Fiscal conservatives in sheeps clothing

The Tea Party has staked out the political position as a group representing the fiscal conservative point of view. Polls indicate that they are also very socially conservative but for the purposes of this post I will take them at their word and assume that they are willing to support the candidate that best represents their fiscal conservatism.

First, I would like to point out that being a fiscal conservative does not mean you must always support tax cuts as a economic policy. In a recent article in the New York Times Bruce Bartlett, a former official under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, warned of the current perversion of supply side economics. Bartlett had this to say about the belief that all tax cuts increase revenue:

"This is a simplification of what supply-side economics was all about, and it threatens to undermine the enormous gains that have been made in economic theory and policy over the last 30 years."

Reagan cut some taxes and raised others and Bartlett feels that this sort of approach is at the heart of the success of supply side economics. Unfortunately the Republican solutions being offered for deficit reduction are only focused on cuts and ignore the opportunity that tax increases offer. Democrats have accepted that some cuts are necessary if we are to get serious about our National Debt and now Republicans have to accept that some tax increases are necessary if their deficit rhetoric is more than just election year politicking.

Another major component of the Republican deficit reduction plan is the old Republican stand by - privatization. The Ryan plan for example wants to shift medicare from a government run system to a voucher program. Unfortunately the only model this program is the one that the congressman is currently part of and it is worse at controlling costs than Medicare. Additionally privatization has been pushed before in other areas by well organized and very well funded private organizations. The results show higher costs for private TSA agents vs. public and tax payers getting stuck with the bill for privately run prisons when the companies running the prisons lost their contracts due to poor performance.

Republicans have also focused all of their "important" deficit reduction cuts on spending they are against more for political reasons than for the savings they offer. Planned Parenthood gets $317 million dollars from the government yet the oil industry gets $4 billion and subsidies even though they already make billions in profit every year. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives $422 million a year from the American tax payer while we subsidies ethanol to the tune of $7.7 billion per year. Foreign Aid costs Americans $49 billion a year yet we lose $295 billion a year to cost overruns for military acquisitions. In every instance Republicans are attacking the former instead of the latter.

Finally, just to pile on, it should also be noted that a recent report by the Associated Press it was found that a number of government officials were using BP oil spill money on pet project having little or nothing to do with oil spill associated expenses. The five major offenders listed in the report were all Republicans. I guess Kwame Kilpatrick hasn't cornered the market on using tax payer money for personal gain.