It's wasteful spending like this that not only forces tax increases and cuts in vital services... but also really make you wonder: who is City Hall looking out for?
History shows that tax increases during a recession are a recipe for greater unemployment and economic loss.
I can tell you what happens to countries that go bankrupt. I've been to Argentina. I'm familiar with the history of Mexico and Great Britain. We'll see the same things here shortly: inflation, huge tax increases, capital flight and, eventually, capital controls.
Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government.
Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.
Small business owners are experiencing great uncertainty because of the possibility of tax increases, the inconsistent flow of credit, an outrageous national debt, high energy costs, and overreaching federal regulations.
Nearly every policy during the Obama years was anti-growth: tax increases; minimum-wage hikes; ObamaCare; Dodd-Frank regulations; massive debt spending; the Paris climate change accord; an EPA assault against American energy; massive expansions of food-stamps programs and more.
The truth is Mr. Trump could simply sit in the Oval Office for four years like a potted plant, and that would be a vast improvement over the Obama agenda, which was almost in every case - from tax increases to spending stimulus bills to Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, the war on fossil fuels, and so on - bad for growth.
If, before 2020, there is a choice between further spending cuts, more borrowing and tax rises, the priority must be to avoid tax increases. They would disrupt consumption, employment and investment.
If the Republican Party continues to take the view that there must be no tax increases, we're stuck. Capitalism can't work without safety nets or fiscal prudence, and we need both in a sustainable balance.
