How is it justifiable to, on the one hand, slam the president for not reducing the deficit, but then on the other hand, refuse to up the taxes on the wealthy? How is that even rational? Please explain to me why the Repubs want to have their cake, eat it too, and throw a fit until its done? Anyone out there want to enlighten me?
This is actually pretty simple....
The cause of the deficit is not a lack of tax revenue. The cause of the deficit is the American Government spending more money than it has available to it. Kind of like the old axiom.... "How can I be out of money, I still have checks left?!?!"
I make a pretty fair living, a little more than $60K a year. I have certain fiscal responsibilities, paying for my rent, my car, food, and other essentials. After that is done I have a certain amount of "disposable" income that I can spend or save. Depending on what I do with that disposable income, I may find myself in a position where I cannot purchase things that I WANT because I don't have the money. At that point I can either go into DEBT (borrow from friends, credit cards, loans, etc...); take money from the essentials; or choose not to make the purchase.
The Government works in a similar way. There are certain essential services that the Federal Government is required to maintain. They're listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The difference is that legally speaking, the US Government is not supposed to have any "disposable" or "discretionary" spending. It's not on the list of things they can do. However, over time the Government has ignored the rules and spent with reckless abandon on those discretionary items, by claiming that some of them are legitimate items and ignoring the rules for the other stuff. Even worse, they are constantly borrowing from themselves and foreign governments to finance this inappropriate spending.
To that end, it is the SPENDING, not the taxes that get the US Government into trouble. If you or I only have $100 in the bank, we can't get $300 out of the ATM. The US Government CAN, and HAS, with no intent to pay it back, nevermind a plan to do so.
The fix to this problem is actually already starting to be put in place, with the US House of Representatives new rule that all spending bills MUST include an affadavid as to which of the 18 specific items in Article I, Section 8 the power to spend that money comes under. IF the Republican majority maintains that rule and enforces it, it should be a very small step towards starting to fix things. I'm not holding my breath on it actually happening, though.