Despite previous claims that the Bush tax cuts would raise revenue, we now know the 2001 tax cuts was a half-baked attempt to starve the beast at a cost of approximately of $1.35 trillion over 10 years while the 2003 tax cut cost another $350 billion over 10 years. We also know that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was pegged at $1.26 trillion through 2011 and the unfunded Medicare Part D prescription drug program stands at $272 billion so far.
We also know there are hundreds of smaller discretionary spending bills passed through Congress each year without designating any revenue raising mechanisms to pay for them.
We also knew that without offering revenue mechanisms to pay as they go, nearly all of these expenditures beyond the government's regular operational expenses were thrown on the nation's credit card. But why?
For starters, one political party in America chose to commit themselves beginning in 1986 to the "No Tax" Pledge created by lobbyist Grover Norquist of the fallaciously named Americans for Tax Reform outfit. By signing Norquist's pledge, Republicans said the wealthiest nation on earth does not have to pay it's current bills with it's own money. Why should we pay now they figure, when they have our children and grandchildren to pay for it, or at least that's what they want us to fear.
Another untold known is the Pledge was never about limiting federal spending or creating new funding methods to pay the nation's bills. To do so would have meant the acknowledgment that the federal government is competent and fiscally responsible; a concept and perception that is intolerable to the pledge's adherents and mission statement. To the contrary, Norquist’s pledge was designed to not raise the revenue necessary to pay the nation’s bills. It's sole purpose is to seed debt without ever taking responsibility for it's destructive growth in a perverse if not evil attempt to drown the U.S. Government in a bathtub. It's that simple.
It's also no coincidence Norquist's mission to “drown the federal government" runs parallel to Paul Ryan’s Randian struggle to destroy the American social compact. That Ryan repeatedly states that the current path will drown our children and grand-children in a pool of debt is consistent with Norquist's messaging narrative, however intentionally misleading.
The current Norquist path of debt was purposely designed to act as an ax on the hull of a ship stuck in place with an immovable expense anchor. Sooner or later, the hole in the hull would cause the ship to sink, while the men swinging the ax will swear it's the spending anchor and flooding waters that is sinking it.
However, if we return to Norquist's core mission statement of drowning the federal government in a bathtub, you'll soon realize that none of these evil characters actually care about reducing the deficit - ever. It's the feeling of sinking and drowning they want us to fear most - not the actual sunken ship. It's like being waterboarded.
One of their back-handed remedies to stop the waterboarding, Ryan's alternative "Path To Prosperity" budget manifesto, doesn't involve patching the hull they've axed. It instead pulls up the anchor by slashing non-security discretionary spending while ramping up tax cuts for the establishment's wealth extractors under the guise of tax reform. When you pull away the smoke and mirrors, Ryan's budgets amount to nothing more than a cruel joke holding the same goal as Norquist's pledge; to wipe out the federal government.
By far, one of the most visible examples of Norquist's influence takes place during the Bowles-Simpson Debt Commission, a mini-Congress partly made up of six Republicans and six Democrats. The Commission was doomed to fail from the start simply because half of the commission signed the Norquist Pledge.
Nation Of Change Excerpt:
Note how many deficit hawks regularly trash President Obama for not endorsing Simpson-Bowles while they continue to praise Ryan — even though Ryan voted to kill the initiative when he was a member of the commission. Here again is the double standard that benefits conservatives, proving that, contrary to establishment opinion, Obama was absolutely right not to embrace the Simpson-Bowles framework. If he had, a moderately conservative proposal would suddenly have defined the “left wing” of the debate, just because Obama endorsed it.
Yet through all of the different administrations, presidents, congresses and failed budget policies, if there's one common denominator and material cause that stood in the way of our nation's ability to balance a budget for the past 25 years, it's Grover Norquist "No Tax" pledge and those Republicans who signed it.
So I've created a little chart here, based half on arithmetic and half on intuition, that takes into account all the larger spending bills and tax cuts of the past decade and runs them in reverse back to 1986, assuming Congress would have also raised the revenue and closed tax loopholes during that time to pay for them - as if the Norquist tax pledge never existed. Without the Norquist pledge, the federal government would have paid it’s bills with minimal borrowing and we would not have the perception of a debt crisis we now have today.
Future Uncertain With Pledge-Induced Debt
The truth of the matter is; if you're concerned about the causes of the nation's debt and decline without understanding the enormous negative impact from the Norquist tax pledge, you're simply not paying attention or in denial. I also contend that Norquist's pledge-induced-debt is intentionally laying down the foundation for a superstructure of debt to eventually cause the collapse of our Constitutional government, the American social compact and the end of the U.S.A. as we know it.
One way or another, Republicans claim disaster awaits. They should know.
Related:
Random Person Creates New Pledge For Congress
The Congressional Re-Affirmation Pledge
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