It’s almost like clockwork. As soon as a Democrat enters the White House, Republicans pretend to care about deficits again.
These foul-weather fiscal hawks neglect to mention, of course, that the GOP’s prized 20 tax cuts added nearly $2 trillion to deficits — back when the economy was doing okay.
Nor did they note that — again, before the coronavirus pandemic — the Republican-controlled Senate passed and President Donald Trump signed spending bills that added another $2 trillion to deficits.
This is, not coincidentally, almost exactly what they did about a decade ago. After years of spilling red ink on George W. Bush’s tax cuts, Republicans suddenly demanded to turn off fiscal (and monetary) spigots once Barack Obama was elected.
No matter that the economy, then as now, was in the throes of a historic economic catastrophe.