The Tea Party people do have legitimate cause for concern. A trillion dollar deficit is a frightful sum. Trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see is really troubling. One ought to be concerned about excessive debt on both moral and practical grounds.
That said, the Tea Party people don't seem to understand why we're in this mess or what we must do to address it. In the short term, a large deficit is a necessary evil, given the severity of the recession. As Obama helpfully explained in his speech the other day, in a recession, everyone tightens his/her belt in the event that unemployment strikes in the near future. This is prudent and right, but if everyone's cutting back, then no one is spending, and everyone's job becomes increasingly vulnerable. So, to break this vicious circle, the government steps in and spends. Hence, the stimulus package.
It's classic Keynesian economics, and I'm a rather orthodox Keynesian. Now, in two years, if the economy has recovered, then we can work on reducing the deficit. And indeed, we'll have to because at that point, excessive government spending combined with increased consumer spending makes the economy susceptible to inflation.
Now, back to the Tea Party people. Bush's second round of tax cuts in 2003 are why we're in this mess. He cut taxes at precisely the wrong time, as the economy was well on its way out of a minor recession. All that money flowing into the economy no doubt goosed the housing bubble, and all that money flowing out of the Treasury inflated the deficit, leaving the government with much less room to maneuver when the next downturn eventually came--which is now. So we're looking at trillion dollar deficits now, rather than $500 billion deficits.
Moreover, the Tea Party's Republican allies in Congress haven't a clue about how to move forward. A lot of the Republican economic proposals call for slashing income and capital gains tax rates. Unlike the stimulus plan, these proposals will take much longer to work their effects into the economy. And, unlike the stimulus plan, they amount to permanent reductions in federal revenue, which locks in the deficit problem long term.
There's also the funny fact that a number of right wing activists have advocated ballooning debt as a strategy to destroy the welfare state at some point in the future.
What it boils down to is not a fear of debt but a hatred of taxation, of the overclass' wealth mingling with the unwashed masses. When the economy is in the toilet, cut taxes to boost the economy! When the economy is a runaway freight train, cut taxes lest the economy run off the rails! When the deficit is high, cut taxes, because it'll actually generate more revenue, except when you want reduce income to drown the welfare state in a sea of red ink, in which case you... cut taxes! Because when Republicans are in the White House, "deficits don't matter," to quote our former VP, but when a Democrat is in office, deficits are a sign of creeping socialism. Or fascism.
No doubt all protest movements suffer from a lack of coherence, but this is ridiculous.
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