GOP Should Stick to Cutting Spending - J Petokoukis

Why are Republicans demanding a debt deal that has big spending cuts but no tax increases?

(Besides, of course, the fact that spending is the problem and the last thing this weak economy needs is a tax hike?)

Maybe it’s because the last time they agree to one of these “$2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes” agreements, they got snookered.





An explainer from Americans for Tax Reform (which created the chart):

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush was promised $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes by Congressional Democrats. That’s not what happened.
All $137 billion in tax hikes went through. Most notable was raising the top marginal tax rate from 28 percent (the Reagan low) to 31 percent (itself a setup for the 1993 Clinton tax hike of this rate all the way up to 39.6 percent). There were also increases in “sin” taxes and the Medicare payroll tax, as well as the yacht “luxury tax” that President Obama seems so intent on re-visiting on the jet plane manufacturers.
Not only did the $274 billion in promised baseline spending cuts never materialize–baseline spending was actually $22 billion higher than what CBO projected it would be before the deal. This despite another tax hike/baseline spending cut deal in 1993 (the Clinton tax hike) and the GOP takeover of Congress in 1995.