The following article by Harry Stein was posted on the Center for American Progress website July 17, 2017:
After years of hysterical warnings about budget deficits under former President Barack Obama, Republican congressional leaders suddenly seem to have shed their concern for the deficit. In The Atlantic, Russell Berman questions whether “deficits still matter to Republicans” under President Donald Trump.1
While this changing approach to budget deficits is certainly hypocritical, it continues a consistent pattern of selectively using fiscal hysteria as a weapon to attack programs for low- and middle-income Americans. A recent article by this author for Harvard Law and Policy Review defines fiscal hysteria as “exaggerating the impacts of deficits and debt, thereby underestimating the extent to which the United States can afford to solve problems facing the American people.”2 While fiscal hysteria does not actually lead to sustainable fiscal policy—since it tends to be deployed selectively for political gain—it does lead to policies that enrich those at the top at the expense of everyone else.3 Continue reading “How Paul Ryan’s Hypocritical Fiscal Hysteria Threatens Working Families”