The Phony Republican Deficit Hawks Are Back

When Barack Obama was president, the congressional Republicans cried and whined about the deficit -- and used that as an excuse to try and block everything President Obama tried to do.

But those same congressional "deficit hawks" had an amazing transformation once Donald Trump was sworn in as president. They passed a trillion dollar tax cut for the rich and corporations without worrying about what it would do to the deficit (or national debt).

Then they passed a pandemic bailout of trillions of dollars, because they wanted to look good with an election coming up (even though it mainly helped large businesses).

Currently, they are agreeing to another pandemic bailout, but this one is smaller. They want Georgia to vote Republican.

But we are starting to see the return of the GOP deficit hawks. They kept the latest bailout below a trillion dollars, and are already making noises about treating Joe Biden the way they treated Obama -- whining that the deficit won't allow them to do anything Biden wants.

Here is part of what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman had to say about this:

While Republicans have made the political calculation that they must cough up some money while control of the Senate is still in doubt, they’re clearly getting ready to invoke fear of budget deficits as a reason to block anything and everything Biden proposes once he’s finally sworn in. 

It should go without saying that the coming G.O.P. pivot to deficit hawkery will be completely insincere. Republicans had no problem with rising deficits during the pre-pandemic Trump years; they cheerfully passed a $1.9 trillion tax cut, mainly for corporations and the wealthy.

But the hypocrisy isn’t the main issue here. More important, shortchanging relief in the name of fiscal prudence would mean vast, unnecessary hardship for millions of Americans. I’m an optimist about prospects for economic recovery once we achieve widespread vaccination. But that won’t happen until well into 2021, and even a rapid recovery will take months after that to bring us back to something like full employment. Making a deal that only provides enhanced benefits for 10 weeks is like building a bridge that goes only a quarter of the way across a chasm.

And the case for more spending won’t end with short-term economic recovery. We’ll still need huge investments in infrastructure, child care, clean energy and more.

Republicans will try to stop all of this, claiming that it’s because they’re worried about debt. They’ll be lying, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so.