Feb 03 The Liberal Lexicon 3: Balanced Approach

This is what's needed to close the state budget deficit say the Democrats, a bi-partisan compromise, a balanced approach.  This is nonsense on several levels, like having a couple of Hostess Twinkies with your healthy arugula salad to make it a balanced meal.

First of course, the deficit is largely the result of DFL overspending.  Granted, the GOP added to the problem here and there, but even that was usually with DFL approval.  We didn't start the fire, but we're expected to help put it out, their way of course.  They obviously didn't like how Governor Pawlenty did it last session.

Raising taxes, always a part of that balanced approach it seems, is not a responsible way to fix it.  That's the trouble.  Never having to pay the bill, the DFL just keeps on spending, which is why State spending is tripling every 20 years.  However trite, it's the truth: there is no amount of money the DFL cannot spend.

Finally, and fundamentally, however elegantly proposed and administered, always remember that taxes are collected at gunpoint.  I find it difficult to find a "balanced approach" in that reality.  In the words of Thomas Paine: "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

Cross-posted and comments welcome at Speed Gibson.