We do not have a Revenue Problem, We have a Spending Problem

The debt limit battle continues to rage, and I for one would like to ask why it is we need to raise the debt limit at all?  The purpose of a debt limit is to cap spending and debt at a certain point.  At this point, it's time to accept that we've spent enough.  Liberals, lead by the President, keep talking about raising taxes to fund their irresponsible spending, but that will not solve our problem.  We do not have a revenue problem.  We have a SPENDING problem.

In the President's Friday speech, he claimed that "80% of the American people want a debt limit deal with some sort of tax increases." Wow.  No, they don't, actually, Mr. President.  According to a CBS/NYT Poll in April, nearly 70% of Americans don't want the debt ceiling raised AT ALL! That's one.  Two, Obama's statement is patently false.  According to a recent Gallup Poll, Americans prefer to deal with the deficit with only or mostly spending cuts nearly five to one over only or mostly tax increases.  Sorry, Mr. President, that's not true at all. One, they don't want a debt limit increase at all.  Two, most don't want tax increases.  More lies.

We do not have a taxation problem.  We have a spending problem.  Don't believe me?  Here's a quick history lesson:

President Obama would like you to believe that it was the Bush Tax Cuts that caused our deficit problems.  Based on that logic, you would expect that Bush's deficits to be close to those of Obama's, right?  Unfortunately, those pesky old facts keep getting in the way of Obama's argument. 

You see, under Bush, the worst deficits were just over $400 Billion.  I recognize that is far too much (about $400 billion too much by my math), but Obama's deficits in 2009 ended up being $1.4 Trillion, in 2010 the Obama deficit was $1.3 Trillion.  This year, it is projected to be over $1.6 Trillion (that would be four times Bush's worst deficit).  Refresh my memory, but weren't the tax rates under Bush the same as the rates under Obama?  Huh.  While we're at it, notice that before Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act reaped it's disasterous results in the sub-prime mortgage crash that those deficits were shrinking under Bush's tax rates.  Isn't that interesting?

Obama knows the Republicans aren't going to raise taxes, because to raise taxes in this economy would be absolute poison to the job market. So he keeps demanding it so he can claim "the Republicans are being unreasonable." The truth is Obama is demanding poison of the economy to pay for his overspending that is insufficient to cover those deficits anyway. But Obama won't admit that. He'd rather lie about it to keep the gravy train going a little longer.

Obama knows that the Bush rates did not cause the deficits.  Spending by Bush like Medicare Part D caused the deficits, just like Obama's spending has caused more deficits.  He also knows that raising rates as he wants won't make up a fraction of his deficits.  The truth, even though Obama won't admit it, is that he has spent far too much.  (To be fair, so did Bush.)

We are spending more than 50% more than the revenue we have, and that is simply not sustainable.  I made the mistake of spending significantly less than that over my budget when I was fresh out of college, probably about 10% over my income.  I spent that way for about a year, then I realized I could flat out not sustain it.  I proceeded to live like a pauper for a further three years until I could get back on my feet financially.  It wasn't by raising my personal revenue (actually, my salary dropped a little bit when this economy cost me my job in September of 2009) and yet when I started spending smarter (for example, buying store brand food instead of name brand) I had more money to spend on wants in my budget.

Spending at the levels Obama wants to spend is flat out unsustainable.  It requires large scale borrowing, because there is not enough money in the country to tax to fund this irresponsibility.  To borrow from an Obama talking point: It's time to "eat our peas" and cut spending.  Period.