60 Minutes: David Stockman: We Must Raise Taxes--For All

A sane and sober voice--measured, resonant, true--is finally heard from that small corner of the political world where reason still resides. It is the voice of David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's budget director and an architect of the Reagan tax cuts. Times and circumstances change, and so do the dynamics that support tax cuts and those that support tax increases. And David Stockman wants us to know that now is not a time for tax cuts; it is a time for tax increases.

More, the scope and threat of the budget deficit is so compelling that we must increase taxes for all, not just high-income idividuals. Middle-income America will also have to contribute. If the TARP and stimulus programs saved us from a much worse economic situation than we now face, they (and our wars) have left us with an unsustainable budget deficit that all recognize must be remedied as soon as practicable. But not one notable figure in either political party is willing to step up to the political microphone to deliver the unwelcome prescription.

But I should let Mr. Stockman speak for himself. From the text of his interview with 60-Minutes' Leslie Stahl last Sunday:

But with our national debt in the trillions, budget experts will tell you that just taxing the rich isn't enough. One Republican brave enough to go public is David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director. He says all the Bush tax cuts should be eliminated - even those on the middle class. And he says his own Republican Party has gone too far with its anti-tax religion.

"Tax cutting is a religion. What do you mean by that?" correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Stockman.

"Well it's become in a sense an absolute. Something that can't be questioned, something that's gospel, something that's sort of embedded into the catechism and so scratch the average Republican today and he'll say 'Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts,'" he explained.

"It's rank demagoguery," he added. "We should call it for what it is. If these people were all put into a room on penalty of death to come up with how much they could cut, they couldn't come up with $50 billion, when the problem is $1.3 trillion. So, to stand before the public and rub raw this anti-tax sentiment, the Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of themselves."

These frank words come from Ronald Reagan's old budget director. Stockman was the architect of the largest tax cut in American history. But he doesn't let the Democrats off the hook. He says he cringes when he hears President Obama say things like this: "I believe we ought to make the tax cuts for the middle class permanent."

"We have now got both parties essentially telling a big lie," he told Stahl. "With a capital 'B' and a capital 'L' to the public: and that is that we can have all this government, 24 percent of GDP, this huge entitlement program, all of the bailouts. And yet, we don't have to tax ourselves and pay our bills. That is delusional."

"Why isn't this statement correct? We cannot really deal with the deficit until we get our recovery underway?" Stahl asked.

"The recovery has already happened. It is weak, it is tepid," Stockman said.

Asked how he can say the recovery has happened considering there is a ten percent unemployment rate, Stockman said, "The unemployment rate is not going to drop by any material amount any time soon. And we're going to be in a period of austerity. We've had a 30-year spree of really phony prosperity in this country."

Now our national debt is growing by $100 billion a month. For those who say cutting spending is the answer, Stockman says both parties have thrown in the towel on that. "Even Republicans have said there's nothing significant we want to cut. They don't want to cut Social Security entitlements; they don't want to cut Medicare reimbursements to doctors; farm subsidies; education loans for middle class students. Certainly not defense!" he said.

For those who would like to view the entire interview--and I recommend it--you can find it at the CBS 60-minutes web site. 

Isn't it time to straighten our spine and set our jaw, time for a well-grounded sense of patriotism to again call to mind President Kennedy's inaugural admonition? Isn't it time to ask first what our country needs of us--especially at a time of such dire budgetary circumstances? And all that's required of us is to contribute a modest increase in taxes. Not much more, really, not even for high-income people. Surely our sense of entitlement, our preoccupation with what the country owes us, doesn't obscure our sense of duty to do our part, to meet that need. Does it?

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