With all the talk about a possible government shutdown due to an impasse on immigration reform, no one seems to be paying attention to a story of even bigger long-term consequence. Congress is preparing a two-year budget that blows past bipartisan spending caps to the tune of $216 billion through 2019. These are the latest stunning tallies from an analysis by Congressional Quarterly. (See chart).

One premise of modern-day “progressives,” is that taxes don’t have much influence on how much and when people invest, how much they work and save, or where they live. Just Google “Taxes don’t matter” and you will find scores of academic studies and news stories assuring us that taxes have little or no effect on behavior.