A Modest Proposal

I found an interesting table on Brad DeLong's journal, which got me thinking:

Federal Spending as a Share of GDP:

21.6%: Last Carter budget (FY 1981)
20.7%: Last Reagan budget (FY 1989)

-0.9%: Change over Reagan terms

21.0%: Last Bush I budget (FY 1993)
18.3%: Last Clinton budget (FY 2001)

-2.7%: Change over Clinton terms

20.4%: Forecast FY 2005 budget

+2.1%: Change over Bush term

Now, obviously taxes have to match spending in the long run; either we pay now, or we pay later. So if you want to know how much someone thinks we ought to be taxed, you have to look at how much they want to spend. Clearly George W. Bush thinks that taxes should be much higher than they were under his predecessor. There is no brand of Earth logic that can refute this point. (He also thinks that a Democratic President should get the blame for raising them, of course, but that's irrelevant.)

My proposal is that before anyone is allowed to vote, they should be required to answer this question: "During his term, has George W. Bush supported (a) higher taxes; or (b) lower taxes?" If anyone answers (b), we know they're a space alien. And space aliens can't vote.