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Monday, November 10, 2008
Rich Galen :: Townhall.com Columnist
Bailouts and Taxes
by Rich Galen
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What was the biggest suprise of Election Day?



The big question among Republicans over the past five days has been "How high will the All-Democrat-All-The-Time-Administration-and-Congress raise our (read my) taxes?"

This is the good-news-bad-news joke about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publically stating they want to bail out the Big Two-and-a-half domestic car manufacturers.

I'll come back to that in a minute, but follow me on the tax issue.

A tax bill has to originate in the U.S. House. Why? Because Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution says so: "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

As we all know, all 435 voting Members of the U.S. House who choose to remain in office have to run every two years. That means they will all have to run again in 2010.

We also know that, as a general rule, the party in power tends to lose seats in off-year (non-Presidential) elections, so Democrats in Republican Congressional districts will be very careful on things like taxes.

There has been an agreement - maybe even a rule - in the Congress which calls for "pay-as-you-go" spending. That means every dollar in new spending is supposed to be offset by a cut somewhere else, or with additional revenue to make up the difference. This had been shortened to "Pay-Go."

Given the recent fondness of the Congress and the Bush Administration to bail out anyone who has ever made a bad business decision (to include building or buying a house which is likely to be in the direct path of a hurricane EVERY SINGLE YEAR!) we should call this policy: "No-Go." Continued...
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About The Author

Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. Rich Galen currently works as a journalist and writes at Mullings.com

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(20 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Nov 11, 2008 - 11:10 PM EST
Can Someone Help Me Understand?
I’m not a rocket scientist, nor do I profess to be an economist, but I’m not stupid either. Can some one tell me what is going on? Is it just pure greed on someone’s part or something else? Even an embezzler knows that the chickens come home to roost sooner or later.

I feel like we’re being duped.
Look at the gas prices. What’s gas doing at $1.85 per gallon when it was $4.10 three or four weeks ago? It’s the cheapest it’s been in almost 8 years.
When I moved to Tennessee in 2000, it was $1.79.
These high gas prices have directly contributed to a lot of people getting into financial difficulty.
Congress has refused to drill or do anything to relieve it.

Look at the loan crisis. You mean to tell me that they couldn’t see this coming. What do we pay these people for?

This blame game is not flying with me.

Numbers do not lie. Despite the enormous debt of trillions because of reckless spending, the Bush economy has been strong. It was strong until 6 weeks before the election.

We have had record low unemployment, record high stock market gains in this administration, mainly because of the tax cuts. Revenue has been rolling in, but rolling out the back door.

If we had not have had a war on two fronts, Bush would have been haled as a financial wizard.

I hate to feel like someone is manipulating me, but that’s the way I feel.

And now it looks like I ain’t going to get my welfare check.
Dog gone!
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Reply # 2
Date: Nov 11, 2008 - 9:40 PM EST
AUTO BAILOUT
i think that the bailout for the american auto industry should be done by their unions not by the american people. it's the unions that made our industry non competitive so it's they who should pay. the union bosses all have lots and lots of money, i know when i belonged to a union all that happened was that i got a smaller check than what was promised-so called union dues which amounted to another tax for nothing. go out of business and lets go on!
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