Word: hike
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...crunch could come in May, when Bush will be in need of Senate votes to raise the national debt ceiling above $2.8 trillion. Like a hanging, a hike in the debt ceiling concentrates the mind. The ceiling will not go up, says Johnston, unless the President "comes to us and swallows hard about raising revenues. When he does that, that's when we'll cooperate...
...President. Read my lips: he ought to raise taxes. But not much! What's called for is not something so dramatic as to throw the economy into recession. That's the last way to lower the deficit. What's called for is a tax hike that would raise some money (I'll get specific in a minute) and that would lower interest rates by showing the financial markets we have the will to attack the deficit (but the wisdom not to shoot ourselves in the head by attacking it too hard). Lower interest rates would cut the deficit still further...
These two bites -- $40 billion or so from a tax hike and perhaps an additional $10 billion or $20 billion from lower interest rates -- would not wipe out the deficit. But we don't need to wipe out the deficit. At least not by raising taxes. And certainly not by legislating a balanced-budget amendment. And especially not by cutting investment in our future...
...increased federal excise tax (currently eight-tenths of a penny). While it's hard not to sympathize with the addicted smoker, the cost of smoking to society, in medical care and lost productivity, far exceeds the current tax on the product. That is, nonsmokers subsidize smokers. With a tax hike -- this one would raise $5 billion -- they'd merely subsidize them less...
Finally, raise the excise tax on gasoline. A 25 cents-per-gal. hike would raise about $25 billion a year -- but would still price our gasoline at well under half what it costs throughout Europe and Japan. When the U.S. was a net oil exporter and the world's dominant economic force, we could afford to be cavalier about cheap gasoline. But we're now in debt up to our eyeballs, and we're back to severe dependence on imported...