The ‘Dairy Cliff’ and Other Absurdities

acting-man.com / By Pater Tenebrarum / January 3, 2013

Is there Free Beer Somewhere?

The way the markets celebrated the Senate’s attempt to kick the can down the road for two more months on Wednesday, one might be excused for asking the above question. What on earth is so great about that? The link leads to a word.doc published by Cumberland Advisors that lists most of the tax goodies the senators saw fit to make permanent, as well as their estimated cost. Note here that while we are in principle all for anything that lowers taxes, these provisions are all directed at specific groups – which means that someone else will have to pay for them.

More specifically, there have been a number of corporate welfare provisions identified, which are inter alia going to help such worthies as Goldman Sachs, Disney, the banks, and NASCAR race tracks. Evidently it was imperative to include such subsidies to these poor, destitute corporations in a last minute agreement that was allegedly required to avert an imminent economic recession.

The absurdities certainly don’t end there however. As Mish points out, with the exception of a handful of principled senators whose votes are not for sale (and whom German welfare statists believe to be ‘extremists’, which by itself is a strong hint that they are correct), the Republicans in the Senate essentially “waved the white flag of surrender” by agreeing to a deal that involves practically no spending cuts at all.

However, we would point out to this that the debt ceiling negotiations are still looming, and it seems likely that the Republican party will once again employ this weapon to try to force concessions from the tax & spenders. We hasten to add that the Republicans themselves are apparently unable to even give an inch on defense spending (once again with a handful of principled exceptions). Moreover, the whole debate isn’t really about lowering the public debt or actually cutting spending anyway – it is merely about the future rate of growth of deficit spending.

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