The Democrats are all giddy about their new dedication to a "pay-as-you-go" strategy to control the deficit. Basically, this means that for every dollar of new government spending, there has to be an equal reduction somewhere else in the budget. Alternatively, a new source of revenue may be found to fund the new expenditure. Either way, the new spending is off-set, and the deficit is not increased. Good idea. It worked before when Clinton was president, and Congress was led by Republicans.
Now the picture is a little different. President Obama, as a candidate, assured us that taxes on persons making less than $250,000 per year would not see their taxes increased. Now he is an "agnostic" about tax increases on the middle class. It's not hard to foresee that any new expenditures will result in higher taxes, and that they will be rationalized as deficit-neutral under the "pay-as-you-go" program.
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