Obama’s $1.5 Trillion Tax Hike

In return for all this new debt, we cut an immediate $7 billion (that’s “billion” with a “b”) out of the $3.6 trillion federal… well, it’s not a federal “budget,” because we still don’t have one of those, but let’s say $3.6 trillion in federal spending “urges” for fiscal year 2011. If Congress’ clever plan to set aside all that messy “representative democracy” stuff and hand off its fiscal responsibilities over to the 12-member Super Committee works out as planned, we’ll get another $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. Even if all of that came in the form of spending cuts – and it won’t – that would work out to a measly $250 billion per year for the next ten years, from a government running trillion-dollar annual deficits.