We’ve all been warned repeatedly about the dangers of the growing national debt. This warning, delivered most often by Republicans, is one with which I concur.
Currently, the yearly interest on the debt is around $250 billion. Certainly there are better ways to use that money. This is why I was surprised and disappointed when Republican Congressmen and women – including our own Scott Tipton – authored a big tax cut which, while helping everyone, goes mostly to the wealthy and to corporations and adds $1.5 trillion to the debt.
Yes, I know. We’re told that the well-to-do will pump this windfall back into the economy, resulting in oodles of new jobs, big wage increases and so much overall growth that it will even out.
The trouble is we’ve heard this all before. This notion that when it comes to taxes, you can have your cake and eat it too, was first offered by Ronald Reagan, who called it “Supply Side Economics.” George H. W. Bush, his opponent in the Republican primary of 1980, had a different label: “Voodoo Economics.”
Bush was right. In the twelve years following Reagan’s election and tax cuts, the national debt, as a fraction of GDP, roughly doubled. It didn’t work any better when George W. Bush recycled the idea in 2001.
So, unwilling to learn the lessons of our own tax policy history, we can expect the national debt to keep on going up.
Bob Waggoner
Cortez
