Within the Margin

We can quibble over details like what constitutes a “legitimate” safety net beyond food or the fact that “some” bridges and roads does not begin to address our national infrastructure woes. But I’ll give Representative Adam Kinzinger a bit of credit for thinking slightly out of the box on the matter of tax rates:

“…I don’t care what tax rates are, they are random number derived from haggling and negotiations. What I want is a small government with a strong and fierce military that can kill our enemies and break their toys, legitimate safety nets that provide food and not a way of life, and some roads and bridges. Put that vision into action and set the tax rates at a percent that covers those costs. And once you have our payment, leave us the hell alone. That my friend, is conservatism.”

However – there’s always a however – that doesn’t explain, Mr. Kinzinger, why you and virtually every other “conservative” in Congress have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise any tax rates by any amount. If you now believe in honest budgeting, fantastic! I’m glad you feel elections matter. I agree – they do! But it means it’s time for you to renounce Norquist. We can’t budget around the priorities you describe if we have an artificial box around how we balance our numbers. That’s not to say rates absolutely must go up – it’s to say that our approach to budgeting cannot be constrained by external political pressures like a tax pledge that never made sense in the first place.