Whither the budget surplus?

Maybe we have a real surplus of money to run the federal government,
and maybe we don’t. I put it that way because there is ample evidence
that much of what this government tells us is calculated more for the
purpose of advancing an agenda than keeping us well informed and
knowledgeable.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable or even cynical to believe that a
president who would lie to justify taking us to war in Yugoslavia would
lie about a budget surplus to justify spending more money on his
favorite social programs.

However, to be fair, deception is one thing, and incompetence is
another. I happen to be of the persuasion that this administration could
not tell us the truth about the budget even in the unlikely event that
it wanted to. I subscribe to the position taken by the late wag and
playwright George Bernard Shaw: “If all economists were laid end to end,
they would not reach a conclusion.”

I am still waiting for someone to explain why the national debt
continues to go up if the budget has been balanced. Nevertheless, for
purposes of discussion, let’s assume there is a surplus. That provokes
the question: What should we do with the excess money?

If you are among those who believe everyone wants lower taxes, you
are not only mistaken, but badly mistaken. There is a large and growing
constituency for more and higher taxes. Indeed, to an extent not widely
realized, American society is divided into those who want tax reductions
and those who want tax increases. This division of people roughly
parallels the two major political parties.

When Republicans advocate an across-the-board decrease in taxes, they
are accused of trying to reward the “greedy rich.” In a flagrant appeal
to class envy, Democrats brazenly ask, “Why give the money to people who
don’t need it?”

As a general rule, Democrats would rather eat a poison pie than
return taxes to the people who paid them. The Clinton administration is
moving swiftly to spend the surplus on new programs and entitlements
before conservatives have a chance to cut taxes.

Liberal Democrats have a core belief that the government is the
steward of all the wealth generated in America and that it is not only
their right but their duty to redistribute it according to some murky,
neo-Marxian, communal concept of “fairness.”

Taxes equate to power, and power is finite. Every tax represents a
transfer of power from the people to the government. The underlying
premise of every tax is that the money will do more good in the hands of
government than in the hands of the people who earned it. The underlying
assumption of every economic and social mandate is that bureaucrats are
more capable of making decisions than are private citizens.

High taxes equate to big government. An insidious alliance exists in
America between the political hacks and bureaucrats who are empowered
and enriched by big government and those individuals, groups and
organizations who have grown increasingly dependent upon big-government
programs and largess.

This alliance includes government employees and their union bosses,
whose jobs, pensions and pay increases depend on government revenues
(taxes), socialists who understand that taxes fuel bigger and more
controlling government, various groups of degenerates who need a
powerful government to validate them and protect them from the moral
discernment of others, organizations and businesses who are
parasitically attached to the public treasury, guilt-ridden social
advocates who are trying to win spiritual points by giving away someone
else’s money, politicians who need a big bankroll with which to buy
votes and reward friends, and finally, the overlords and administrative
lackeys of the welfare state and the recipients of handouts who have
come to love them.

In response to numerous requests, I will repeat my definition of the
raison d’etre of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party exists to
serve and enable: abortion-industry workers, the-sky-is-falling
environmentalists, bilingualists, illegal immigrants, ideologically
homeless ex-communists, communists, convicted felons, unconvicted
felons, pornographers posing as artists, propagandists posing as
journalists, network anchors posing, food-stamp junkies, anti-American
multiculturalists, hard-core feminists, the venereally diseased,
anti-tobacco fascists, anti-religious bigots, latent anti-religious
clerics, pro-gay clergy, gay clergy, government employees, union bosses,
government contractors, the Chinese Liberation Army, the sexually
disoriented, educrats, trial lawyers, the willing poor, drug addicts,
old-sin New Age atheists, race hustlers, members of the black caucus,
professional victims, punk musicians, condom manufacturers, proud and
practicing members of the North American Man Boy Love Association
(NAMBLA), and dead people buried near Chicago.

The ability to service these groups with benefits, preferential
treatment, lifestyle validation, ideological succor, and hard cash
stolen from other Americans is the glue holding the Democratic Party
together.