Here in Colorado, it is already that wonderful season when my wife and I will be tempted to throw our snowboards in our SUV and head for ski country.
When we head up, I will be reminded of America’s can-do spirit. I’ll drive on an interstate highway that ascends high-mountain terrain and rolls through tunnels that long ago pierced the solid rock of the Continental Divide by dint of massive amounts of federal tax dollars and a national desire to reign supreme.
I’ll honk and wave at the men and women wielding tremendous plows that (mostly) keep the high-mountain passes open to travel, even in the teeth of (most) winter storms.
And then I will wonder: Where in the hell did that can-do spirit get to?
The devastating recession and ensuing excessive government overreach have rightly stung many Americans, and so I get the Liberty Movement’s taxed-enough-already mantra.
But I’ve read enough spooky warnings that we’re headed for the equivalent of a national bankruptcy to want to do my part. I don’t like all this talk about the world’s greatest economy headed for also-ran status. I want to live in the Eisenhower Tunnel version of these United States.
So a big part of me wanted to write a column that championed the middle-class rate I was paying prior to President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. Like a lot of Americans, I get that paying taxes is part of the package deal that allows me to live with so many freedoms and opportunities.
Because, honestly, if you put aside the demeaning hypocrisy about only taxing the rich and trust the government math, a total repeal could bring in nearly $4 trillion over the next decade to start paying down the debt. (Merely taxing the rich gets you $700 billion. Yawn.)
If I believed that the federal government had truly found religion on spending, and finally found a way to balance its budget, I’d be happy to help pay down $4 trillion of the debt to ensure America’s economic future.
But utopian notions aside, the facts on the ground convince me that a return to the pre-Bush tax rates would be a terrible misfortune, and my objection is beyond the obvious one that times are hard, unemployment is at nearly 10 percent and consumer spending remains too anemic to fuel a rebounding economy.
Something greater is at stake. We’re at a critical moment where we must start reducing the size of our government.
Free-market economists warn that once nations let their governments soak up more than 25 percent of their country’s wealth (the Gross Domestic Product), their economies see a long slide of diminishing returns. Others set the sweet spot of government spending to economic output as low as 15 percent.
Presently, America’s total government spending — local, state and federal — accounts for more than 40 percent of GDP, with the federal take at about 25 percent. That’s higher than at any time since World War II. Further, unless Congress manages to overhaul entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, the federal take of GDP is expected to swell much faster than most of us have seen in our lifetime. (Again, think World War II.)
I get it that during times of crisis, Americans of old did what it took to pay for success, and that we’re mired in a pricey war on terror. But we’re not facing a World War II.
Given that, we would be fools to pay a penny extra to Uncle Sam until he hauls out his checkbook and takes on the hard, kitchen-table work of balancing revenue and spending.
Until then, paying more in taxes wouldn’t be the patriotic thing I had hoped when I set out to write this.
It would be dangerous and wrong.
Denver Post editorial writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at cplunkett@denverpost.com.
