South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Writing for Project Syndicate, economist Simon Johnson asks a good question; namely, “why do US fiscal conservatives care so little about government debt, relative to their counterparts in other countries?” From the article …

And Americans have shifted greatly toward political philosophies – on the right and on the left – that regard public debt merely as a distraction. Or, as former vice president Dick Cheney put it, “Reagan taught us that deficits do not matter” – meaning that Ronald Reagan cut taxes, ran bigger deficits, and did not suffer any adverse political consequences.
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[Rep. Paul] Ryan and members of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party undoubtedly want to cut the size of the federal government, and they have articulated plans to do this over several decades. But, in the near term, what they promise is primarily tax cuts: their entire practical program is front-loaded in that direction. The calculation is that this will prove politically popular (probably true) while making it easier to implement spending cuts down the road (less obvious). The vulnerability caused by higher public debt over the next few decades is simply ignored.