldeagle
Posted 544 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
You seem to gloss over the fact that the democRAT party controlled the Congress for the final two years of the Bush administration and Prince Harry and Princess Pelousi were leading the democRAT spending binge. The Republicans went right along with the out of control spending as well. I personally am tired of hearing the lame excuse of blaming everything on the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. You have to be a moron to not be willing to share the blame between the liberals in both major political parties.
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