June 26, 2014
A NYT editorial on Senator Thad Cochrane’s narrow victory in a Republican primary criticized his record:
“He has consistently voted for the kinds of tax cuts that have starved discretionary spending and held down the economic recovery.”
This is incorrect. There is no direct relationship between the tax cuts Mr. Cochrane has supported and the cuts in discretionary spending that Congress and President Obama agreed to. The cuts came about because of a commitment to hit arbitrary deficit targets. Given the vast amount of unemployment and underemployment in the economy, there is no reason to be reducing the deficit. There is no reason that we could not have both maintained higher levels of discretionary spending and left the tax cuts in place.
It is important to be clear on this issue since the public needs to know that the main factor slowing growth and keeping millions of people out of work is simply a perverse cult of low deficits, not the need to raise taxes on anyone.
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