If you want fiscal responsibility, elect Democrats

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Before last year’s big tax cuts, the economy was improving nicely. After the tax cuts, the economy is doing the same – for now, anyway. What’s different is the $1.9 trillion the tax cuts have tacked onto deficits.

If President Donald Trump and allied Republicans were so determined to blow a huge hole in the federal budget, they could have more usefully spent the money on roads, communications and other infrastructure. These would have enhanced productivity and put the money into blue-collar pockets, as opposed to rich-investor portfolios.

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It’s remarkable how little economic bang the tax cuts are delivering. The short-term stimulus did tweak this year’s growth. The Congressional Budget Office sees the gross national product expanding at 3.3 percent in 2018.

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During Barack Obama’s last year in office, the economy grew by 1.9 percent. The year before, it expanded by 2.6 percent. And oh, the deficit as a percentage of the economy had fallen three-quarters by his last year.

So let’s drop the baloney about Republicans being stewards of fiscal responsibility. Shortly after approving Trump’s reckless tax cuts, the Republican Congress voted to raise spending by $300 billion. Proving that they have a sense of humor, Republicans then followed with a vote for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It failed to pass.

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No respectable economist ever bought into the argument put forth by Bush – and currently by Trump – that massive tax cuts necessarily pay for themselves in economic growth. Thus, Republicans wanting to look responsible talk a big game about pairing losses in tax revenues with serious cuts in spending. But they never ever do it.

The biggest federal expenditure, accounting for 26 percent of the budget, is health care. Nearly 60 percent of health care spending goes to the immensely popular Medicare program.

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House Republicans have just unveiled a budget proposal for 2019 that would chop more than a half-trillion dollars from Medicare. That’ll be the day.

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To recap, the last Democratic president left us with a growing economy, deficits coming under control and 15 million fewer uninsured Americans. And by the way, more jobs were created in Obama’s last 16 months than in Trump’s first 16 months.

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