Republicans' Newly Found Deficit Religion

Bruce Bartlett calls the GOP out:

The truth is that Republicans don’t care anything about the deficit. They made that abundantly clear when they controlled Congress during the dismal George W. Bush years. What all of the current budget discussion is about is defunding programs that benefit Democratic constituencies and if possible destroying institutions, such as labor unions, that historically support the Democratic Party. In other words, it’s all about political power; any concern for the deficit is purely for show, window dressing to disguise the true Republican agenda.

 

A few days ago, an unnamed senior House Republican aide let the cat out of the bag, telling reporter Brian Beutler, “This debate has always been about discretionary spending – not autopilot ‘mandatory’ spending or tax hikes.” In short, it has nothing whatsoever to do with reducing the deficit.

 

Just to remind people, we had budget surpluses not too long ago. Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress bequeathed a surplus of 2.4 percent of GDP to the Republicans. They promptly dissipated it with tax cuts that reduced revenues by about 2 percentage points of GDP, increased domestic discretionary spending by about 0.5 percent of GDP, and defense spending by about one percent of GDP.

 

As noted earlier, Republicans made the problem with entitlement programs worse by adding a new unfunded benefit to Medicare just to buy the votes of seniors in 2004. They also repeatedly postponed cuts in Medicare physician payments that they themselves had enacted during the Clinton administration. While Republicans are not responsible for all of the increase in mandatory spending in the 2000s, they are guilty today of insincerity on the budget when they focus exclusively on domestic discretionary spending while exempting defense and entitlements from cuts.

Bartlett got kicked out of the conservative establishment, and has found his voice to tell people that the Republicans are full of shit, too bad conservative voters won't listen to him.