By J.J. Jackson
With the "fiscal cliff" looming before us, it is time to warn you that this Christmas Season the only thing you are likely to receive are worsening tantrums from Washington. Most of these tantrums will come from liberal Democrats. Although, make no mistake, there will be many coming from liberal Republicans too. Sure, there are a lot more of the former, but the latter are just as bad.
The reason for these tantrums is simple: liberals just don't understand the problem. The problem is that America is spending more money than we are bringing in. Now, liberals think that they can solve this problem by "bringing in" more money through tax increases on the "rich".
Yawn. It's the whole robbing Peter to pay Paul sort of economics liberals excel at. Increasing taxes simply doesn't solve the problem. And all intelligent beings know this. You don't get growth by shifting money around.
Let's look at the math, shall we?
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the way we measure a country's standard of living. It is equal to private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports – imports).
Taking money from the "private consumption" and "gross investment" components (by taxing people) and moving it in to the "government spending" component changes nothing. Well, it makes liberals who benefit from "government spending" happier, but essentially the GDP stays the same.
The math is simple. Subtract a billion dollars from "private consumption" to add into "government spending" and nothing changes. Swat another billion dollars from "gross investment", and likewise move it to the government's control, and still nothing changes. All you have is the equation now looks like this:
GDP(new) = (PC - $1 billion) + (GI - $1 billion) + (GS + $2 billion) + (exports – imports)
And further:
GDP = GDP (new)
And then, if you really want to deal with the real world, things start looking not so good once you realize that government never gets the most out of the money it taxes from Americans to spend. If you doubt this, I suggest you review the history of government spending money on failed "green" energy jobs. Lots of government spending has gone POOF with nothing to show for it. Again, except for a lot of rich liberals who are laughing all the way to the bank with your tax dollars.
In reality, GDP (new) is much less than GDP before.
The real problem is that the "government spending" component of the GDP exceeds government revenues by about a trillion dollars. That's every year. This means that our GDP is artificially inflated by about one trillion dollars. Make any cuts, which we need to do, and the GDP goes down. That can have serious economic impacts in the short term. In the long term, it solves a great many problems, however.
But liberals won't let those problems get solved. They won't let them get solved because too many of their constituents rely on that extra billion dollars of funny money we are spending every year. And we all know what angry liberals do when they don't get what they feel they are entitled to. Just remember the Occupy Wall Street crowd and those rioting loons over in Greece if you need a refresher.
So instead, liberals pretend that taxing certain Americans will make everything alright. And they will kick and scream all the way over the "fiscal cliff" if they don't get their precious class warfare codified. President Obama rants and raves about the need for a "balanced approach" to our problems. What he means, of course, is that unless he gets tax increases on certain people, those he has deemed to be evil, he will throw a tantrum the size of which America has never seen.
Yet, as we can see, raising taxes solves nothing. And that, my friends, is why President Obama is stupid. It is why Harry Reid is a dunce. It is why Nancy Pelosi is the Queen of the Yum Yum Brains.
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J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn
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