Anyone know why the pay as you go rule was abandonned?

Question

During the 90's when the republicans controlled congress and the Democrats controlled the white house, a bi-partisen agreement was reached that any time a program was proposed that included increased spending, it had to be offset by reducing spending somewhere else. The result was a budget surplus. After George Bush was elected, the republicans controlled Congress and the Whitehouse. At that time pay as you go was abandoned. It seemed like very logical idea and have never understood why it was pushed to the side.

Answer 1

Because Bush believed that cutting taxes was more important than having a stable economy, or keeping the debt down.

And then with the "war on terror", he saw the perfect opportunity to expand executive power. He just did so at the expense of everything else -- the law, the constitution, the separation of powers doctrine, and the concept of a balanced budget.

Answer 2

BushCo abandoned the idea in order to try to stimulate the economy at the time. He had bought into the Keynesian lie that lowering taxes would increase revenues. So he lowered taxes and waited for the increased revenues to balance things out. He's still waiting for that to happen.

Then we had the terrorist attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq, and suddenly we're sending hundreds of billions of dollars per year to Halliburton and there goes the economy.

All the Democratic candidates have said they will reestablish paygo if elected.

Answer 3

I guess we see how completely worthless an economics degree can be. It was the cut in the marginal rates, NOT the increased spending that made the budget surplus.

Answer 4

Republicans believe in pumping the economy up with deficit spending, then claiming that tax cuts made all of the difference. It's like pumping up your lifestyle with credit card spending, then leaving the bills to someone else.

Answer 5

I actually thought that was a pretty good idea. Must be why they got rid of it. Why would they want to actually pay as they go? That was a pain in the ***.