I didn’t watch last night’s Republican debate in Iowa since it sounded about as much fun as, well, listening to Rick Santorum and Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann wax political. The highlights were more than enough for me, and even those few minutes had me utterly confused and depressed.
Probably the most telling part of the debate was when everybody onstage was asked if they would accept a deficit reduction package of 91% spending cuts and 9% taxes. They all said no, every single one of them. For all presidential candidates in the Republican party, any tax increases are off the table. Think about that for a moment. This is a minority view in the U.S. by a big margin. According to Nate Silver, this is even to the right of the average Republican voter. At least when it comes to budget politics, the spectrum of the beliefs of the Republicans presidential candidates runs from far right to far right.
Notice what else Nate Silver’s analysis says: that average Democrats support a mix of both spending cuts and tax increases, with more cuts than taxes. This is consistent with what Democrats have proposed both at the state level and nationally. No Democrat has proposed a budget anywhere close to 91% tax increases and 9% cuts, let alone stated that a budget with any cuts whatsoever would be off the table. Nevertheless, the Republican presidential candidates are showing how far out of the mainstream they are, and how unwilling they are to compromise on anything.
The budget reality is this: Baby Boomers are retiring, and for some crazy reason they expect to get the Social Security and Medicare benefits they have been promised. Paying for this is going to require tax increases, along with spending cuts elsewhere. There is no getting around this fact. One party’s leading candidates want to wish it away. How seriously can you take these people?