Grover Norquist: Reduce taxes and spend less

Liberals don’t like tax cuts.

In December Congress did something useful. It made several temporary tax cuts permanent.

Corrupt politicians love temporary tax cuts — they can demand campaign contributions every two years to “extend” lower taxes. Now, the politicians who sold temporary tax credits are out of business.

Liberals hate the permanent tax cuts. This means less opportunity for corruption and $580 billion in lower taxes over the next 10 years.

The spending interests demand that any reduction in your tax burden be “paid for.” What does that mean? Lower taxes means you have more of the money you earned left with you and your family.

When the pols raise gas taxes or excise taxes, you have less take-home pay. Do the newspapers care enough to ask what your family will go without this year and future years because of higher taxes?

No, the left focuses only on the desires of big government. Government could “pay for” tax cuts by reducing spending. We pay hundreds of millions in taxes to pay for the sugar subsidy program. We paid at least $733 million to subsidize Obamacare exchanges that went bankrupt. And Solyndra. And gold-plated pensions for government workers who also have permanent jobs. Tenure.

We can reduce deficit spending. By spending less.

Congress loses interest in the deficit: Our view

In 2011 Congress put a ceiling on spending that — despite Democrats’ objections — has already saved hundreds of billions. This year, the Republican Congress agreed to permanently pay for doctors’ reimbursement in Medicare. (That cost $150 billion over a decade in higher spending.) In return it reformed the Medicare system to save $3 trillion in spending — net present value today. President Obama signed the bill that reduced future deficits by $2.85 trillion.

State and national taxes should be reduced and “paid for” by reducing the cost of government. The GOP House has five times passed the Paul Ryan budget plan to reform entitlements without tax hikes.

Raising taxes is what politicians do instead of reforming government to cost less. No mas.

Grover Norquist, @GroverNorquist, is president of Americans for Tax Reform.