Tax and Spend

On my way in to work today, I heard a snippet of a President Bush speech on C-Span radio. “Tax and spend is the enemy of job creation,” he said.

That’s probably true. Unfortunately for the President, if tax and spend is the enemy of job creation, so is “borrow and spend,” the President’s recent formula.

The size of the budget and what it’s spent on is more important than how it’s financed. There are really only two choices for financing–taxes today and taxes tomorrow. Borrowing just means taxes tomorrow. The President likes to describe tax cuts as letting people keep more of their own money. I like that idea. Unfortunately, I agree with my hosts Tyler and Alex that the current administration has raised our taxes by increasing spending. So ultimately we’re keeping more of our money today and expecting to give back even more tomorrow.

Ironically, Bush has raised spending in what I would guess is a labor intensive way. By expanding homeland security, a lot of workers have been drawn into public employment rather than the private sector.

Last month’s job growth was “small” and almost all of it was in the public sector. That’s most likely a result of government spending pulling people into public sector jobs rather than the private sector.

This Friday is a big day for Bush and Kerry. The job numbers for March will be released. If they are weak again, Bush will have to keep talking about home ownership being up.