Promoted by Brendan

Rudy’s bold claim last Sunday on ABC’s This Week: "The case for me is that I am the strongest fiscal conservative in the race”.

On what basis does Rudy make this claim? Apparently on the basis that he is offering “the biggest tax cut plan of anyone running.” http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iyM-KTdp3jrniNOZ80hWZGc7ZWiQD8U9TH0G0

Folks, forgive my haphazard transitions from third person to second person (addressing Rudy), but well, I just wanna do both.

Rudy, I know – just as your campaign strategists know – that many (probably most) GOP primary voters unfortunately see inclination toward tax-cutting as the clear, undisputable, ultimate gauge of fiscal conservatism, but that doesn’t make it so. I know that such folks have bought into the convenient supporting myth that tax cuts “pay for themselves” or even “increase revenues”, or that tax cuts will “starve the beast” (deprive Washington of revenues) enough to avoid a substantial negative budgetary impact, or (somehow) both of the above (the “somehow” referring to the fact that the belief that a given tax cut will increase revenues over a given time period AND decrease revenues over the same period are mutually exclusive, or so one would think).

Rudy is currently hawking the former invalid premise (“tax cuts increase revenues”), although upon being confronted with it at the last debate by Fox News moderator Chris Wallace, he backed down to referring only to corporate income tax cuts (the revenue feedback effect of which has been studied relatively little), as opposed to making the general sort of statement that he has made (including in TV ads) to support his broader tax cut proposals, which include tax cuts on individual labor and investment income (the revenue feedback effect of which has been studied extensively, leading to the consensus view among economists or right, left, center, and non-partisan that such tax cuts from anywhere near current tax rates are unlikely to come anywhere close to revenue-neutrality – i.e., they have a very substantial net negative impact on revenues http://www.swordscrossed.org/node/1671 ). Rudy did still, however, assert that the Bush tax cuts, essentially tax cuts on individual labor and investment income, have had a positive impact on revenues (get me a shovel, please) and asserted a dynamic regarding corporate tax cuts that is at best not well-substantiated.

Oh, and anyone banking on “starve the beast” and willing to bet the nation’s future on it has been asleep throughout at least this decade.

Rudy, under current tax rates and under current entitlement policies and reasonable extrapolations of discretionary spending, our nation faces projected long-term fiscal imbalances (driven largely by entitlement spending and Medicare spending in particular) that just about every economist and other budget expert of every political stripe agree will devastate our economy and standard of living within a couple of decades, and will ultimately require much more severe spending cuts and/or tax hikes (and you can bet on “and” rather than “or”) the longer we wait to start reducing this fiscal imbalance*.

So, Rudy, if you’re still with me, we face an enormous fiscal imbalance and your “biggest tax cut plan of anyone running” will most likely make it much worse at a time when it is vital that we get started at mitigating it.

OK, so now back to your equation of tax cutting with fiscal conservatism, and your childish, begging-for-parody boast that you’re the biggest fiscal conservative because you’re proposing the biggest tax cut (it’s fiscal policy, Rudy, not an auction). Rudy, those of us who are TRUE fiscal conservatives consider two elements essential to fiscal conservatism: (1) fiscal responsibility, and (2) realistic economic assumptions. If you haven’t noticed by now, Rudy, your sophomoric, d*ck-waving, ignorance-exploiting “biggest tax cut plan of anyone running” is neither, and while those of us who are true fiscal conservatives may be a minority and perhaps a dying breed, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re right and you’re wrong, and we resent you masquerading as one of us and appropriating a descriptor (a badge of honor, in our opinion) that applies to us and not to you. If you want to charge more to our national credit card even in the face of enormous unfunded liabilities, find yourself a label other than “fiscal conservative”.

And Rudy, all of the above is coming from someone who is struggling to choose between you and one other candidate (McCain) and someone who greatly appreciates what you did for his city. I know that the Mr. McCain is also pandering on this issue, although largely driven to do so largely by you and the King of Pander, Flip Romney. But you've been the most aggressive on this point (and pointing out harmful pandering by Romney is like dunking a basketball through a six-foot high hoop), so you deserve it. But don't worry, ignorance will prevail, and your misleading rhetoric is still going to be very much a net vote-getter.

* Some suggested reading/video on our unfunded liabilities problem and related long-term fiscal imbalance:

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/charts_P/p4.cfm (chart uses data from CBO report at link below, per Scenario 2 -- tax revenues at historical levels as percent of GDP)

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/charts_P/p9.cfm (chart uses data from CBO report at link below, per Scenario 2 -- tax revenues at historical levels as percent of GDP)

Comptroller David Walker on 60 Minutes: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs

http://www.concordcoalition.org/events/fiscal-wake-up/fiscal-wake-up-cal...

CBO report, December 2005 http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6982/12-15-LongTermOutlook.pdf

CBO report, December 2007 (same type of report as the 2005 above) http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8877/12-13-LTBO.pdf I suggest reading at least the Executive Summary.