Don’t forget the spending, stupid
GOP must lead on fiscal restraint
As Donald Trump and the Republicans work to allow Americans to keep more of their own money, congressional Democrats react as if it’s all the government’s money in the first place. Meanwhile, arguments rage across the political spectrum about the relationship between tax policy, economic growth and budget deficits. Rarely mentioned, however, is the spending aspect.
The notion that tax cuts will automatically add to the deficit and debt is an admission that Congress will never get serious about reining in spending growth or addressing the entitlement issue. While one could argue that congressional Democrats have no interest in attacking either issue, even many Republicans — who ran as fiscal watchdogs eager to slow the expansion of government — have thrown up their hands.
“They simply do not have the political will on the Hill to solve this through the spending side of the equation,” said Mike Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget. “So we have to move to the revenue side.”
Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky libertarian masquerading as a Republican, echoed those sentiments.
“My opinion has always been that you pay for a tax cut with spending cuts,” he said. “And everybody else up here thinks you should pay for a tax cut by increasing somebody else’s taxes.”
Indeed, Reason magazine’s Matt Welch pointed out this week that the “Tea Party wave of legislators came to Washington beginning in 2010 on explicit promises to cut spending and debt and roll back Obamacare. They did a decent job using their House majority to restrain spending from 2011-2014, but beginning with Republicans re-taking the Senate in November 2014, fiscal conservatism has waned while GOP power has waxed.”
In fiscal 2018, the federal budget is $4.094 trillion. Just two decades ago, in fiscal 1997, Washington spent $1.635 trillion. That’s a 150 percent increase in barely a generation. Simply imposing a freeze on spending for three years — no “cuts,” just spend the same amount over that period — would balance the budget, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget admits.
Revamping the tax code to lower rates, end special-interest giveaways and make it simpler and fairer is a worthy and desirable goal. But so is imposing a modicum of control on the Beltway’s insatiable appetite for spending other people’s money.
If the GOP Congress and the Trump administration can succeed on tax reform, it would be a signature achievement. But in the long run, the road to fiscal sanity will also require Republicans to stop being so timid on the vital matter of spending restraint.