(I have argued on many occasions that America needs a responsible center-right party to be a successful liberal democracy, and that the current GOP isn’t it. In this series, I will describe a number of changes the GOP would need to make to meet that standard. That does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the policies I will be describing, or a prediction that they will happen in the foreseeable future, because there is no reason to believe that.)
Unlike any other supposedly conservative party anywhere else in the world, the GOP believes that tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy, are a good idea in all economic circumstances. This is for two reasons: first, it is consistent with the self-interest of the GOP donor class; and second, the Reagan tax cut is associated with “Morning in America,” the great economic expansion in 1984 that resulted in a crushing GOP victory. Of course, “Morning in America” was caused by a dramatic decrease in interest rates, not the tax cut (it was “Mourning in America” in 1982), and subsequent evidence from the Bush and Trump tax cuts have told us unequivocally that, under present conditions, regressive tax cuts create increased inequality, not higher levels of investment and productivity. Nevertheless, the myth persists, and even GOP politicians who should, and possibly even do, know better insist they believe it.
For the GOP to become a responsible center-right party, its members need to follow the evidence and conservatives in the rest of the world. Yes, there are circumstances when tax cuts are appropriate. No, they don’t always work. Tax cuts during a period of heightened inflation, for example, make very little sense. Just ask Liz Truss.