Wouldn't tax hikes be less harmful to the US economy?

[anvi]

It's perhaps about how the money is used in the economy.  One would have to figure out the effects on production and consumption in both alternatives.  If you raise taxes by $1 trillion, you're taking that money out of production and consumption that would ordinarily take place, but the money the government spent on various sectors and industries in the forms of subsidization and consumption would be returned to the economy in quite different patterns.  On the other hand, if you cut spending by $1 trillion, that would allow much current production and consumption to go on, but one would have to weigh how much consumption would be depressed by decreasing redistribution and how much production would be effected through ending various forms of subsidization.  I'm not an economist either, but it might be an interesting, and very complex, experiment to work through all that stuff.