I am sure the wizards of Congress have their noses up in the air, wondering how anyone could do better than they did now that the so-called fiscal cliff is behind us. But of course, the reason the ‘deal’ is so offensive to Main Street and the GOP base (which is now on the hunt for new leaders and a new party) is because of what the priority was between two stark choices. As someone at the Weekly Standard observed recently, the obsession with low taxes while spending spirals out of control is truly insane:

The future is also, in the progressive American mind, a more prosperous and untroubled place—especially if we can just get ourselves through today’s pressing exigencies. This manner of thinking tended to dissolve the distinction between investing for the future and borrowing from the future.

…

Nevertheless, tax cutting and “no new taxes” became increasingly embedded in Republican electoral strategy. As they did, they took leave of supply-side economics just as completely as demand stimulus had taken leave of its Keynesian origins. Indeed, tax reductions for the masses (but not for the wealthy and corporations) became a matter of bipartisan consensus and competition.

This ‘consensus’ between the two political extremes for high spending and low taxes is the path to disaster. It has created the situation where we are now stealing from our children and their future earnings, instead of paying our own way. Below is the real cliff we are already over and about to crash on – the national debt cliff (which is now worse than pictured due to the ‘deal’ in DC). [click to enlarge]

When President Bush left office we were just under $10 billion in debt. Obama has been able to raise that by 60% in a singe term, with the national debt now above $16 billion. Every year the Democrats and GOP add around $1.3 trillion to this mountain of economic pain.

Those who crow about keeping taxes low are insulting our intelligence and our honor. I don’t want to steal from my kids’ futures! I have not worked my entire life to leave them over two lifetime’s of debt to pay off, on top of everything else they need to pay for (house, car, food, clothing, schools, etc). So when the GOP comes out crowing about all the taxes they saved it makes me want to throw up! Because they did not save a damn dime in taxes.

They stole all of it from my kids, and their kids. Right now, to pay off all the ‘borrowing’ from future generations without their permission (which is called ‘stealing’ in my book) would be bloody painful.

At $16 trillion and with a population of 300 million to spread the pain across, each man, woman and child owes around $53,333. For a family of 4 that is $213,333. But the problem is, not everyone is going to pay off this debt. I would wager, since half of this nation doesn’t even pay federal taxes, only half will be burdened with this debt problem. So double the amount the upper half now has to shoulder: $106,666 per individual and 426,666 per family of four!

That is impossible. But it is worse than that, because these yahoos in DC did not cut a dime in spending, nor will they. So we have years of more debt to accumulate. If the chart is right, by 2020 we will owe not $16 trillion, but $23 trillion. At our current rate of annual deficits, that is a low estimate, but let’s run the numbers again with 300 million people paying it off and 150 million paying it off:

• 300 million paying off $23 trillion = $76,666 per individual, $306,666 per family of four
• 150 million paying off $23 trillion = $153,333 per individual, $613,333 per family of four

This is of course impossible, which is why we are now stealing from 2-4 future generations, not just our kids.

And this is why Tea Party, Libertarian voters – those same voters who swept the GOP into office in 2010 just to have them fold like a cheap lawn chair on the debt and deficits – are so fed up with the GOP. The GOP act as if keeping taxes lower is what we want! We only want lower taxes IF SPENDING IS CUT! Otherwise we are stealing from our kids futures – and we DON’T want that.

So while the morons crow they kept taxes down, we know what they really did. They stole more money from our kids, their kids, their kids and probably their kids too. We are the epitome of deadbeats. And they insult us by crowing how they saved us paying taxes… Like we are really that stupid to buy that line?

Update: Ed Morrissey notes the $16 Trillion dollar elephant in the room:

The staggering national debt — up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited when he took office in January 2009 — is the single biggest blemish on Obama’s record, even if the rapid descent into red began under President George W. Bush. …

But why did we not make this a priority instead of the myth of lower taxes? Can’t these people see these issues (taxes, spending, debt/stealing) are tightly coupled together?

Update: One major quibble with Ed Morrissey:

They can now argue that the country needs to stop borrowing from China in order to pay for its current obligations and creating debt that will extend to four generations into the future.

If the GOP argues this, forget about it. No one cares about borrowing from China. What they need to explain is how we stole from our kids, who will need to work off all this spending from this deadbeat generation. Who they pay is not as important as the size of the debt now owed….