Howard Kurtz, in The Washington Post, has quoted Atlantic's Ross Douthat, as follows:

"You can't fund social democracy just by making the tax code ever more progressive: At some point, you need to raise revenue from the middle class. What Obama does have, though, is an atmosphere of crisis and a massively-unpopular opposition party, which grants him an unparalleled political opportunity to pass whatever spending the Democratic Party likes, and damn the short-term cost. And what you see in his budgeting proposals, I think, is the liberal equivalent of the conservative attempt to 'starve the beast.'

"In both the Reagan and Bush eras, Republicans passed tax cuts and ran up large deficits while hoping that by starving the federal government of revenue they would curb its long-run growth. Obama's spending proposals would effectively reverse that dynamic -- they would create new spending commitments and run up large deficits, in the hopes that the dollars poured into health care and education will create a new baseline for government's obligations, which in turn will create the political space for tax increases on the middle class. Like the starve-the-beast approach, the Obama strategy puts off the hard part till tomorrow: Give them tax cuts today, conservatives said, and they'll swallow spending cuts tomorrow; give them universal health care, universal pre-K, subsidies for green industry and all the rest of it today, liberals seem to be thinking, and they'll be willing to pay for it tomorrow."

I believe the man is onto something here. It is just about equally impossible to unring a bell or to unfund an established "entitlement." As Douthat notes, once these programs are in place, thereby "creat[ing] new spending commitments and run[ning] up large deficits," it will inevitably "create a new baseline for government's obligations, which in turn will create the political space for tax increases on the middle class."

Ah, the first baby steps toward democratic socialism in the US.

It's been less than 2 months...

I see no baby steps that you speak of...Only giant leaps...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks.

Indeed, it starts with the populist soak the rich mantra. The left loves a good Robin Hood story. Eventually, the entitlements will lead to dependence and will need to be supported by ever increasing taxation and the death of the American dream.

Soon, there will be no real way to obtain upward mobility.

This is what we must resist. I don't want my grandchildren to have all hope taken away by the man who campaigned on merely hope and change.

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Dudes ... you're just NOT THAT MUCH ****ING SMARTER than all of us. GET OVER YOURSELVES!
-- Me, to President Obama and the rest of his self-loving amateur staff.

It's one small step for Obama........and one giant step for communism.

I doubt that we will ever again see the America I grew up in. Since the sococratic party has figured out that as long as they are pro illegal immigrants they have a built in constituency for hand outs.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. Thomas Jefferson

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Courtesy of Swissman

A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers the autocrat, not because he fears the power of the gun, but, rather, the spirit of the man who holds it.

ANONYMOUS