As long as members of the Republican Party remain 100 percent opposed to tax increases, you can't possibly have a bipartisan agreement on debt-reduction. And I think the big moral of 2001 is that you have to have bipartisan agreement on debt-reduction. The Clinton administration succeeded in achieving massive deficit reduction and was putting the country in a position to deal with the long-term fiscal challenge. But the Republican Party didn't buy in to the theory that the long-term fiscal challenge should be dealt with. So instead of embracing budget surpluses as a way to massively reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio ahead of the baby boomers' retirement, they characterized surpluses as a sign of overtaxation that required large, deficit-inducing tax cuts. And of course they got Alan Greenspan to embrace that theory. So if I were a Democratic legislator, I would just shrug at all these reports and tell the authors to come talk to me when they've found some Republicans who are willing to say that the looking bankruptcy of the country is a bigger problem than high taxes.
So if I were a Democratic legislator, I would just shrug at all these reports and tell the authors to come talk to me when they've found some Republicans who are willing to say that the looking bankruptcy of the country is a bigger problem than high taxes.
