Over the past year, we have seen a repeat of long-standing Republican fiscal and economic policies: Republicans have passed a deep tax cut, overwhelmingly benefitting corporations and wealthier Americans; the deficit, predictably, has soared; and Republicans have pointed to the deficits they have created as justification for cutting spending on programs vital to American families, including Social Security and Medicare. This three-step plan is not new. Proponents of the 1981 Reagan tax cuts called it “starving the beast.” Similarly, the results are not new. This is the third time in recent decades that Republicans have passed deep tax cuts for the wealthy that led to markedly higher budget deficits.
Democrats have taken a very different fiscal approach. Democratic Congresses and Presidents have presided over eras of deficit reduction and even balanced budgets, and Democrats have pushed to require Congress to pay for major new initiatives. While Republicans’ main approach to federal budget deficits is to simultaneously create and complain about them, Democrats have actually done something about them.
Differing Approaches Produce Differing Results
It should be no surprise that these different approaches to fiscal responsibility have had different results. While economic ups and downs and other factors also affect the federal budget, the pattern is clear. Republican control of Congress and the White House beginning in 2001 was followed by an immediate revival of the budget deficit. In contrast, after Democrats retook control in 2009, the deficit fell steadily, dropping from $1.4 trillion that year to $438 billion by 2015.
Now that Congress and the White House are once again under unified Republican control, Republicans have resumed their fiscally irresponsible policies. Last year, they enacted a set of tax cuts that have sent the deficit soaring, resulting in trillion-dollar deficits yet again. CBO has estimated that the GOP tax law will cost about $2 trillion over ten years (approaching $3 trillion under GOP plans to extend parts of it). It is no surprise that CBO now projects that the deficit will be nearly $1 trillion next year and exceed that level in 2020 and for the foreseeable future.
about everything. And when they finally understood what I wanted the prices for some reason were damn near 2x more than it should have been.
If i say "govt program A is inefficient and/or unsustainable" the response is "its the GoP"... as if that makes my statement false.
Money really does grow on trees to liberals...
I'm going to use the "its working fine over there" argument single payers love. Why cant it work here?
