Mitch McConnell Does Not Understand Fiscal Policy

Which must be why the National Review published his idiocy with this subtitle:

Democrats are poised to reverse over a decade of Republican tax relief

McConnell is complaining that the Democratic led Congress might follow in the footsteps of President Clinton and the 1993 tax bill:

Until Thursday, the largest tax increase had been in 1993. That’s when Bill Clinton proposed a monstrous budget that even he would later admit had contained too many tax hikes.

McConnell is basically saying that raising tax rates might cost a party some votes. What he fails to address in this NRO oped is the simple proposition “to spend is to tax”, which is often attributed to Milton Friedman. President Clinton inherited a large deficit, which means that current taxes are not covering spending with the deficit being essentially deferred taxation. Federal spending as a share of GDP actually fell during Clinton’s Administration. Since then, Federal spending has increased which means the sum of current taxes and deferred taxes has risen under President George W. Bush. Notice in his criticism of the current Congress, he does not identify a single place where Congress is proposing a massive increase in Federal spending. Rather he writes this tired old spin:

The Democrats sounded a thrifty tune in the run-up to the November elections. They know about the tax-and-spend stereotype, so many insisted things would be different this time around. But budget season is always the most telling time of year on Capitol Hill. And as Democrats on Thursday advanced the largest tax hike in history, the story they’re telling is this: The party of tax and spend is back, with a vengeance.

This should be compared to the spend and borrow party represented by Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Mitch McConnell.