I understand what you are saying. I think in the long run, you will lose out. Once you get done repairing the front end of your car because a giant pothole destroyed your wheel assembly and you get done paying the deductable because your car got stolen, I think you'll find that a small increase in taxes will be the better deal. This is of course assuming that you make $250,000+. Road repairs, police coverage, and housing criminals aren't free. Eucation isn't either. Cuts to education also have serious long term effects.
And this is nothing but a ridiculous attempt at fear mongering that "OMG if we don't raise taxes on the top 2% essential portions of society will become destroyed!"
So the federal government can't give as much to states to do road work. Lets say we even accept your premise. States will then have to learn to be more efficient in what they spend their road money on or find other ways to finance it. Individuals may, gasp, have to actually pay attention to the road for potholes. And hey, at least I'll have more money in my pocket that I can choose to use myself for my repairs if need be.
Again, accepting your premise that somehow lawlessness will run amock, its assuming that police currently are running at maximum efficiency and thus any cuts at all will result in gross lawbreaking.
You make the typical, riduclous and idiotic fallacy of equating conservative with anarchist. Of comparing cuts in funding with removal of funding.
This is where the bigger problem is. What are we going to cut? The right says domestic individual welfare. The left says the military and corporate welfare.
And neither side does the sensible thing and says cut it from all to some extent while identifying which programs and services and spending is considered legitimately "essential" to the function of government and what is a "luxury".
When you have hard financial times as a family you don't continue to buy expensive grocheries but cut out all luxuries. You also don't severely skimp on grocheries while buying a new X-Box game every week. You, if you're smart, cut back everywhere, though "luxury" things get a larger cut then essential ones. The government needs to do that as well.
Meanwhile, 2% of the population is controlling the issue of revenue.
Incorrect, FAR more than 2% are controlling the issue of revenue. Go take a look at exit pollings on the amount of people for extending the Bush Tax Cuts for all...I assure you, its more than 2%. The mistake you're making here is thinking that everyone gloms onto class warfare and its only those evil 2% that are putting a stop to this. That's simply not the case.
Seriously, we need to cut spending and increase revenue. You can't just do one of these things to reduce the deficit.
Here's the thing. We
KNOW the government has no problem raising taxes. George H.W. Bush implimented new taxes, Clinton implimented new taxes, Bush implimented new taxes, Obama implimented new taxes and wanted the tax rate for some to go up. The government has proven, time and time again, that is has ZERO issue with raising taxes utlimately.
What is hasn't shown though is that it is willing to make spending cuts, or interested in using the money that is gained from raising taxes for anything other than
MORE spending.
You're right, we need to do both. We absolutely do. However, just doing one...raising taxes...and not the other, mixed with what we know historically happens with increased taxes (additional spending, not paying down the deficit with that money), is WORSE in my mind than doing neither of those two things.
Essentially for the current situation doing both > reducing spending alone > doing neither > just raising taxes.
Raising taxes and just raising taxes does nothing but feed the addiction. This is like saying that a person is having financial problems because they always are buying cartons of cigerettes, so since you can't get them to stop buying so many cartons you decide to give them extra money every month to help with their finances. However, if they end up going out and buying more cigerettes all you've done is given yourself less money and continued enabling their bad habit.
We haven't ALWAYS run a deficit. As long as people get the new community center or whatever in their hometown, they won't hold the politicians accountable. This explains the poor approval rating of Congress yet having an astronomical recitivism rate.
However, outside of a short period of time during the perhaps the most prolific technological boom of the previous century while having a staunchly conservative congress and a center leaning democratic president, it has generally been the norm. And unless we're banking on a once in a lifetime type of economic miracle that was the technology explosion of the late 90's, then politicians are going to have to actively work towards a government that isn't running a gigantic deficit.
I won't speak for other Conservatives but I would be willing to accept a small tax increase, ACROSS THE BOARD, if it was tied directly with reductions in the federal budget. I'd even accept it to be "progressive" to your tax bracket as long as it was across the board and wasn't huge in disparity from the lowest to the highest percentage. But unless you're giving me some kind of guarantee that the government is going to do ITS part if we citizens do ours, and that our money will actually be going to fighting the deficit not just helping them add to it, then you will never get me on board with any sort of tax raise.