US to Pakistan: Tax and Spend!

Apparently not content with attempting to over-tax its own constituents, the Obama Administration is now advising Pakistan to do the same thing:

"In comments published today in a Pakistani business paper, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin pressed for Pakistan to dramatically raise taxes, insisting that “Pakistanis pay less for their government than nearly any other country in the region.”

At what point will the US federal government stop interfering with other sovereign countries' internal political affairs? I'm sure no one in the US would appreciate an editorial by Pakistan's President (Asif Ali Zardari) in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal that advocated one change or another in our fiscal posture.

What's truly ironic about the advice given to Pakistan to spend more money is that over-spending at the federal level is one of the more compelling reasons that the US itself is currently in such dire fiscal straights.