The Fiscal Illusion Effect

As the debate rages over letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, Republicans have raised their starve-the-beast theory from its coffin. They insist that government (the "beast") can be shrunk by cutting taxes: The less money government has, the less government there can be.

Time has not been kind to this theory. The beast never did better than when tax-cutting Republicans were in charge.

The fiscal grown-ups who used to run the Republican Party didn't cotton to reducing taxes before spending in normal times. But Ronald Reagan offered the far more pleasurable doctrine of just cutting taxes.

"Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance," Reagan said in his 1980 campaign. "Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker."

No one turned the starving-beast theory into baloney faster than Reagan, who followed his tax cuts with a spending binge fueled by massive borrowing. What he did, in effect, was cut the extravagant kid's allowance and then hand him 10 credit cards.

The national debt doubled under Reagan. It doubled again under George W. Bush, who followed the same reckless path. (At least Reagan subsequently raised taxes in the face of soaring deficits.)

Frustrated fiscal conservatives - a group that includes Democrats, Republicans and, above all, independents - are assessing another tool for imposing budgetary discipline: the "Fiscal Illusion" effect. Totally contrary to starve-the-beast, it promotes raising taxes as the better way to contain government.