Republicans: we are now against spending cuts, they're unpopular and won't work

[mvd10]

So where are all the "I vote Republican because I'm a sensible American concerned about fiscal conservatism, balanced budgets, and the deficit " people now?

In the Netherlands I'm afraid

Anyway, I never really supported the GOP's deficit alarmism and brutal austerity proposals anyway, but it was a hell of a lot better than their apparent new course (massive tax cuts without any offsetting spending cuts/base-broadening). Slashing food stamps or medicaid never really was necessary, social security and medicare are the main "culprits", so it's best to slow down spending on these programs (by raising the retirement age, reducing social security benefits for higher-earners and seriously looking at cutting medicare spending).

Republicans did manage to slash spending on the state level though. The US passed a lot more austerity than people think, it's just that it were the (predominantly Republican) state governments pushing for austerity instead of the federal government (which is a lot more visible I suppose).

[mvd10]

Therefore we need huge tax breaks for the wealthy, because that will generate so much growth that we have more revenue in the end and the wealth will somehow trickle down.

Honestly, the fact that Reagan was somehow able to sell this nonsense with a straight face and have half the country at the time believe him goes to show you how stupid people can be.

Tax Revenue went up from 517 billion in 1980 to 1.03 trillion in 1990. So Tax Revenues almost doubled in the 1980s, so no it was not the tax cuts that caused the deficits it was the increases in spending.

The fiscally responsible party probably shouldn't have blown up the budget then.

But the fiscally responsible party didn't control the House. Reagan once joked that Tip O'Neal was like Pac man, because he was a round thing that swallows up money.

The balance of power in the House was held by a bunch of pork barreling good ole' boy Southern Democrats. So the only way to get anything done in Congress was to basically pay for it with increased spending.

We need only look at 2001-2007 to see that it would've made zero difference

Bush was elected on a platform of Compassionate Conservatism though, he didn't even promise spending cuts. At the time Bush's proposals didn't even look that fiscally irresponsible, but when the economy soured and the US got themselves in a war the Republicans decided fulfilling their campaign promises was more important than the deficit. Bush never promised what Reagan promised in 1980 or what the House Republicans promised in their Contract with America in 1994.

But I agree that it wouldn't have made a huge difference. They would have made some more cuts but eventually political reality would have caught up with them.