JOHN BOEHNER

House Democratic Leaders are reportedly seeking to ditch the budget process this year to avoid more "tough votes" on their budget that spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much - but even as they seek to distance themselves from the 25 tax increases, totaling nearly $700 billion, they've already enacted, out-of-touch Washington Democrats are scheming to impose a European-style value added tax (VAT) on the American people.   Without fundamental tax reform, the VAT tax would be yet another tax hike that would hammer small businesses and undermine job creation at a time when the American people are asking "where are the jobs?"

Democrats will try to argue that a value-added tax is necessary to rein in the massive deficits that they've run up since last January.  But as the following chart from the Heritage Foundation shows, Democrats have as much of a spending problem as they do a deficit problem:

A job-killing value-added tax would simply lock in higher government spending without attacking the growing national debt.  As Robert J. Samuelson wrote in today's Washington Post:

Almost every pro-VAT argument is exaggerated, misleading, incomplete or wrong. The VAT is being merchandised as an almost-painless way to avoid deep spending cuts. The implicit, though often unstated, message is that a VAT could raise so much money it could eliminate future deficits by itself. This reasoning, if embraced, would create staggering tax burdens and exempt us from a debate we desperately need.

Higher taxes are proven job-killers - but Democrats are in denial about that self-evident fact when it comes to their desire to spend more of other peoples' money, as economist Kevin Hassett noted in Bloomberg News today:

Democrats believe that incentives they like matter, while those they don't like, don't. Hence their inconsistent views that you can increase marginal tax rates and not cause economic harm, but you can enact a tax subsidy for hybrid automobiles and save the environment....Their policies were never meant to make sense. What's absent is an economic conscience. 

Democrats never seem to consider that perhaps the American people are fed up with their never ending cycle of higher spending and higher taxes.  In fact, today's Los Angeles Times reported that the American people are yelling "stop" at the top of their lungs, but Democrats are refusing to listen:

Only 22 percent of all Americans surveyed said they trusted the government in Washington almost always or most of the time -- among the lowest measures in half a century....Growing numbers of people want government's power curtailed, Pew reports of a March and April survey that found ‘less of an appetite for government solutions to the nation's problems -- including more government control over the economy -- than there was when Barack Obama first took office.'

Instead of listening to the American people, out-of-touch Washington Democrats have doubled down on their job-killing agenda.  After jamming a government takeover of health care down Americans' throats, pushing a European-style value-added tax would simply add insult to injury.