One of the most wearisome tactics from this Most Wearisome Adminstration Ever is its hyper-employment (I know-it's weird seeing "employment" in any context implying an increase in the Age of Obama) of the euphemism "revenues" in an attempt to dupe the public into paying more taxes.
In the hot bed of illogic that is Progressive political reasoning, the theory is that as long as our dear friend the Federal Bureaucratic Behemoth has more money to spend, the citizenry will be just fine. Just like getting a "Pass Go and Collect $200" card in Monopoly, the Progressives whiz right by the fact taking money from tax paying citizens to pay for federal "help" has rather hurtful consequences across the board. This is the omnipresent danger when dealing with people who have been entrenched for years in positions that allow them to be generous with money that isn't their own. On the federal level it becomes weapons-grade poison for the economy.
Add to that the constant fear-mongering about the economic issues facing Congress and the effects of the poison are accelerated.
Barely two weeks had passed after the Fiscal Cliff Theater drama had played out and the effects were already quantifiable.
Consumer sentiment unexpectedly deteriorated for a second straight month to its lowest in over a year in January, with many consumers citing fallout from the recent "fiscal cliff" debate in Washington, a survey released on Friday showed.
The sharp drop in sentiment over the last two months coincides with rancorous federal budget negotiations that have led to higher taxes for many Americans.
For those keeping score at home: Part One: federal revenues are negatively impacting taxpayer revenues, which is giving them less to spend.
Part Two: Less revenue for the taxpayer means less revenue for the places they generally spend money when the government isn't extorting it.
A slowdown in sales growth at many big U.S. retailers suggests a clutch of tax hikes enacted this month is already leading consumers to hold back on spending, putting a brake on economic growth.
Sales growth has cooled for three straight weeks when measured from a year earlier in the Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index, data showed on Wednesday.
Similarly, the ICSC U.S. retail chain store sales index, which is the other major weekly barometer of retail spending, has showed weakening of growth in the last two weeks.
"We can very tentatively say that these numbers look consistent with our view that the increase in taxes at the start of 2013 led to a slowdown in consumer spending," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.
The fact that the slowdown began even before the fiscal cliff-ahem-deal was reached shows that the incessant threat of an economic apocalypse by the Democrats in an effort to force the Republicans to cave has detrimental effects even before the latest tax burden becomes a reality.
So, safeguarding the federal revenue stream reduces the amount of revenue available to consumers and businesses. And where does the federal revenue stream come from?
Exactly.
Only in the diseased mind of a politician who has bought into the "bigger government as good" philosophy does the notion of reducing the revenue for the very people and businesses from which the government's revenue is derived seem plausible.
If only the Progressives were as obsessed with a sustainable economy as they are with sustainable energy, they would realize that this path leads to nothing but a dry, withered corpse of a taxpaying body that brings the whole house of cards tumbling down.
This is a nice practical real world description of the the infamous 'Laffer Curve', something 'progressive' economists seem to have missed in school.
In economics, the Laffer curve is a representation of the relationship between possible rates of taxation and the resulting levels of government revenue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
Laffer curve: t* represents the rate of taxation at which maximal revenue is generated. This is the curve as drawn by Arthur Laffer,[3] however, the curve need not be single peaked nor symmetrical at 50%.
RIGHT'S RIGHT 
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Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:55 pm
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