Say Anything Blog

And so are Republicans, I guess, but with the Democrats the hypocrisy is particularly acute.

These guys are saying that we may have to raise taxes or cut spending in order to pay for additional troops in Afghanistan.  And I’d agree with that, though I’d point out that there’s plenty of fat to be trimmed from federal budgets that would more than pay for additional troops.  I’m a supporter of the war, but I also feel that we should finance it appropriately.

But why weren’t these politicians talking about the need to offset new spending with tax hikes and/or spending cuts when we were debating the “stimulus” spending spree?  Or cash for clunkers?  Or TARP?  Or the auto bailouts?

Senators from both parties warned that an expected increase in U.S. forces in Afghanistan could lead to tax increases or budget cuts to pay for the deployment.

President Barack Obama is set to unveil his new Afghanistan strategy on Tuesday, with expectations that he will announce the deployment of about 30,000 more troops to help battle the Taliban there. Some estimates have put the cost for each troop at $1 million per year.

“We have to begin to pay for everything we do,” said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and former Army Ranger who plays a leading role in the party on military issues. “Whether it’s broken out specifically or not (and paid for by a tax) is a detail,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He said the surge shouldn’t be paid for “indefinitely, through deficits,”

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on the same show: “I believe there will be a separate accounting. … We may wish to discuss higher taxes.”

What irks me is that budget issues only come up when the big-government types want to oppose something.  I think it’s perfectly valid (and very needed) to talk about how we pay for a given war.  But I also think we need to have that debate when we’re talking about government spending in the name of “economic stimulus” or saving companies that are allegedly “too big to fail.”

In fact, I think every single policy being considered by our government should be presented to the public along with a price tag.  No more of this hiding costs with deficit spending or budgeting tricks.  We should simplify the tax code so that if you want to support a bailout for General Motors and the union parasites attached to it you’ll know that your taxes will go up.  Or that spending on another government program or policy will go down.

Of course, that level of transparency would make it hard for the big government types to convince us that we need things like “stimulus” spending and government-run health care.  If they can’t pretend like those policies are going to be paid for by someone else (i.e. “the rich”) or won’t increase the cost of government at all (see: budgeting tricks) then most of their policies wouldn’t have much in the way of public support at all.