Here Comes the Largest Tax Hike in American History

The Democrats are going to live up to their "tax and spend" reputation:

The new Democratic majority begins dancing the next phase of the tax-and-spend minuet in the House of Representatives today. Following the example set by their Senate brethren last Friday, House Democrats will adopt a budget resolution containing the largest tax increase in U.S. history amid massive national inattention.

Nobody's tax payment will increase immediately, but the budget resolutions set a pattern for years ahead. The House version would increase non-defense, non-emergency spending by $22.5 billion for next fiscal year, with such spending to rise 2.4 percent in each of the next three years. To pay for these increases, the resolution would raise taxes by close to $400 billion over five years -- about $100 billion more than what was passed in the Senate.

It had been assumed that the new Democratic majority would end President Bush's relief in capital gains, dividend and estate taxation. The simultaneous rollback of Bush-sponsored income tax cuts was a surprise. This reflects Democrats' belief that they can survive a long-term commitment to bigger government. Here is an audacious effort to raise the banner of fiscal responsibility while increasing spending and taxes.

This Democratic strategy is encapsulated in what Harry Hopkins, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's main man, is alleged to have told a friend at New York's Empire City race track in August 1938: "We will spend and spend, and tax and tax, and elect and elect." While Hopkins denied ever saying those words, they represented successful Democratic government and political strategy for the next two decades.

If you abandoned the GOP during the midterm elections because you didn't like they way they allowed the Federal budget to explode, did you think the Dems would do any better? Neither party has done well in the last 20 years in the spending department, and the GOP certainly lost its way after taking control in 1994, but anyone who thought electing Dems would stop that problem was seriously confused.