{"id":26715,"date":"2023-05-26T12:56:04","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T19:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=26715"},"modified":"2023-05-26T12:56:05","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T19:56:05","slug":"its-clear-as-day-the-gop-does-not-really-care-about-debt-or-the-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/05\/26\/its-clear-as-day-the-gop-does-not-really-care-about-debt-or-the-deficit\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Clear as Day the GOP Does Not Really Care About Debt or the Deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Speaker<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with reporters about debt ceiling negotiations as he leaves the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 in Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo: Kent Nishimura \/ Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican tax cuts for the rich have been the single largest driver of the federal deficit over the last two decades, followed by bipartisan military spending.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

PETER CERTO<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 25, 2023OtherWords<\/a> (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news sure makes it sound like President Joe Biden and Republicans have been haggling over the national debt. But that\u2019s not what\u2019s really happening\u2014not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden wants to spend more money and run up the deficit, the story goes. Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) wants to rein the Democrats\u2019 \u201caddiction to spending<\/a>\u201d and reduce the debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is wrong\u2014enormously so\u2014for several reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf McCarthy wanted to reduce the debt, he could simply pass President Biden\u2019s proposed budget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, as my Institute for Policy Studies colleague Karen Dolan has written<\/a>: \u201cIf McCarthy wanted to reduce the debt, he could simply pass President Biden\u2019s proposed budget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s budget continues and modestly expands many important social services, jobs programs, and clean energy investments, Karen\u2019s written<\/a>. But because it also reverses some of President Donald Trump\u2019s tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy, Biden\u2019s budget would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican tax cuts for the rich have been the single largest driver of the federal deficit over the last two decades. The Bush and Trump tax cuts together are responsible for 57% of the increase in our ratio of debt to gross domestic product, the Center for American Progress found<\/a>\u2014and 90% outside of emergency spending during the recession and pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Republicans don\u2019t want to raise taxes for the rich. In fact, they\u2019re planning to introduce a bill to make those massive tax cuts for the rich permanent<\/a>\u2014at a cost of trillions. That\u2019s a lot more debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other major driver of debt? Unfunded wars and military spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together with nuclear weapons, border enforcement, and so on, the IPS National Priorities Project found recently that \u201cmilitarized spending\u201d takes up nearly two-thirds<\/em> of the budget Congress sets each year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a bipartisan problem\u2014Biden\u2019s own budget proposal unwisely hikes Pentagon spending<\/a> even after the end of a 20-year war. But here again, Republicans have refused to cut any of this funding as part of their spending crackdown. In fact, they\u2019re calling to increase it far above even Biden\u2019s proposal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Republicans rejected a budget proposal that would bring down the deficit. And they rejected addressing either the high-end tax cuts or out of control military spending that drives the debt\u2014in fact, they\u2019re pushing for more debt<\/em> in both categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does that leave? The barely one-third of discretionary spending that covers education, corporate regulation, scientific research, many anti-poverty programs, and other worthwhile items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans are demanding deep<\/em> cuts here that could mean<\/a> more homeless veterans and hungry seniors, hundreds of thousands of Americans who can\u2019t afford an education, tens of thousands of kids who can\u2019t get into Head Start, more pollution, fewer green jobs, and worse besides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And unless they get those cuts, they\u2019ve threatened to default on America\u2019s debt by refusing to raise the debt ceiling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debt ceiling doesn\u2019t reduce the debt by one dime\u2014it only determines whether we pay the debts we already owe. Republicans raised it three times under Trump without complaint even as he ran up one of the biggest deficits in history<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defaulting would do nothing about the debt\u2014but it would destroy millions of jobs<\/a>, wipe out trillions of household wealth, and send interest rates skyrocketing for home, car, and credit card loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current debate has nothing at all to do with debt. It\u2019s about whether we invest in programs the American people count on\u2014or if we kneecap those programs to fund more tax cuts for rich people and handouts to military contractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s choose wisely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PETER CERTO<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Certo is the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) editorial manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with reporters about debt ceiling negotiations as he leaves the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo: Kent Nishimura \/ Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Republican tax cuts for the rich have been… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26715"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26716,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26715\/revisions\/26716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}