Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Megan McArdle, ladies and germs.

I view both parties right now as engaged in a colossal game of chicken.  Everyone knows that eventually, we are going to have to do something about the budget deficit.  So everyone wants to pass legislation that will be politically toxic to undo.  The idea seems to be that when the moment of truth finally arrives, the other side will have to make more concessions.  

I assume that at some level, Republicans understand that cutting taxes will make it that much more wrenching when we finally have to cut the deficit.  I assume that at some level, Democrats knew that passing the health care bill would make it harder to balance the budget, because we used up the easiest, most obvious tax increases and spending cuts on expanding health care coverage, instead of using them to bring revenues and spending into roughly the same ballpark.  But I think they view this as a way to improve their initial position in the final showdown, meaning that overall, we'll end up with [lower taxes/higher spending] than we would if they just left well enough alone.

 

Got it?  She equates Republicans cutting taxes without paying for them with the Democrats retooling health care and actually paying for it, because paying for health care reform used up the "easy" ways to cut the deficit, so Republicans have every right to be pissed off because now we have to make hard choices like not cutting taxes without paying for them with spending cuts.

In other words, it's Obama's fault for wasting these easy health care deficit cutting measures on providing health insurance for 30 million Americans rather than something useful like more tax cuts for people who make $250,000 a year.

So now, when Republicans cut taxes for the rich (which they will have to do, it's a given according to Megan), they'll have to do things like gut Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid in order to lower the deficit.

Shorter McMegan:  Obamacare is forcing us to cut Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and it's all the Dems' fault.

I swear, Megan McArdle and Jennifer Rubin should start a folk duo and call it "We Have No Idea What The Hell We're Talking About, But Let's Cut Taxes Anyway."