Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Will the GOP Really Cut Spending?

Jonah Goldberg:

"To listen to all of the liberals on CNN and MSNBC tonight, the most outrageous position you can hold is opposition to raising taxes. To listen to Maddow, Spitzer, et al., raising taxes is simply what all non-extremists think is necessary, even decent. Cutting spending? Well, that’s foolish."


Not so much foolish as "unprecedented." Republicans have always cut taxes; they've never had it within them to cut government spending enough to balance the budget on its own. And that's fine! The reason they don't is because those spending programs have constituencies!

I don't think British-style austerity measures would be beneficial to the economy or to the American people, really, but you've got to respect what the UK government has done: It has promised big cuts and delivered them, in a serious attempt to balance the budget. The Republicans have not told us how they would balance the budget. I don't expect them to make any serious attempt.

1 comment:

Rick Henderson said...

That's the question, isn't it? The GOP pledge talked about cutting discretionary spending to pre-recession (FY 2008) levels. If they can't do that, then they are hopeless.