It Was the Worst of Timing

They've known for a year what was coming, because a year ago it was they who set the timer for everything to explode. It was they who extended the Bush-era tax cuts to detonate New Year's Eve, they who contrived for the payroll tax reduction to go off simultaneously, they who rigged the blast caps of the sequester for the same moment, and it is they who then did nothing all year to defuse their misdeeds once they realized the wreckage that would be the consequence.

Or should we liken them to irresponsible college kids who wait until the night before to cram for the finals. They could have worked throughout the year on the true tax reforms they themselves recognize as so badly needed and so often speak of, but far more important than cleaning up the nation's messes was their own re-election.

If it's not obvious, we are referring to the Congress of these United States, enjoying their lowest public approval rating ever (11%). And all they finally did was tweak the tax rates on income, capital gains, dividends and inheritance for top earners. All those ideas about trimming deductions and “loopholes”? They vanished. In fact some limits were applied to the higher income group but in the form of new intricacies to complicate the tax code still more. Think how rapidly the code would be simplified if there were a law for Congress members to figure their own taxes.

And the sequester? The $1.2 trillion in cuts across ten years split half-and-half between defense and other spending, made mandatory a year ago because our so-called "leaders" couldn't get the job of sensible apportionment done then, either? The cuts were to start now, but the Senate agreement has instead planted that IED two months down the road where it will discharge just about when Congress and the White House will be in a firefight about the debt ceiling.

The tax plan passed resoundingly in the Senate, 89 to 8, but 151 Republicans in the House voted against it, angered over the lack of spending cuts. The strange irony is that these avid tax cutters preferred to go over the "fiscal cliff" and see taxes rise for everyone rather than taxes rising only for the wealthiest.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permanent low rates will add $4 trillion to the deficit over ten years in comparison to letting the 2000 rates resume. Looked at the other way, compared to continuance of 2012 rates, revenue from increases for the top income groups will cut the deficit by $650 billion over the ten years.