When lying becomes acceptable as part of a politico-theology

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The utter falsity of a statement is no barrier to Republican leaders repeating it. And so it was Sunday, as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham offered his version of the GOP's Uber Lie that tax cuts pay for themselves. Lindsey Graham Regurgitates the GOP's Tax Cut Whopper:

Appearing on Fox News Sunday [but of course], Graham defended the Republicans' demand for another $700 billion windfall for the wealthy by announcing the fiscal equivalent of the sun rising in the west and setting in the east:

"When you look historically, when we raise taxes, the economy slows and we don't get any more revenue. When we cut taxes, the economy grows and we maintain the same amount of revenue."

Not on this planet.

In his version of the Republican myth that "tax cuts pay for themselves," President George W. Bush confidently proclaimed, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase."

* * *

As it turned out, not so much. After Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt with his supply-side tax cuts, George W. Bush doubled it again with his own. And in between, the Clinton years saw robust economic growth, balanced budgets along with higher taxes (which, by the way, every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against.)

In fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that the Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure. As another CBPP analysis forecast, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts if made permanent will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession put together. Predictably, the Bush tax cuts didn't come anywhere close to paying for themselves. And as Congressional Budget Office projections revealed in June, making them permanent is the very worst thing the so-called deficit hawks could do to reduce the U.S. debt.

Sadly, Lindsey Graham's fraud is now orthodoxy in Republican circles. Despite the inescapable conclusion of history, theory and empirical evidence to the contrary, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, John Boehner, Tom Coburn, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison and other Republican alchemists continue to insist that cutting taxes increases government revenue and thereby reduces the deficit. Of course, even though the tax cut claim is laughably false, conservative ideology requires that it must true. Otherwise, the Republicans have just been giving money to rich people.

While independent economists have shown these arguments to be false, Sunday on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, President Reagan’s former budget director took on his own party for pushing this faulty logic. Reagan Budget Director: GOP Has Abandoned Fiscal Responsibility By Adopting ‘Theology’ Of Tax Cuts:

David Stockman, who led the all-important Office of Management and Budget under Reagan and was a chief architect of his fiscal policy, criticized today’s GOP for misreading Reagan’s legacy by adopting a “theology” of tax cuts. Stockman has spoken out before, but took perhaps his strongest stance yet against his own party today, saying “I’ll never forgive the Bush administration” for “destroying the last vestige of fiscal responsibility that we had in the Republican Party.” He also broke with Republican orthodoxy on a number of key issues:

– We need “a higher tax burden on the upper income.”

– “After 1985, the Republican Party adopted the idea that tax cuts can solve the whole problem, and that therefore in the future, deficits didn’t matter and tax cuts would be the solution of first, second, and third resort.”

– The 2001 Bush tax cut “was totally not needed.”

– On claims that Reagan proved tax cuts lead to higher government revenues: “Reagan proved nothing of the kind and yet that became the mantra and it just led the Republican Party away from its traditional sound money, fiscal restraint.”

– Former Vice President Cheney “should have known better” than claim the Bush tax cuts would pay for themselves.

– “I’ll never forgive the Bush administration and Paulson for basically destroying the last vestige of fiscal responsibility that we had in the Republican Party. After that, I don’t know how we ever make the tough choices.”

We have one political party entirely detached from reality and living in a fantasy world in which they believe in things as a matter of faith that are empirically, demonstrably, provably false. Lying about these falsehoods is an acceptable part of their politico-theology orthodoxy. Rationality, reason and observable empirical facts no longer matter – it is a test of faith for them. It can only lead to disaster.