What ever happened to CUTTING taxes AND cutting SPENDING ??? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton watches well the NC Legislature and U.S. Congress for government waste and dumb taxation policies in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    Politicians in Raleigh and DC, aided and abetted by our oft-clueless media, are railing about how the only way to fix our economic mess is to get the 'guv-mint' MO' revenue.

   Some state Republicans, along with the Civitas Institute, are pushing the idea of a state consumption tax. That involves taxing labor AND materials. THAT means kn0cking up the cost of a lot of services many of us use regularly. THAT means taking more money out of our pockets. THAT means adding another regulatory burden for small businesses. It ALSO can mean reduced demand for goods and services and another monkey-wrench being tossed into efforts to get people back to work and grow the economy .

    I agree that "progressive" tax rates need to be deep-sixed. I agree that something needs to be done about our current state tax structure. But I also believe that the bureaucracy needs to sacrifice FIRST before bleeding more money out of a battered economy and war-weary population.

    You can't tell me there is nothing to cut out of state government, or that it's been cut to the bone. The total number of state employees has grown by about 20,000 since 2003. For starters, take a look at the Department of Administration. You could honestly defund HALF of that place and NO ONE outside the Raleigh beltline would notice. I also have little sympathy for state government leaders demanding MORE revenue from us when they are GIVING away multi-million dollar parcels of real estate.

    In DC, it appears that House Speaker John Boehner -- the man Renee Ellmers calls her "boss" -- is rallying behind Nancy Pelosi's plan to raise taxes and -- MAYBE, sometime down the road -- cutting some government spending.

    We are in this "fiscal cliff" drama because the "honorables" punted the issue of fiscal responsibility in 2011 by raising the debt ceiling. We get some lip-service about spending cuts. But in the fantasy lands of Raleigh and DC, spending cuts are merely cuts in growth. That's why you hear lefties moaning about "spending cuts" while the budget, the rate of spending and the ranks of the government workforce grow.

    It's becoming more and more clear that taxing and spending our economy into the ditch and over the cliff is officially a BIPARTISAN endeavour.