Every president and Congress since Carter raised taxes—and spending rose

By Kay B. Day

I’d be willing to place a solid wager the overall consensus of President Obama’s so-called fiscal commission will be what almost every Congress has turned to since President Jimmy Carter—tax increases.

Peanut float at Pres. Jimmy Carter's inauguration. CBS said Carter and his Democrat Congress pushed social security tax hikes 'through the roof.' After Carter's presidency, what most US taxpayers had left in their pockets were peanuts.[Image US Library of Congress; by Marion S. Trikosko.]Leftwingers love to wail about President George W. Bush’s so-called ‘tax cuts.’ They were and they weren’t tax cuts, of course. Some gained and some lost. The Wall Street Journal noted: “…[t]he top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years.”

Leftwingers always believe a tax increase is the answer. Congress obliges and the president agrees and taxes go up. What else goes up? Federal spending!

Here’s a brief timeline of federal government tax lust:

•In 1976 Pres. Jimmy Carter raised social security taxes. CBS said Carter and the Democrat Congress raised those taxes “through the roof.”

•In 1982 Pres. Ronald Reagan and Democrats in Congress raised taxes.

•In 1989 and 1990, Pres. George H. W. Bush caved to Democrats in Congress and raised marginal tax rates as well as erasing exemptions for high-earner taxpayers.

•In 1993 Pres. Bill Clinton and Dems in Congress raised taxes.

•Pres. George W. Bush implemented tax changes, raising them for some and lowering them for others.

•Pres. Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have already raised taxes and he wants to raise them more—his fondest wish perhaps is for electricity bills to “necessarily skyrocket” via a cap and trade tax bill propagandized as an energy bill.

The only thing that’s gone up alongside taxes? Spending.

If the bureaucrats in Washington should recommend raising taxes in the midst of a financial meltdown enabled and abetted by Washington and hedge fund cronies and others, the act would border on criminality.

Here’s some advice for the so-called fiscal commission—call it the ‘Three-Step Program’:

1. Kick Andy Stern off the fiscal commission. This union heavyweight appointment is so obviously a politically incestuous product it’s an insult to taxpayer morality.

2. Advise the commission: No new taxes.

3. Advise the commission: Recommend cuts from the budget. Examples are downsizing and then deleting the Dept. of Education, federal government arts programs, reducing foreign aid considerably and taking a hard look at government accountability across the board. There are thousands of options for cutting. Start with Obama’s own hundreds of millions in earmarks when he was a junior senator shuttling pork to Chicago.

We Main Streeters can’t just print money and rob somebody when we want to spend more. If we did that we’d go to jail. The same should hold true for those we elect to office and pay to represent us rather than shilling for bureaucrats and cronies in the government sector.

Every president and Congress since Carter has raised taxes. Spending rose and still rises as Dems pack the tax extenders bill HR 4213 full of pure lard.

It borders on criminality, with voter stupidity not far behind.