“The end of the era of tax cutting is going to put tremendous strain on the Republican coalition”
Pace the conventional wisdom, I think Republicans will perform well in the 2006 midterms. But beyond that, all bets are off. Here’s a big reason why:
The budget outlook — and the problems facing the GOP — promise to get much worse. Medicare’s costly new prescription drug benefit, an $18 trillion unfunded liability sponsored by the White House and Republican leadership, starts in January. Just two years from now, in 2008, the enormous Baby Boom generation will begin retiring, ceasing income tax payments and starting to collect benefits, leading to a budget squeeze unprecedented in U.S. history.
“We’re seeing the future,” said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration and tax-cut advocate. “The decisions that have been made over the last five years have resulted in the chickens coming home to roost.” [Emphasis added.]
If Congress is unable or unwilling to control spending, a sea of red ink will eventually force it to raise taxes. And when it does, the Republican coalition will implode. It has before.
The one election year when I didn’t vote for the GOP presidential candidate was 1992. I cast a protest vote for the Libertarian nominee. But millions of Republicans deserted to other quarters. Ross Perot, running as an independent, took 19% of the popular vote — almost all of it at the expense of George I, who had signed what was then the largest tax increase in American history. Eight years of Democratic control of the White House followed.
Rank and file Republicans put up with a lot of crap of from our party. But we will not put up with a party that takes a still larger share of our income to fund a bloated Government. For that, you don’t need a Republican Congress or president. Democrats will do just fine. (Although in fairness to President Clinton, he was much more fiscally conservative than George II has been.)
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