Authored by Veronique de Rugy via The Epoch Times,
The U.S. national debt just crossed the $40 trillion threshold, doubling in less than a decade. Washington politicians have responded with their favorite fiscal game: blaming the other party. Democrats say Republican tax cuts are the culprit. Republicans say Democratic spending is the root cause. But both parties are responsible, with both hiding behind a lie of omission. And if we let them, they'll keep driving us into the same wall together.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) recently called Republican tax cuts "the single biggest driver" of the debt across the last 25 years. The number uses an unrealistic 2001 baseline that projected endless surpluses, as if the late-1990s revenue windfall would last forever. The Brookings Institution's Jessica Riedl makes a more honest comparison by lining up the actual budget in 2000 against 2026. Tax cuts have reduced revenue by roughly 2 percent of gross domestic product. Spending rose by 5.7 percent, nearly three times as much.
Tax cuts can be great, especially when structured to move us toward a better overall tax code. But they are not free and often do not pay for themselves, largely because they come with lots of nonproductive handouts to special interests.
Yet the fact of the matter is that despite every tax cut since 2001, revenue today sits near its long-run average as a share of the GDP. With spending climbing nearly six points, we know exactly where the problem lies.
The Congres
