The Slick Game Republicans Play with Your Money

I suggest reading the whold article at the following link.

Fiscal Times

By David Dayen
December 4, 2015

We believe allowing the American people to keep more of their hard-earned money is not something that needs to be paid for.”

That was Tom Price, Chair of the House Budget Committee, speaking to Politico about the “tax extenders” deal, an enormous beast composed disproportionately of corporate giveaways.

I wrote a rundown yesterday of what might be in this very fluid deal; I advise you to read that for details. The total cost in the 10-year budget window, based on what we know now, would be as high as $889 billion, without offsets. [This might be a little misleading. There are no offsets in the proposed deal.]

But the most important aspect of this could be Price’s quote above: confirmation that Republicans ignore deficit hawkery when the subject turns to something they like. When it suits them to give hundreds of billions of dollars to big business without paying for it, the often-articulated concerns about piles of debt for future generations go away.

And here’s the truth: They’re right. Deficits can deliver priorities that policymakers think make sense for the country. Republicans understand that; Democrats don’t. We shouldn’t privilege one kind of deficit spending over another, which Republican budget rules do right now. But we should be honest about the deficit and how it actually matters.

Republicans have long recognized how to use the deficit as a political tool. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan ran up historic deficits, mostly through an unprecedented military buildup and tax cuts for the wealthy. The Clinton administration, egged on by the Gingrich-led Congress, ushered in fiscal responsibility, but George W. Bush again obliterated that, with another helping of a tax cut-and-military agenda that Republicans willingly supported.

When the Obama administration came in, the narrative switched again, with Republicans demanding fiscal probity, even amid a time of financial crisis and recession. And they got it: The Obama White House has boasted that, since 2009, the deficit has fallen at the fastest rate since the end of World War II.

These wild swings between profligacy and fiscal conservatism show that Republicans change their posture on deficits based on who would benefit from deficit spending. If it’s the military and the wealthy and corporations, they’re all for it. If ordinary people might get a boost, they reject it. That’s just an extension of their party platform.

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