The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Shared Sacrifice’ = Tax Increases

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 4 Comments

Today, Obama will give a major speech on deficits and here’s an Associated Press video report in which the reporter uses the phrase “shared sacrifice” to describe the president’s plan to call for repealing the Bush tax cuts:

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that the plan Obama will outline on Wednesday at George Washington University would contain both spending cuts and tax increases. “The president believes there has to be a balanced approach,” Carney said. . . .
Carney said that the GOP plan drafted by Ryan is unbalanced “through it’s rather drastic reform of Medicare and Medicaid…That’s not the approach the president believes is the right way to go…The burden has to be shared by everybody.”

Now let’s think through this “balanced approach”: If you are receiving assistance from the government in the form of payment for your medical care, that money comes from . . . taxpayers.

But because we’re spending too much — more than the taxpayers actually pay — we need to balance the budget. So if you get less services at taxpayer expense, and the taxpayers have to pay more, that’s what is being called “shared sacrifice.”

Except the taxpayers are being asked to give up more of their own money, whereas the people on Medicare and Medicaid are merely being asked to make do with less money from the taxpayers.

Something about this “balanced approach” doesn’t seem so balanced to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Category: Barack Obama, Budget

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