September 28, 2017

Some days, you have such moments of pure grift, it's hard to keep a straight face. This morning, Scarborough was pretending to be concerned about the deficit, and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) was pretending that tax cuts would increase the GDP.

It's the return of trickle down -- and we all know what's trickling down.

"We want to lower the tax rate as much as possible, but people keep as much of their money that they earned as possible. but on the other side of that, always has to be a concern about the deficit," Scarborough said.

"And the national debt that's gone from 4 trillion under Clinton to 11 trillion under Bush to 20 trillion under Obama.* Now it looks like it will be 30, 35 trillion under Donald Trump. How do you cut taxes without blowing a hole in the deficit?"

"It comes down to the question about the deficit. One of the principles that many of the conservatives espouse to is, as you lower that rate, what you get is actually greater economic growth, and that GDP growth will make up for much of the deficit," Meadows said.

"You may get a deficit in the short run, but you can make a compelling case that over the next 15 years if we're really aggressive or bold on reducing these tax rates not only for individuals but for small businesses and corporations, that what you can do as long as you don't grow the government along with that, is balance over a 15-year period. So for me, I'm trying to look at it much like a mom or dad with a 30-year mortgage, as long as we have a plan to pay it off over a longer period of time, that's fiscally responsible, but we do know we're not going to get out of this deficit on an anemic economic growth of 1.8.%."

We all know that's absolute horse hockey. Hell, we've seen it in every Republican administration, and it doesn't work. This "economic growth" fairy tale is nothing but a cover story they use to rationalize their destructive policies:

“This is fool’s gold that you’ll cut taxes, everybody will work harder, more money will come and you’ll erase the fiscal impact,” said Steve Bell, who was a Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee from 1981 to 1986. “It never happens.”

* Remember when they made the Bush tax cuts permanent?

No one really seems to believe this tax plan will pass, but with GOP leadership desperate to show some kind of win, you can't count it out.

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