Deficits

This is a point that I have also argued and it bears repeating:

Once we understand that there’s no way that one Congress can hold a future Congress to a deficit deal, the discussion can stop right there. The last time there was a surplus, Republicans literally argued that the disappearance of the national debt was a problem that needed to be solved by massive upper-class tax cuts. There’s no reason to think it wouldn’t happen again

I would find the current discussion a lot more comforting if the early George W. Bush years had not begun with an argument that a balanced budget was a serious problem. I'd at least be more sympathetic to the current discussion if it began with a lot of "we were completely misguided . . . " retractions of past policy.