HERE WE GO, THE T-WORD - AT 11:22 P.M. ET:  Another Obama adviser weighs in with deep, philosophical economic advice.   Get the calmness pills:

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- John Podesta compared the nation’s current budget crisis to the situation former President Bill Clinton faced in 1993 and said some form of a value-added tax is “more plausible today than it ever has been.”

“There’s going to have to be revenue in this budget,” said Podesta, Clinton’s former chief of staff and co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s transition team, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing today.

A so-called consumption tax would “create a balance” with European and Japanese economies and “could potentially have a substantial effect on competitiveness,” said Podesta. Value- added taxes in Europe and Japan encourage savings by taxing consumption.

COMMENT:  Is this brilliant, or what?  Does Podesta understand that, at this moment, we don't want to encourage savings, we want to encourage consumption, to get out of this recession? 

These are the taxers.  And they're coming after us.  And they will wreck any recovery.  And there are plenty of people in Congress who will go along with them, as long as their group gets a few federal bucks.

September 25, 2009