Here's a thought....

The Bush Administration has lowered taxes and increased spending resulting in a massive deficit. Kerry is being portrayed by Bush as a tax and spend liberal. Here's a thought: How about balancing the budget by increasing taxes a little bit and spending a little bit less. I brought this up to one of my neighbors yesterday, and he told me that this approach can be dangerous for the economy. However, he didn't really give me a convincing reason why this is such a bad idea (he's a scientist, not an economist). I mean, I don't really relish the thought of paying higher taxes since the U.S. government doesn't really have that good of a track record in cutting the fat, but I tend to think in terms of personal finances. If your pay is suddenly reduced, do you go out an spend a ton of extra money? No. If your pay goes up significantly, sure you can start spending a ton of extra money but you're going to have to keep earning more and more so that you can keep feeding the monkey (especially if you have debt). What's that matter with earning more money and paying off your debt. Then, after you've paid off your debt you can start spending the money you were using to pay off your debt to buy some luxuries. As a far as I'm concerned, that just makes financial sense. Am I over-simplifying things, or am I just taking crazy pills or something?