Republicans Helped Increase The Debt With Tax Cuts, Now Threaten To Cut Programs Because It Rose

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an updated outlook on the country’s long-term fiscal future on Tuesday. The budget outlook projects that the national debt will grow at a faster rate than the CBO projected in last year’s outlook, and some Republicans have already seized the news to attack programs that support low- and middle-income Americans.

Shortly after the CBO published the new data, House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) said in a statement, “These debt projections portend a horrible fiscal legacy,” and specifically expressed alarm about “insolvent Medicare and Social Security programs.” Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) also singled out Social Security and Medicare in a statement that claimed, “We’re past the tipping point in this debt crisis.”

But the higher debt projections in this year’s outlook are not surprising – they are the predictable consequence of tax cuts that Congress passed last year. Republican leaders in Congress insisted on passing those tax cuts without paying for them, despite a veto threat from the White House due to the lack of offsetting deficit reduction. President Barack Obama only signed the tax cuts into law after Congress also included important tax relief for working families alongside the tax cuts for businesses.

Republican leaders brushed aside deficit concerns when the tax deal passed at the end of last year. And just a few weeks ago, House Republicans unveiled a tax plan that would increase deficits even more with tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans....
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/07/12/3797641/cbo-deficit-republicans/