This Is the Long Game of Republican Economics

Here is a brief modern history of Republican attitudes toward the deficit. For eight years under an Obama presidency, Republicans foretold of a debt apocalypse and urged lawmakers to slash deficits by trillions of dollars. Under Trump, both GOP-controlled houses passed a corporate tax bill that economists predict will grow deficits by at least $1 trillion in the next decade. Then, within hours after the tax bill passing the Senate, Republicans stepped up efforts to cut welfare spending on low-income Americans because, in the words of Sen. Orrin Hatch, “we don’t have any money anymore.”

This flip-flop—or, more accurately, a flip-flop/flop-flip—might strike some as a trivial double-reversal, or just quotidian hypocrisy. But it’s a microcosm