"Springtime for Hypocrites"

Paul Krugman:

Just two weeks ago, the deficit was the great evil, and all the VSPs insisted that we needed fiscal austerity now now now. Then, magically, a big tax cut — increasing federal debt by more than the original Obama stimulus, and substantially raising the probability of making unaffordable tax cuts permanent — was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Why, it’s almost as if all the concern about the deficit was a front for opposing anything progressives might want, to be dropped as soon as debt was being run up on behalf of conservative goals. But that can’t be true, can it?

Many Republicans are still playing starve the beast. The next step for the GOP is to use the deficit problems that are created by the tax cut legislation as evidence that government spending is out of control. The biggest target for cuts will be social insurance programs. I wonder how many people realize that the revenue loss from the tax cuts will be more than three times the shortfall in Social Security (the tax cuts to those making over $250,000 alone would eliminate the Social Security shortfall)?