Two Tax-Hiking RINOs Slain in GOP Virginia Primary

I’m currently in Paris for my final stop on the Free Market Road Show. In other words, I’m in the belly of the beast of big-government statism.

So you would think I might be depressed, but I’m actually in a good mood.

Not because I’m surrounded by millions of socialists, but because voters in my home state just punished a couple of entrenched incumbent Republican politicians who sided with special interest groups and voted to rape and pillage taxpayers.

Here are some bring-a-smile-to-your-face details from a Washington Post report.

Two 20-year veterans of Virginia’s House of Delegates lost their seats Tuesday, falling to GOP primary challengers who assailed their support for a tax-heavy transportation funding overhaul. Del. Joe T. May (Loudoun) and Del. Beverly J. Sherwood (Frederick) lost to political newcomers who railed against the transportation plan, which imposes a $1.2-billion-a-year tax increase. … No sitting Republican delegate had faced a primary challenge since 2005, when activists went after some of those who supported a $1.5-billion-a-year tax hike pushed by then-Gov. Mark Warner (D).

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that these Republican-in-name-only lawmakers claimed tax hikes were necessary because there was no room to cut spending.

But the real problem is that too many Republicans in Richmond decided that the cesspool of big government was actually a hot tub. So rather than drain the swamp (yes, I’m mixing my metaphors), they decided they wanted more money to waste.

So, over the past several years, the burden of spending rose. Not just rose. It climbed twice as fast as inflation.

But they needed more money to maintain and support bigger government. So they disregarded their anti-tax promises.

And two of them paid the price at the polls. That may not sound like much since 34 GOP lawmakers sided with the left and voted for the tax hike.

But remember that it’s very hard to defeat incumbent politicians. So when a pair of 20-year incumbents lose, you can be sure that other lawmakers now will be far less likely to side with the political class instead of the people back home.

By the way, what makes the story in Virginia so pathetic is that Republicans normally get seduced into tax increases because of stupidity. As the Charlie Brown parody indicates, they get tricked into believing higher revenues will be used to lower deficits.

But in this case, the RINO Republicans openly admitted that they wanted more revenue to expand the state budget.

Heck, they didn’t just deserve to lose. They should have been tarred-and-feathered.

The no-tax-hike position is a line in the sand that shouldn’t be crossed.

The starve-the-beast rejection of tax hikes isn’t a sufficient condition to control big government, but it darn sure is a necessary condition.

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Congressman Ryan’s Budget Restrains Spending Growth, Allows Private Sector to Expand Faster than Burden of Government

The Chairman of the House Budget Committee has produced a new budget plan which contrasts very favorably with the tax-heavy, big-spending proposal submitted by the President last month.

Perhaps most important, Congressman Ryan’s plan restrains spending growth, allowing the private sector to grow faster than the burden of government, thus satisfying Mitchell’s Golden Rule so that spending falls as a share of GDP.

The most important detail in the proposal is that the federal budget, which currently consumes 24 percent of GDP, would fall to less than 20 percent of GDP beginning in 2016.

That’s the good news. There are three pieces of not-so-good news.

1. Ryan’s plan allows spending to grow by an average of 3.1 percent annually over the next 10 years, with is faster than the 2.8 percent average annual growth in last year’s budget.

2. His proposed Medicare reform, while far better than current law, also is not as good as what was proposed last year.

3. The federal budget would still consume a greater share of the economy’s output than it did when Bill Clinton left office.

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that Ryan’s proposal isn’t as good as Rand Paul’s budget. Spending only climbs 2.2 percent yearly under the plan put together by the Kentucky Senator, and he also abolishes several useless cabinet-level departments.

But the very good shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. As noted already, Congressman Ryan’s plan meets the most important test, which is restraining spending so that the federal budget grows slower than the private economy. And, as the chart shows, he obviously imposes more fiscal restrain then President Obama.

Regular readers know that I generally show no mercy to jelly-spined Republicans, but I praised GOPers for approving last year’s Ryan budget. The same will be true if they approve this year’s version.

P.S. I am frustrated and nauseated by all the people who are fixating on whether Congressman Ryan’s plan balances the budget in 10 years, 20 years, or whenever. What matters is shrinking the burden of government. I hereby bestow the Bob Dole Award on all the people who are mistakenly focusing on the symptom of red ink rather than the underlying disease of bloated government.

P.P.S. I’m happy to report that there is no value-added tax in the revenue portion of Congressman Ryan’s budget. There is a VAT in his Roadmap plan, and I endlessly worry that this poison pill will re-emerge and ruin other good fiscal plans put forth by the Wisconsin lawmaker.

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Ways & Means Committee Republicans Achieve the Dubious Honor of Winning the First Bob Dole Award

I confess to being monotonous and repetitive when it comes to explaining that America’s fiscal problem is too much spending, and that debt and deficits are simply symptoms of that underlying problem of excessive government.

But no matter how often I repeat myself, the message isn’t sinking in – even among people who should know better.

That’s why I’ve created the “Bob Dole Award.” I’m hoping that a bit of well-intentioned moral suasion may convince people (at least the ones who presumably are on the right side) to be a bit more careful with their rhetoric.

The first winner of this (hopefully uncoveted) award are the Republicans of the House Ways & Means Committee.

These are the GOPers with the most influence over both tax and entitlement policy, so it’s very important that they understand the real problem and properly communicate with the outside world.

Unfortunately, even though the Committee normally produces good material, they messed up last week when sending out information about Obama’s big-spending budget proposal.

They issued a press release entitled “More than twice the debt in half the time,” and the document (also pasted to the right) accurately shows how red ink has exploded during the Obama years.

But a statist organization, left-wing lobby, or some other pro-big government entity could put out exactly the same press release and make it part of an argument for higher taxes.

After all, most leftists don’t openly admit that they want higher taxes to make government bigger. They always hide behind the fig leaf of “deficit reduction.” Needless to say, any additional revenue almost always is used to expand the burden of government spending.

I’m not sure whether the Bob Dole Award should be accompanied by a “shame on you” or a “tsk, tsk,” but the Ways & Means Republicans deserve a slap on the wrist (or kick in the rear, depending on your disciplinary style).

Correction: A Democrat friend emailed to point out that there was a factual error (as opposed to an error of judgment) in the GOP press release. And it’s one I should have noticed since I made the same point back in 2009, which is that the FY2009 budget began on October 1, 2008 and should be blamed on President Bush.

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