“Responsibility”: the Answer to Republican Tax Spin, and a Chance to Vanquish Reaganomics

Since Obama announced his tax plan in the run-up to the 2008 election, the Republican Party’s one and only response has been simple, predictable, and wholly beside the point: “Socialism.”

By focusing on the recipients of the greatest tax increases, the GOP has managed to effectively dodge a more essential and (for them) damaging debate – that of the value and effectiveness of tax cuts, in general. Both the Reagan mythology and Republican appeal are premised on the idea that cutting taxes is the solution to any economic crisis threatening the nation. It’s an easy idea to sell: who doesn’t like saving money? But it’s also a vast oversimplification.

No nation can cut taxes without also cutting spending. For tax cuts to be safe, let alone desirable, the government must cut both, a feat that no Republican President in the modern era has ever managed to accomplish (despite all talk to the contrary). Reagan’s attempt to divorce tax cuts from coordinate spending cuts failed utterly, a fact that ultimately doomed his successor by forcing him to raise taxes. While Bush junior’s attempt to succeed where his father failed is the direct cause of our current predicament, the root of the problem remains in the irresponsibility of “Reaganomics.”

The current economic crisis gives Democrats a rare chance to make this historical point, and vanquish once and for all the notion that we as a nation can live beyond our means. The real danger for America today isn’t that the rich might – heaven forfend! – pay what they paid under Clinton (the horror!). It’s that, sometime after Obama leaves office, we’ll let ourselves be seduced again by the promise of easy answers and $300 rebates. Raising taxes isn’t about “socialism.” It’s about basic responsibility. Or, more simply still, “freedom isn’t free.”