As summer turns to fall and the heat of day is replaced with crisp mornings and colorful leaves, weather will quite often come up as the topic of conversation. Invariably, the question arises, "What is your favorite season?" Rather than answering with one of the normal four, I tend to stray from the course by replying, "Whatever it's about to be." The rainy season is an exception to the rule, however, as the southeast has found itself receiving more than its usual share this year. Quite simply, the Indian Rain Dancer has been successful in his attempt.
 
While I can't tell you what the weather will be tomorrow, I can tell you what it will be in two months. With great regularity, summer has always turned to fall, fall to winter, and winter to spring. It is something to which I have grown accustomed, and something on which I can rely.
 
There's the often-repeated joke that there are two other things we can count on: death and taxes. We have all heard it, we have all laughed about it - until the joke is at our own expense.
 
Taxes: the cost we incur for the inalienable right to be an American.
 
In 1978, Arthur Laffer created a model, today known as the Laffer Curve, graphically demonstrating that it was possible to simultaneously lower taxes and increase government revenue. After the initial horror at the very thought subsided, policy makers and economist alike began to consider the possibilities - and supply side economics was born. As America began to test, embrace, and benefit from this change in thinking, other countries began to move in the opposite direction. From 1970 to 1996, the tax rate in France increase from 49% to 59%, and over the same period, hours worked fell by 38% and real per-capita GDP declined 2%. With hindsight as our guide, we now know that people's decisions about how to spend their time are determined not by how much they earn, but by how much of their earnings they keep.
 
As we in America step away from so perilous a precipice, we can, in retrospect, appreciate what those at the helm we able to do - to spend our way out of the mess we had gotten ourselves into. Now the question gnawing at us is, "Just how do we plan to pay for it all?"
 
In one camp, we have those that suggest that our government reduce their spending. On the other side of the argument are those that suggest we raise our taxes.
 
Our ability to reduce our spending is hampered by the fact that roughly 62% of all federal spending is either for entitlement programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, or goes towards paying the interest on our federal debt. The defense budget accounts for more than half of what remains, leaving a total of $485 billion for everything else, such as education, clean water, air traffic control, the police, the FBI, as well as any and all social programs, to name a few.
 
This brings us to option two: raising taxes. As France can attest, if you tax something, you get less of it. What Arthur Laffer theorized was that if you tax something less, you get more of it. For France, the act of raising taxes led to lower output per worker. As output in America reaches decade lows, is this the path to which we wish to commit ourselves?
 
Even though I don't know what the weather will be like a week from now, I do know that a couple of months from now it will be cold and dreary. In the same way that I cannot accurately predict the temperature next week, I cannot tell you what our tax situation will be next year. With history on my side, however, I am predicting cold and dreary.
 
As I think about what has been and what may be, I cannot help but think of the Indian Rain Dancer pounding the scorched earth beneath him - knowing the inevitable outcome that it would eventually rain. One must wonder, however, if he ever questioned why- did it rain because he danced or because he danced until it rained?