Government must cut spending, not raise taxes

James Moldenhauer, North Las Vegas

Thursday, March 17, 2011 | 2:03 a.m.

E.J. Dionne’s column in Monday’s Las Vegas Sun, “ ‘We’re broke’ a lie we keep being fed,” misuses the word “broke” as I know it. Any individual or business in the same situation the federal government currently finds itself would be considered broke.

Current obligations cannot be met without either (1) borrowing more money, as the amount of the budget that goes to merely servicing the debt goes ever higher, or (2) creating money out of nothing, which will cause excessive inflation. Raising taxes (extorting money from people) is not a realistic solution, as higher taxes actually lead to lower tax receipts and reduced economic activity.

And the crisis is not sudden or new; it has been building for 40-plus years. Nor are the proposed solutions radical or “ideologically driven”; they are simply based upon common sense and basic arithmetic.

If the only way you can make ends meet is to borrow ever-increasing amounts of money (which is unsustainable) or inflate your money, then you are broke and you need to cut back or at least slow down a little bit.

And, as a clincher, Dionne resorts to quoting Sen. Al Franken. Anyone who quotes Franken in support of his case has not only lost the argument, but he also has lost his last shred of respectability and credibility.