Why don't Republicans care about the deficit anymore?

[Benjamin Frank]

When did Republicans actually care? I mean under Clinton, sure, but even then it was abysmal. Clinton wasn't fiscally responsible by the way. The GOP just forced his hand. They should have done the same under Obama, if they cared. The GOP didn't care because we pretty much have everyone dependent on entitlements and people will vote against the GOP if entitlements are reformed or cut. They need to be.

There's only been a handful of Republican politicians and voters that actually care. Trumpism pretty much killed fiscal conservatism. The era of Fusionism that Reagan helped bring to the forefront is gone. Buchanan's more liberal ideology on economics that he pushed for more towards the late 90s and early 00s is pretty much where the GOP is at now at this point. Most of the GOP base is ok with massive spending. Maybe states like Texas, Tennessee, and Florida still care, but that's not enough. It sucks, but cultural conservatism is more the identity of Conservatism and the GOP than anything else.

That's nonsense.  Every Republican voted against the 1993 Clinton budget that led to the balancing of the budget.  The Clinton 1993 budget had $500 billion over 10 years in spending cuts and tax increases.  It was painful and politically risky with no short term political upside.  On top of the $500 billion over 10 years in spending cuts and tax increases passed earlier under and with the assistance of George H W Bush, the budget was balanced.  

The Republicans like to claim credit for this, even though every single Republican in Congress voted against this budget and offered no serious alternative simply because they happened to have taken the majority in Congress when the budget finally went into balance.

When Clinton was no longer President, but George W Bush was President and the Republicans still controlled Congress, the deficit ballooned again.  If the Republican Congress had anything to do with balancing the budget, how did this happen?

This claim that the Republicans in Congress had anything to do with balancing the budget is more dishonest Republican revisionist history.

[Benjamin Frank]

When did Republicans actually care? I mean under Clinton, sure, but even then it was abysmal. Clinton wasn't fiscally responsible by the way. The GOP just forced his hand. They should have done the same under Obama, if they cared. The GOP didn't care because we pretty much have everyone dependent on entitlements and people will vote against the GOP if entitlements are reformed or cut. They need to be.

There's only been a handful of Republican politicians and voters that actually care. Trumpism pretty much killed fiscal conservatism. The era of Fusionism that Reagan helped bring to the forefront is gone. Buchanan's more liberal ideology on economics that he pushed for more towards the late 90s and early 00s is pretty much where the GOP is at now at this point. Most of the GOP base is ok with massive spending. Maybe states like Texas, Tennessee, and Florida still care, but that's not enough. It sucks, but cultural conservatism is more the identity of Conservatism and the GOP than anything else.

That's nonsense.  Every Republican voted against the 1993 Clinton budget that led to the balancing of the budget.  The Clinton 1993 budget had $500 billion over 10 years in spending cuts and tax increases.  It was painful and politically risky with no short term political upside.  On top of the $500 billion over 10 years in spending cuts and tax increases passed earlier under and with the assistance of George H W Bush, the budget was balanced.  

The Republicans like to claim credit for this, even though every single Republican in Congress voted against this budget and offered no serious alternative simply because they happened to have taken the majority in Congress when the budget finally went into balance.

When Clinton was no longer President, but George W Bush was President and the Republicans still controlled Congress, the deficit ballooned again.  If the Republican Congress had anything to do with balancing the budget, how did this happen?

This claim that the Republicans in Congress had anything to do with balancing the budget is more dishonest Republican revisionist history.

Well the budget raised taxes so it makes sense why Republicans were in opposition to this. I'm not sure where this nonsense/dishonest/revisionist history claim comes from. You conveniently ignored the fact that the budget increased taxes and the most popular argument for why HW Bush lost re-election is because he lied to the public about no new taxes. So Republicans backing a budget that raised taxes would be suicide and antithetical to what the GOP wanted at the time. Again, it's not like Clinton truly wanted to balance the budget. He was forced to because it made democrats look bad which is why it narrowly passed. The GOP did force his hand because he would have looked like the spender in chief and made the budget skyrocket. An easy hit for Republicans back then. You claim there's no upside to this, yet the very upside can be seen given the 20+ history after 93 where Republicans blast democrats for trying to spend uncontrollably. It's the same talking point Clinton and his cabinet wanted to avoid.


I already said Republicans never really cared besides under Clinton.  The deficit wasn't eliminated until the BBA btw

Let me see how much of this I can make sense of.

1.You said 'the Republicans forced his hand.'  How did they 'force his hand' when Clinton had already exposed their insincerity and hypocrisy when every Republican announced opposition to the Clinton budget but did not come up with a credible alternative?

2.If you want to argue that President Clinton/the Congressional Democrats didn't really want to cut the deficit either, there is probably some truth to that, as they were forced by the circumstances of high real long term interest rates and the resultant sputtering economic recovery.  But, to claim the Republicans forced President Clinton and the Democrats into cutting/eliminating the deficit is, indeed, nothing but dishonest Republican revisionist history.  

Polling at the time also showed that it was the slow pace and inconsistency of the economic recovery that cost George H W Bush reelection.  Breaking his 'no new taxes' pledge had little to no impact as voters consistently said to pollsters that they expected him to break that promise anyway. The big issue in the 1992 election was the sputtering economy, and the belief that the high federal government budget deficit was the reason for this.  Ross Perot's Presidential campaign played that up and became something of a folk hero over this, although he never provided any credible deficit reduction plan and he never even explained the connection between the budget deficit and the slow economic recovery.  

However, the point here is that the claim Bush lost because he reneged on his 'no new taxes' pledge is also dishonest Republican historical revisionism.

3.The Republicans did nothing but obstruct President Clinton and the Democratic attempts to balance the budget, and as soon as they re-took the Presidency, they ballooned the deficit again.  That is the real historical record, and to claim anything else is an outright lie. And it really doesn't matter why the Republicans were opposed as they proposed no alternative.

So, no, the Republican demands the Republican demands that Clinton balanced the budget had no effect on President Clinton, his cabinet or the Congressional Democrats other than the Republican hypocrisy and dishonesty annoyed the Democrats.

4.I have no idea what you are referring to with the balanced budget amendment.  There is no balanced budget amendment in the Constitution, and yes, President Clinton did balance the budget and then achieve 'surpluses as far as the eye can see.' It may have taken the social security fund surplus to do that, but there is not a single Republican President who has even come close since then, and the social security fund surplus was counted as part of the overall budget long prior to President Clinton.

I think you may mean 'PAYGO' not the balanced budget amendment, but it was the Democrats who have mostly supported that, while Republicans have not because it would have prevented them from passing ever more tax cuts for their wealthy friends/future employers/fellow grifters.  George W. Bush and the Republicans let PAYGO expire in 2003, and it was reinstated by Speaker Pelosi in 2007, and she then reinstated it again after re-taking the Speakership in 2019.

5.It's also the case that as mediocre as President Obama's deficit cutting was, he did leave office with a $450-500 billion deficit while President Trump in 2019 had a $1 trillion deficit even though the economy was in better shape overall in 2019 than in 2016.  So, it is still completely false to argue that even since President Clinton that the Democratic record on deficits is no different than the Republican record.  As disappointing as President Obama was here, the Democrats are still much better than Republicans on the deficit/debt overall.

[Benjamin Frank]

When did Republicans actually care? I mean under Clinton, sure, but even then it was abysmal. Clinton wasn't fiscally responsible by the way. The GOP just forced his hand. They should have done the same under Obama, if they cared. The GOP didn't care because we pretty much have everyone dependent on entitlements and people will vote against the GOP if entitlements are reformed or cut. They need to be.

There's only been a handful of Republican politicians and voters that actually care. Trumpism pretty much killed fiscal conservatism. The era of Fusionism that Reagan helped bring to the forefront is gone. Buchanan's more liberal ideology on economics that he pushed for more towards the late 90s and early 00s is pretty much where the GOP is at now at this point. Most of the GOP base is ok with massive spending. Maybe states like Texas, Tennessee, and Florida still care, but that's not enough. It sucks, but cultural conservatism is more the identity of Conservatism and the GOP than anything else.

That's nonsense.  Every Republican voted against the 1993 Clinton budget that led to the balancing of the budget.  The Clinton 1993 budget had $500 billion over 10 years in spending cuts and tax increases.  It was painful and politically risky with no short term political upside.  On top of the $500 billion over 10 years in spending cuts and tax increases passed earlier under and with the assistance of George H W Bush, the budget was balanced.  

The Republicans like to claim credit for this, even though every single Republican in Congress voted against this budget and offered no serious alternative simply because they happened to have taken the majority in Congress when the budget finally went into balance.

When Clinton was no longer President, but George W Bush was President and the Republicans still controlled Congress, the deficit ballooned again.  If the Republican Congress had anything to do with balancing the budget, how did this happen?

This claim that the Republicans in Congress had anything to do with balancing the budget is more dishonest Republican revisionist history.

Well the budget raised taxes so it makes sense why Republicans were in opposition to this. I'm not sure where this nonsense/dishonest/revisionist history claim comes from. You conveniently ignored the fact that the budget increased taxes and the most popular argument for why HW Bush lost re-election is because he lied to the public about no new taxes. So Republicans backing a budget that raised taxes would be suicide and antithetical to what the GOP wanted at the time. Again, it's not like Clinton truly wanted to balance the budget. He was forced to because it made democrats look bad which is why it narrowly passed. The GOP did force his hand because he would have looked like the spender in chief and made the budget skyrocket. An easy hit for Republicans back then. You claim there's no upside to this, yet the very upside can be seen given the 20+ history after 93 where Republicans blast democrats for trying to spend uncontrollably. It's the same talking point Clinton and his cabinet wanted to avoid.


I already said Republicans never really cared besides under Clinton.  The deficit wasn't eliminated until the BBA btw

Let me see how much of this I can make sense of.

1.You said 'the Republicans forced his hand.'  How did they 'force his hand' when Clinton had already exposed their insincerity and hypocrisy when every Republican announced opposition to the Clinton budget but did not come up with a credible alternative?

2.If you want to argue that President Clinton/the Congressional Democrats didn't really want to cut the deficit either, there is probably some truth to that, as they were forced by the circumstances of high real long term interest rates and the resultant sputtering economic recovery.  But, to claim the Republicans forced President Clinton and the Democrats into cutting/eliminating the deficit is, indeed, nothing but dishonest Republican revisionist history.  

Polling at the time also showed that it was the slow pace and inconsistency of the economic recovery that cost George H W Bush reelection.  Breaking his 'no new taxes' pledge had little to no impact as voters consistently said to pollsters that they expected him to break that promise anyway. The big issue in the 1992 election was the sputtering economy, and the belief that the high federal government budget deficit was the reason for this.  Ross Perot's Presidential campaign played that up and became something of a folk hero over this, although he never provided any credible deficit reduction plan and he never even explained the connection between the budget deficit and the slow economic recovery.  

However, the point here is that the claim Bush lost because he reneged on his 'no new taxes' pledge is also dishonest Republican historical revisionism.

3.The Republicans did nothing but obstruct President Clinton and the Democratic attempts to balance the budget, and as soon as they re-took the Presidency, they ballooned the deficit again.  That is the real historical record, and to claim anything else is an outright lie. And it really doesn't matter why the Republicans were opposed as they proposed no alternative.

So, no, the Republican demands the Republican demands that Clinton balanced the budget had no effect on President Clinton, his cabinet or the Congressional Democrats other than the Republican hypocrisy and dishonesty annoyed the Democrats.

4.I have no idea what you are referring to with the balanced budget amendment.  There is no balanced budget amendment in the Constitution, and yes, President Clinton did balance the budget and then achieve 'surpluses as far as the eye can see.' It may have taken the social security fund surplus to do that, but there is not a single Republican President who has even come close since then, and the social security fund surplus was counted as part of the overall budget long prior to President Clinton.

I think you may mean 'PAYGO' not the balanced budget amendment, but it was the Democrats who have mostly supported that, while Republicans have not because it would have prevented them from passing ever more tax cuts for their wealthy friends/future employers/fellow grifters.  George W. Bush and the Republicans let PAYGO expire in 2003, and it was reinstated by Speaker Pelosi in 2007, and she then reinstated it again after re-taking the Speakership in 2019.

5.It's also the case that as mediocre as President Obama's deficit cutting was, he did leave office with a $450-500 billion deficit while President Trump in 2019 had a $1 trillion deficit even though the economy was in better shape overall in 2019 than in 2016.  So, it is still completely false to argue that even since President Clinton that the Democratic record on deficits is no different than the Republican record.  As disappointing as President Obama was here, the Democrats are still much better than Republicans on the deficit/debt overall.

1. Credible alternative is code for "what does your side like" and not really something worth talking about seriously. It's one thing to say republicans never proposed a budget because they weren't serious. It's another thing to dismiss budgets proposed because you don't find them pleasing.
2. It's not dishonest. I already explained why. If you disagree, that's fine, but don't say I'm being dishonest because you don't like my position.
3. If you want to raise taxes, there's a reasonable argument to oppose a budget even if it attempts to reduce spending.
4. Did I say amendment? If I did, I meant act.

No, I mean that literally and the Republicans weren't serious.  Bob Woodward's book 'The Agenda' describes the process of the 1993 budget primarily from the perspective of the Clinton Administration, but also goes into some of the Congressional efforts.  

There never was a Republican budget counter proposal. I don't know where you have this idea that there was one.  They Republican leadership said 'we're in opposition, it's your job to fix this.'  That's fine enough in so far as it goes, nobody should necessarily expect the Republicans to propose their own budget.  However, and I've written about this previously on this website, the Republican leadership its members of Congress had no intention of doing anything to help the Clinton Administration reduce the deficit.

There were two instances the book details that spelled this out.  Vice President Al Gore spoke to a number of Republicans in private who had publicly called for significant deficit reduction.  He gave them a number of proposals of spending cuts (for example, reducing entitlement increases by not providing full COLA adjustments.  I believe it was 2%.  So, if inflation was 4% in the year, the recipient would only receive a 2% increases) and some tax or fee increases.  

In regards to the fee increases, I believe he thought some Republicans would go for that because they frequently spoke about the need to 'run the government like a business' and he had government financial statements showing how either the government was either providing these services at a loss, or, like in the case of the grazing fees, that the government was not receiving fair market value.

The Republicans told him they weren't interested in any proposals.  He seethed at their hypocrisy, but because the meetings were in private, he couldn't mention it on the record at the time.

The second thing, and this wasn't just all Republicans, was a group of bipartisan supposedly 'moderate' Senators led by Democrat David Boren and Republican John Danforth.  They proposed massive entitlement cuts that they not only knew the Democratic majority in both the House and Senate would not vote for, but that they themselves would not vote for.

The sole purpose of their counter proposal was to be able to say to the press "we have a counter proposal."  The purpose of this was because the one broad based tax increase proposal that had survived to that point was a gas tax and, not surprisingly, Democrat David Boren of Oklahoma was not happy with that.  Boren and these bipartisan 'moderates' were telling the media 'we don't need the gas tax increase, we have a counter proposal that would reduce the deficit by just as much.'  Their likeliest goal was to simply kill the gas tax proposal and either force the process to start all over again or to simply have less deficit reduction.  

I should probably look at the book again, but if I recall correctly, that this bipartisan group would not even vote for their own proposal became known when Majority Leader Mitchell threatened to call their bluff and have a vote in the Senate on their proposal.  These 'bipartisan' Senators then would have had to have either voted for their massive entitlement cuts or vote against their own proposal.

I think when Senators propose something that they themselves would vote against, it's more than fair to say the proposal isn't serious or credible.

The extent to which Republicans treated this as all a political game, and not a matter of serious public policy became clear when first term House Democrat Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky cast the deciding vote in the House in favor of the Clinton budget and Republican House Members yelled out in response "Goodbye Marjorie!"

Now, I think I've demonstrated enough that even back then many Republicans weren't serious about public policy, and that most Congressional Republicans even then didn't actually care about addressing the deficit and it's not my fault or problem if this hurts your sensitive Republican feelings.

There is no 'difference of opinion' here.  The Republicans as a whole presented no alternative budget, and the Republican Senators along with a number of Democrats who did offer a counter proposal would have voted against their own counter proposal.  That, as detailed by Bob Woodward is a matter of factual public record and is not a difference of opinion.

I had a similar discussion on twitter over this, except this is to do with current events.  Senator Rand Paul spoke out against some proposed Biden tax increases and called for cutting 'waste fraud and abuse' instead.  

I tweeted 'has Rand Paul actually proposed any specific spending cuts or is he just grandstanding' and some person replied to me 'he has outlined an entire budget' and sent me the link to it.

It turns out he proposed an amendment and not a budget, and rather than detail any spending cuts, it mentions every Senate appropriations committee and calls for the committee to find cuts in spending, the same amount of cuts to be found by each committee over the same time period (I forget the specific dollar figures, there are to be cuts after one year, and then more cuts over 5 or 10 years.)  So, Senator Paul wanted to claim credit for balancing the budget, but leave the actual work of finding the spending cuts to the committees. To laugh off this sarcastically as a 'profile in courage' doesn't even begin to describe Senator Paul's actions, it's a profile in cynicism.