Should Conservatives Raise Taxes?

All right, well, thank you, Henry, for convening this discussion, Grover for joining.

I've been looking forward to this one.

I guess I will start maybe just at the level of principle and talk about what we mean by conservatives, because of course, I can think of people who wouldn't want to consider raising taxes, people who want to see the US collapse into communism, maybe anarchists and so forth.

But for conservatives, I guess I would start with a few suggestions.

One is that conservatives rightly view ourselves as the trustees of a great nation that we've inherited.

We recognize the intergenerational nature of the compact and our obligation to hand on something to the next generation even better than we received it.

Obviously, we take personal responsibility very seriously.

And I would suggest that including paying our bills is an element of that.

And finally, we recognize that culture matters and prudential statesmanship is not just a matter of conducting policy well, but really sets the tone for many other things in the country.

And if you take all of that seriously, then I think you have to look at the fiscal picture that we find ourselves in and recognize, first of all, that it's quite dire.

We are now at the level of debt relative to GDP that we last saw right at the conclusion of World War II.

We are running enormous deficits and they are getting larger.

And I think of particular note, the interest payments that we are making on the debt is now itself driving the debt.

That is sort of the point at which you're not just warning that we might have a fiscal crisis to come.

We essentially are in the midst of it.

And so one thing I'm very much looking forward to discussing with Grover is whether there might be any alternative.

I don't imagine he thinks that the status quo is sustainable, though I'll let him speak for himself.

But if we assume that we need to address this situation, the question is how to do it.

Certainly, I don't think we can solve it with tax increases alone.

I think spending cuts need to be a serious element, probably even the majority of the solution.

But I think that increasing taxes, first of all, given these circumstances, is appropriate and reasonable.

And secondly, that regardless, it is the only way to reach the kind of political compromise we need to achieve.

That is, there is no political path to achieving spending cuts without any tax increase.

And so let me talk a little bit then about just the practical side of things.

What would this look like? Why do we need it? Obviously, I mentioned the state of the deficit and what we're looking at.