We are currently in the phase of the political cycle where conservatives are complaining about runaway government spending. Says Veronique de Rugy,
The truth is that existing spending commitments are rapidly shrinking the share of the budget that politicians have control over as their appetite for spending expands.
Cut spending? But 70 percent of the federal budget is “mandatory.” Good old usgovernmentspending.com has the line on that.
Mandatory spending is in blue. Whatabout taxes?
Of course, with our debt and deficit growing, legislators will try to collect more taxes. If they succeed, the revenue will be a drop in the bucket full of mandatory red ink. However, I predict that their effort will fail.
So that’s all right. Today Republicans are all over the Dems because the IRS wants to tax the tips of “billionaire waitresses.”
The question then is: how high is high for spending? Will the continual increase in mandatory spending actually crowd out discretionary spending, from defense to the 101 ways in which Democrats funnel money to their activists and special interest? Or will the need to service those Democratic interests override the need to keep federal spending under some kind of control?
My guess is that the need for Democrats to punch more money down to their supporters will increase in the years ahead, and so Democrats will search for six ways from Sunday to increase spending. And they will use every trick in the book to do it.
Yep, Dems have to shovel money at blacks and single women or they will lose the game. Question: when it really comes down to it, is it identity politics that gets Dem voters to the polls, or is it the loot?
I’d say the question is whether the GOP in the years ahead can shut down the Dem spending geyser or not. My guess is that the Dems have overdone it in the post-COVID years, that their spending and tax dodges have seriously hurt ordinary people — and certainly economic growth — and that we are in for a few years in which there will be political capital in spending restraint.
But I could be wrong.