If the GOP wants to curtail national debt, they should quit trying to defund the IRS | Opinion

A dangerous game of politics is being played in Washington, D.C. If Republicans don’t increase the nation’s debt limit, the federal government will either default on our debt or have to stop spending money. The latter might sound appealing to many people, but it could mean senior citizens not receiving their full social security, Medicare, etc.

Default also means U.S. Treasuries will be downgraded. Interest rates will probably increase. Foreign investors will have less confidence in U.S. securities. Our economy could fall into recession. This backdoor manner of trying to impose one’s fiscal ideology, or just playing partisan games, is not the proper way of doing business.

When the GOP gained control of the House of Representatives in January, they immediately attempted to weaken the IRS’s ability to collect taxes. Does that sound like people sincerely committed to taking realistic action to control our mounting debt? And from where did all this debt, now approaching $32 trillion, originate?

When Ronald Reagan entered office in January of 1981 and said he could cut taxes and balance the budget, the national debt was slightly less than $1 trillion. His supply-side economics, instead, sent annual deficits soaring and increased our debt 2.6 times before he left office. Numerous tax increases followed. Finally, by the end of the Clinton administration in the year 2000, the federal budget was approximately balanced again and the national debt stable at $5 trillion. It could have remained there, but along came George W. Bush with the same tax- cutting ideology that wrecked the budget 20 years before. Our national debt mushroomed.

In previous Tri-City Herald op-eds, I examined whether government spending in American is excessive and found that it was not historically or comparatively high relative to other advanced nations. The Covid pandemic increased the percentage of total government spending relative to GDP for a few years, but now that ratio is coming back down to normal. Bottom line: There is nothing wrong with the amount of governmental spending in America.

The main cause of our ballooning national debt is GOP policies. Moreover, their tax cuts disproportionately benefit the rich and corporate. Rarely does the Republican party propose legislation, such as paid family leave, that will benefit regular Americans.

There is yet another rub regarding current GOP protests. Spending on the “wasteful social programs” Republican politicians lament is disproportionately in their own districts. Blue (democratic) states sometimes subsidize red (Republican) states; and within states, it’s the blue areas that tend to support the red. For illustration, New York pays more to the federal government than they receive back, whereas conservative Mississippi receives more back than they pay. And in this state, the Seattle/Everett area subsidizes most other locations.

There is little cause to doubt that numerous Republican politicians would significantly curtail social security, Medicare, transfer payments, etc., if they could get away with it. But the reality is that, even when they have held complete control of the federal government, they haven’t done so. Republicans have never made the large-scale federal spending cuts necessary to balance the budget given their large tax cuts. The reason is because people in their poor districts are disproportionately beneficiaries of such social programs. Republican politicians would be out of a job if they inflicted such pain. Their debt hype is more political brinkmanship than true fiscal concern.

So, on both the revenue and (to some extent) expenditure sides of the budget, the GOP is generally more to blame for deficits and debt than liberals. But that doesn’t expunge blame among Democrats. If they can plainly see taxes are not going to be significantly raised, they should reduce spending.

Regarding the debt ceiling, however, GOP protests over raising it are hypocrisy. If they seriously want to curtail future accruement of debt, they should repel their deficit-producing tax cuts and quit trying to defund the IRS. Threatening to crash the economy unless there are spending cuts (which they might not even actually want) is appalling.

Their true underlying goals here are to (1) grandstand to their base, (2) continue their public-relations charade that they’re not the ones responsible for our outrageous debt, and (3) unsettle the economy while Joe Biden is President. This is lowly politics.

Mark Mansperger, of Richland, WA., is a professor of anthropology. His research includes cultural ecology, societal development and political economy. The views presented in this column are his own.