For the last 40 years, Republicans have run as the party of small government and fiscal responsibility. But, after pushing a gigantic, deficit-busting tax bill in November and a gigantic, deficit-busting two-year budget last week, many are pronouncing the days of the fiscally sound, drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub Republican Party to be over.

“It can now be said that Republican lawmakers care about the federal deficit only when they want to use it to bash Democratic presidents,” opined The New York Times editorial board in a searing op-ed. “I’m old enough to remember when the Republican Party was pro-FBI, pro-morality and anti-deficits,” scoffed Max Boot in The Washington Post. In Politico, David Rogers argued that the GOP’s credibility on fiscal issues had eroded with the passage of two bills: “The White House can no longer hide the immense deficits it would create.”



It’s true: Despite consistently arguing that deficit reduction is not just a core Republican priority, but an existential imperative, when in power Republicans have shown no fiscal restraint whatsoever—the deficit has increased significantly faster under Republican presidents than Democratic ones. The problem is, even without any credibility on the deficit, Republicans aren’t going to change their tune. As it is, they’re already laying the groundwork to reverse position as soon as they’re out of power, when they’ll once again reclaim the mantle of restraint. It’s all part of a decades-old GOP scam. The real economic dynamic of the Republican Party is: Spend big today, recant tomorrow.



In 2009, Mitch McConnell decried the $787 billion stimulus as “one of the most expensive votes in history.” Four years later, shortly after Barack Obama’s second inauguration, McConnell made the case that lowering the national debt was essential if Americans wanted social spending programs to survive. “Only one thing can save this country, and that’s to get a handle on this deficit and debt issue,” McConnell said. “No action means the demise” of entitlement programs, he added. “We have to assure they will be there for future generations.”



If Republicans really did care about the deficit, they would use the opportunity they have now—control of the presidency and both legislatures—to do something about it.

These two arguments—that the national debt is a bill we pass on to our children and that it will ultimately mean the demise of social-welfare programs—are key GOP talking points when they’re in the minority. But neither of these issues were reflected in either the tax bill or in the budget. Instead, these bills respectively gave massive tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy and increased defense spending. In neither case were the long-term fiscal health of either the country’s finances or its social-welfare programs taken into account.

