Can we get real here? There's no evidence that the GOP base cares about deficits or excess spending per se. The Tea Party wasn't a rebellion against deficits — it was a rebellion against spending to help poor people and minority groups 1/ washingtonpost.com/politics/repub…
Let's also be clear that concerns about the economic effects of deficits in a depressed economy persist, to the extent they do, in the teeth of all evidence 2/ 
Right now CBO is projecting deficits for 2020 close to WWII levels as a share of GDP — and long-term interest rates are close to a record low. The best way to think about all of this is that it's about finding excuses not to help Those People and to punish blue states 3/
