Republicans push tax cuts because they, more than Democrats, understand our monetary system and know that taxes don’t actually “fund” spending at the federal level. Less revenue for the government (even tho it only uses the revenue to control inflation and to define deficits) also increases the Treasury bond issues by retiring less debt (an accounting entity only used to track money flow in a dual entry spreadsheet system all banks use). More debt to politicize as fear fodder to the ignorant masses to gain acceptance of austerity, more reliance on private debt to maintain the economy, and more interest income for banks and the wealthy, win-win-win for business and deep-pocketed GOP donors.
Money created by Congress to pay for programs doesn’t disappear into the ether it was created from. It becomes someone’s assets in the private sector and is the only thing that can retire private sector debt or serve as a net store of value/savings. However, by isolating the government sector of the total spreadsheet of the economy politicians can associate the spending and “revenue” imbalance as a bad thing when people relate it to their household budget process. That relation is not accurate simply because none of us can (legally) create our money, but Congress does every time it spends, whether in deficit or not.
We have become so indoctrinated to the falsehood of public purpose spending being bad that we actually lauded Clinton’s removal of massive amounts of our currency for destruction as proof Democrats can be fiscally responsible. While it did serve to keep inflation low in a very hot economy, its purpose and the concept of it being applicable at all times (“Surpluses as far as the eye could see” according to Fed management) was mostly responsible for the recession in the late ’90s and, according to some economists with good track records, the ’08 crash. Bush, while not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, did reverse that and ended up pulling us out of recession.
Republicans always run up deficits and then use them as a club to beat Dems about the head and shoulders when they are no longer in control of the purse strings. This has been the goal since the late ‘60s/early ’70s and Dems are largely complicit in the con, as they never oppose the general message of “deficits bad”. A new breed of progressive Dems that understand economics is beginning to call out this good cop/bad cop play acting for what it is, neoliberal BS to enable the dominance of “markets” in all things, including the creation of money that the Constitution gives entirely to Congress and mandates that it do so “for the public welfare”.
