GOP House members made some valuable budget rule changes, such as requiring that spending bills’ costs be projected beyond 10 years. They also are requiring that increases in mandatory spending be offset by spending cuts elsewhere in the budget (yet won’t allow spending increases to be paid for by closing tax loopholes). But when it comes to tax cuts, GOP lawmakers are no longer requiring offsets. “How did Republican leaders reconcile their purported deep concern about budget deficits with their advocacy of large tax cuts?” asked columnist Paul Krugman. “Was it that old voodoo economics — the belief, refuted by study after study, that tax cuts pay for themselves — making a comeback? No, it was something new and worse . . . the belief that deficits created by tax cuts just don’t matter.”
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