Should taxes and spending be linked in Congress? We hear endless talk about "offsets" and "pay as you go" every time budgets and authorization bills come up. Some favored constituencies get a tax dedicated to just one thing. The gasoline tax is dedicated to (earmarked for) road building, so the road builders don't have to fight for funding every year. It's nice to be a road builder.
May it not be better to consider taxes and spending separately? Taxes need to be low enough to keep the economy running and tamp down political unhappiness that leads to votings out, civil insurrection and other unpleasantness. Most of the time this means that taxes cannot be raised much without serious consequences. Certainly Obama's call for a tax hike on "millionaires and billionaires" isn't exciting the broader electorate.
Expenditures rise to meet income (Parkenson's law). There is an infinite amount of worthy causes that can suck up all the money in the world. But nobody is that rich. Effective government spends money on the absolutely necessary things and stops after that. Otherwise they go broke. Witness Europe, Greece, Spain, Iceland, Ireland and the US.
So the common thing heard today "If we pass your appropriation, then you have to pass our tax hike to pay for it." is just another way of saying "No".
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