It's Not Just Jon Kyl Who Has Lost His Mind

And going back to my post earlier this morning on Dems losing the economic message war, they're losing it because the Republicans are insane and spouting gibberish while Dems are stuck actually having to govern the country.  Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl said infamously over the weekend that you don't have to pay for tax cuts, because they magically create more revenue.  They don't, as the Bush years attest to.

The problem is despite the overwhelming evidence against the Bush tax cuts paying for themselves, Republicans still believe that tax cuts pay for themselves, and that we need even more of them.  Brian Beutler:

"That's been the majority Republican view for some time," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told TPMDC this afternoon after the weekly GOP press conference. "That there's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject."

The CBO and other budget experts strongly disagree. And Democrats want to preserve the Bush tax cuts for people making less than $200,000-$250,000 a year -- but only for them. Allowing them to expire for wealthier people would raise hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years, which could allow them to offset the spending Republicans currently decry.

However, the GOP's top budget guy, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), disagrees. He said Kyl's prescription -- offset spending with tax increases or program cuts, but treat tax cuts differently -- is exactly right. "It makes a lot of sense, because, you know, when you're raising taxes you're taking money out of peoples' pockets," said Gregg when asked by TPMDC. "When you're spending money, you're spending money that is -- it's not the same thing because it's growing the government. So I tend to think that tax cuts should not have to be offset."

To recap, we can't extend unemployment benefits for Americans for $31 billion because it's irresponsible, but hundreds of billions in tax cuts for the wealthy, why that's perfectly fine.   Boy those Republicans sure are serious about cutting debt, aren't they.

And America is about to put them back in charge.  We deserve what's coming.