A month ago Congress passed a series of harsh spending cuts, calling the measure a “deficit-reduction plan.” Critics in the reality-based community pointed out it was more or less insane to cut funds for low-income families who rely on programs like foot stamps, Medicaid, and child care assistance, only to turn around a month later and cut taxes, mostly for the wealthy.
Congressional Republicans pretended like these votes had nothing to do with one another. Maybe, they thought, no one would notice that their deficit-reduction scheme wouldn’t actually, you know, reduce the deficit if they cut taxes after cutting spending. And yet, that’s what they did anyway.
The House passed three separate tax cuts yesterday and plans to approve a fourth today, trimming the federal revenue by $94.5 billion over five years — nearly double the budget savings that Republicans muscled through the House last month. […]
[S]ome budget analysts say the flourish of tax cutting badly undermines the recent shows of fiscal discipline. Last month’s budget-cutting bill would save $50 billion over five years by imposing new fees on Medicaid recipients, trimming the food stamp rolls, squeezing student lenders and cutting federal child support enforcement.
“I don’t think it makes any sense to go through all the difficulty they just went through with the budget-cutting bill, then give it all back in tax cuts,” said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group. “If they want to cut taxes, fine, but they are going to have to cut spending by at least that much to help the deficit, and clearly they are not willing to do that. They have to start looking reality in the face.”
No they don’t; they’re congressional Republicans.
So, all told, the GOP’s deficit-reduction plan for 2005 increases the deficit by about $45 billion. Typical.