On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that “everyone’s a hypocrite” on deficits and the Republican Party is “an identity party, not an economic party, right now.”

Brooks stated, “What strikes me as special about this is that everyone’s a hypocrite on the deficits. They’re all for cutting red ink when they’re in the minority and they’re all against it when they’re in the majority.”

He added, “But there’s a shift in tone in the Republican Party that seems interesting to me, which is, it used to be a party that talked the language of economics first. Its native language was economics, an economic language. And so the budget really did sort of matter, and the budget really mattered, and tax cuts mattered. Now, economics is a secondary language for the Republican Party. Immigration is the first language. It is an identity party, not an economic party, right now. And so, they’re willing to compromise on a lot of spending programs if they can win on immigration. And that’s sort of where the party has gone.”

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