NY Times Revives The Myth Of The Principled GOP Deficit Hawk

The New York Times had an article yesterday talking about what might happen under a Trump Presidency and its effect on the US and global economies. The headline is "Trump Rides a Wave of Fury That May Damage Global Prosperity". In the article, the author details the damage that Trump's promises of increased tariffs and other limitations on global trade may hinder the growth of prosperity. As Dean Baker points out, the greatest damage to global prosperity was actually caused by the architects of the global financial meltdown and their inability to deal with the subsequent damage. Globalization and free trade did nothing to protect the workers who were displace by it. Reckless deregulation led the financial system to overleverage and then collapse, taking most of the world's economies with it. And then the drive for austerity kept GDP growth anemic and limited any capacity to repair the damage done to the most vulnerable and the most effected by the crash while allowing the very architects of that crash get back on their feet and thrive again. So it is a little rich for the NY Times to be worried that a populist revolt will hurt global prosperity. For many of the Trump supporters who do not see or feel that prosperity, that damage is a feature not a bug.

A far bigger joke in this article is a two paragraph segment on Trump's ability to work with Congress. I quote, "And any proposals need to navigate the reliably treacherous politics of Washington. The latest piece of Trump real estate, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, sits just down the street from a Capitol full of people who got themselves elected in part by railing against deficits and promising to cut federal spending. The soon-to-be President Trump has vowed to counteract the problems afflicting workers by unleashing a wave of infrastructure spending that will generate jobs for skilled hands. Perhaps he will have more luck than his predecessor, President Obama, whose own plans for infrastructure spending died time and again at the hands of Republican deficit hawks."

PLEASE! Does anyone seriously believe the Republicans care about the deficit. The infrastructure spending will be replaced by a massive tax cut that will pay for the infrastructure and the tax cut through severe cuts in social spending and entitlements and a process called the magic asterisk. I can almost guarantee that will happen. Republicans only care about the deficit when Democrats are in power. They refuse to fund infrastructure under Obama, but it is the greatest idea in the world when they are in charge. The only difference is that Democrats would have actually paid for that spending. There is a reason that yields have been rising since the election results and that is because everyone knows that the GOP is going to blow a hole in the deficit and the debt.

Take a look a this graph of the deficit from Fred:

From the year of their inauguration until the year of their departure, only two Presidents have put a significant dent in the annual deficit. They are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The only positive news from this GOP infrastructure plan is that it will prove once and for all that the Keynesians were right. Jobs growth and GDP growth will probably increase and that will be good for those that are suffering. And the increased deficit and debt will not slow the economy down one bit. And once again, Democrats will get no credit for the policies they support but are unable to enact over Republican obstruction. So, please, let's put to rest the idea that there are any serious debt-hawks in the GOP. It is simply a position that is a means to an end, that being tax cuts for rich and entitlement cuts for the poor. When will the Times ever learn?