The Republican Party Should Have Zero Credibility on Deficits

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/12/lets-get-serious-about-getting-serious.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/republican-party-zero-credibility_b_2219085.html

Jonathan Weiler
Director of Undergraduate Studies in Global Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
11/30/2012

Speaker Boehner's angry response to the White House's opening gambit in the budget negotiations related to the so-called fiscal cliff provides a useful opportunity to remind folks that the GOP should have zero credibility on deficit reduction. Boehner claims that the Democrats proposal is not serious and is a bad-faith offer. Coming from him, that's rich. We have a three-decades long record to prove definitively that Republicans are themselves unserious about deficits. That has been evident during periods in which they've controlled the presidency, as both Reagan and W. presided over explosions in our national debt. And we have the account of GOP insider after GOP insider revealing the true motives behind GOP fiscal policy. As far back as 1981, Reagan budget director David Stockman admitted that Republicans' professed concern with the impact of deficits and debts on our children and grandchildren was just a ruse to allow Republicans to avoid responsibility for the adverse consequences of lowering taxes on the rich. Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan treasury official has explained in detail that the right-wing's rhetorical push against deficits over the past thirty years was not the product of a sincere commitment to fiscal prudence. Rather, Bartlett has shown, the goal was to reduce taxes on the rich, which would starve the government of funds, which would require government to cut spending for the less well off. In other words, the concern was never deficits. The desire was to reduce social spending for those deemed undeserving by the Republicans, including poor children, the struggling elderly and other disfavored groups. Deficits were merely the excuse for doing so. And Vice President Dick Cheney stated as emphatically as he could that, when Republicans hold power, "deficits don't matter."

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