The Republican Party has been drawing a hard line against raising any tax revenues in the current budget talks. Although Barack Obama's super committee, a 12-person bipartisan group tasked with reaching a budget deal by Thanksgiving, will ultimately have the say in the matter, its members are going to be highly influenced by party politics. Throughout this debate Republicans, and in particular their Tea Party contingent, have been staunchly opposed to any tax hikes; even if it means simply closing corporate tax loopholes, or writing in tax increases that would be offset by cuts. In fact, in June Obama proposed his "grand deal" of $4 trillion in cuts (far more than his supercommittee is looking at now) which was expected to appease congressional Republicans, but because it contained revenue increases as well as cuts, it was turned down. Thus we're left with a super committee looking for spending cuts total ling half that amount, a vocal Teapublican minority waving their "balanced budget amendment" flag, and an uphill battle for raising taxes revenues. Though our national lawmakers have been seemingly ignorant to the larger American public, the private sector has been speaking up in recent weeks.

In Monday's poll by the National Association of Business Economics, a vast majority of private sector econo-wonks say that resolving the national debt crisis means raising tax revenue. Roughly 75% of the 250 economists that were polled said that a budget bill needed to include spending cuts and tax revenue increases (which the President has been pitching since May). A smaller percentage, 19%, felt tax reform should be "revenue neutral"; in other words tax cuts should offset any tax increases made. Only a small percentage, 5%, believed that the budget deal should include tax cuts only. This is in direct opposition to the largely Republican belief that our fiscal house can be put in order by only making spending cuts to the national budget.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone that is outside the main viewership of either Fox News or MSNBC. Our tax revenues are at their lowest rates in 60 years, partly the result of massive cuts initiated after the recession, and partly due to the effects of the recession. However, these rates are also the result of a number of political campaign promises on both sides of the aisle that helped current lawmakers attain their office. This kind of electioneering is ultimately costly to the country, and after a long enough time passing tax cuts to buy votes, we eventually get into a situation where our government doesn't have enough to pay its bills (and forget a "rainy day" fund).

Granted, U.S. spending is out of control. Inflated entitlement spending has turned this country into a collective of different constituencies. Senior citizens, Medicare recipients, education professionals, military professionals, union members, Medicaid recipients, business owners, shareholders; all voting along the lines of who is going to keep their federal checks coming (or tax cuts), and no longer independent Americans voting their conscience. Unfortunately, last year nearly half of all Americans didn't pay any taxes last year, and that's at both ends of the spectrum. In addition, corporations and large companies are receiving incredible leniency from our government in the form of tax loopholes, and subsidies. When the private sector is even telling the government, "come on guys, be reasonable", (as Warren Buffet, Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz, and now a bunch of business economists are) it's time to listen.