Can we actually benefit from new taxes?

Read any mainstream publication, listen to any news report and you will learn that raising taxes in some manner must be part of any deal to reduce the deficit. It may not be called a tax increase, but rather lowering of deductions or eliminating credits.

In the end these folks may be right, even Republicans are taking baby steps in this direction. This Congress and past Congresses have gotten us in such a mess (yes, including lighting the spark causing the great recession), there may be no way to simply cut spending for programs that many Americans have become conditioned to as something they earned.

But that is the real point, Congress that is. I subscribe to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) news service and not a week goes by that I don’t receive a report on their scoring the cost for yet another piece of legislation that has been introduced in Congress. Legislators can’t help themselves, they have to keep doing something, just about anything it appears to spend money. Regardless of the cause, there is one special interest or another egging them on. Every new piece of legislation costs money; to administer, to comply with, to litigate, etc.

So here is the $64,000 question, If we cut some spending now and raise taxes or otherwise increase revenue, what assurance is there that the next Congress and the one after that and the one after that won’t just keep finding ways to spend the new revenue? To put it another way, will additional revenue reduce the deficit other than on some spreadsheet to be revised each time a politician wants to fix something?