Thread by @LarryGlickman

Mitch Daniels has written a disingenuous piece. The reason “no Republican can put a dent” in the debt problem is not because of the party’s “Scrooge stereotype” but because they have shown that they only care about deficits when a Democrat is in power. /1 washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-d…

Has he forgotten recent political history, such as President Obama’s offer of a “grand bargain,” which would cut spending and raise taxes? The GOP rejected this./2
vox.com/2016/6/2/11836…

The “Nixon in China” analogy doesn’t hold up because “deficit reduction” is not an actual Republican ideal—instead it’s a cudgel the party employs when there is a Democratic President. /3

Who was the wild-eyed liberal who said, “deficits don’t matter”? Oh, it was actually Dick Cheney. /4
chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-20…

Since the 1970s, many members of the Democratic Party have taken Daniels’s concerns about the sustainability of public spending seriously—imo, far too seriously and to the detriment of the party and country, as I wrote in this @BostonReview piece./5
bostonreview.net/politics/lawre…

By contrast, tax cutting for the wealthy, regardless of the fiscal consequences, has been the through line in Republican politics. See the presidencies of the two most recent Republicans, George W. Bush and Donald Trump./6

Given this history, the GOP has no credibility on the issue of “deficit reduction,” which they have conveniently employed to the detriment of the country—as when they unanimously voted against Obama’s stimulus plan to save the country from depression./7
nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/…

Or, conversely, they have ignored the issue when it conflicts with their desire to cut taxes on the rich or to support their own spending priorities./8
nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/…

It is also worth noting that Mitch Daniels, Bush’s OMB Director, is probably not the best messenger for this flawed case. /9
epi.org/blog/mitch-dan…