Martin Wolf discusses what he thinks the Republican party would do to solve the budget deficit problem if it was running Congress. His conclusion: nothing.
His argument:
–The GOP only cares about pushing tax cuts. It has been “transformed from a balanced-budget party to a tax-cutting party.”
–Supply-siders continue to push the dishonest argument that tax cuts pay for themselves with increased revenue. The past 30 years has illustrated that this is not true, and it’s practice has resulted in ballooning budget deficits under three Republican administrations.
–Given the above, it’s clear that–notwithstanding their rhetoric–the GOP doesn’t care about budget deficits (Cheney admitted as much). They aren’t campaigning on any tough spending-cut choices–they’re only offering the “free lunch” of more tax cuts.
–Since the Republican party isn’t serious about deficit-reduction, it’s unlikely the Democratic party will do anything about it either. They need only look back to what happened when President Clinton left office: the “austerity” compromises the Democrats agreed to then lead to budget surpluses which simply gave the GOP an excuse to cut taxes again (and once again we returned to record deficits).
It’s an interesting take from a European perspective. Read the whole thing.