For my money the best brief commentary of the most important political news of the day is Heather Cox Richardson's post … which remains free. As I've said many times in other fora, I often don't exactly learn anything new from her. But 4 out of 5 times, or more, she frames diverse bits of information into an outstandingly coherent summary of how we should understand major issues.
Today is a great example, as she talks about the budget deficit and the crisis that the GOP's extremist “Freedom Caucus” has caused. She very correctly points out that not just the 'debt ceiling crisis,' but the public debt is largely the GOP's fault to begin with, inasmuch as it's caused not so much by spending, or even “entitlements,” as by cutting tax revenues to protect the wealthiest echelons of taxpayers.
To throw in a supportive tidbit I picked up from one of the news channels, Americans also need to understand that “cutting spending” is only of real interest to the GOP when Democrats have a real voice in shaping the budget. This becomes clear if you look at US budgets, and see that discretionary spending never (according to the person speaking – I'll try to remember to verify this) falls during Republican-controlled governments. What does happen is that taxes are cut for the wealthiest Americans, meaning an even sharper increase in the deficit. This was never more apparent in the Trump administration, where even before the pandemic the budget deficit skyrocked after the GOP's massive “welfare for the rich tax bill” of 2017.
The link to Heather Cox Richardson's article is in the headline above and here, but pasted below is what I think is the crux of her already short passage about GOP lies and irresponsibility … starting with a short quote from Biden's Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.
“Let’s be clear about what Republicans are demanding in exchange for doing their job and preventing a default,” said. “Earlier this year, they put forward an extreme package of devastating cuts that would slash…support for education, law enforcement, food assistance—the list goes on and on and on and on—by what now would be about 30 percent.”
While Jean-Pierre didn’t say it, the Republicans’ insistence that spending is out of control does not reflect reality. In fact, discretionary spending has fallen more than 40% in the past 50 years as a percentage of gross domestic product, from 11% to 6.3%. What has driven rising deficits are the George W. Bush and Donald Trump tax cuts, which will have added $8 trillion and $1.7 trillion, respectively, to the debt by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
The U.S. is far below the average of the 37 other nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an intergovernmental forum of democracies with market economies, in our tax levies. According to the Center for American Progress, if we taxed at the average OECD level, over ten years we would have an additional $26 trillion in revenue. If we taxed at the average of European Union nations, we would have an additional $36 trillion.
What Jean-Pierre did say is that the Republicans’ demand for cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction is belied by their protection of tax breaks skewed for the wealthy and corporations. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said those tax cuts would add $3.5 trillion to the debt over the next decade.