The central tenet of Republican fiscal policy is to cut taxes and starve the beast to reduce government spending, putting more money into peoples pockets. This is a policy that I guarantee will never work but will continue to earn Republicans votes. If you want to reduce consumption of a good you raise the price, conversely if you want to increase the consumption of a good you lower the price. Cutting taxes will always encourage people to demand more government services than they would have at the lower price. Lower taxes = increase demand for government services. No one likes paying taxes so if you lower peoples taxes you get votes. People like consuming government services so the more you provide at a lower price the more votes you get. The Republicans get a two for one in electoral benefit when they lower taxes. The deficit doesn't get any lower but who cares, it's all about the votes. Increasing taxes in an effort to balance the budget and lower demand for government services would have a greater impact on Republicans than it would Democrats. "Red States" receive significantly more in return for their tax dollars on average than "Blue States" do. Raise taxes, watch demand for government services go down nationally and watch red states, who have a better seat at the trough, suffer significantly more pain. It would also hurt the precious defense budget and farm subsidies which are calculated into the increased benefits that red states get from the government on average but are the kind of issues that would give Republicans a swift kick in the balls. There are lots of very smart Republicans who I think are very aware of this dynamic (at least I hope so). It's central to the idea that price should be established by markets, which Republicans pretend to care about. It's a vile way to manipulate voters but that's what you get in a corrupt system. I can't give the Democrats a pass in any way. If the Democrats have a coherent fiscal policy let me know because I haven't noticed it yet. We could talk about many other problems with Republican policy that are bat shit crazy and ill informed but I think the one I listed above is the central lie to their guiding ethos. I've not yet met a republican who doesn't think that I'm an idiot and tells me that I don't understand how markets really work but oh well, I still think that the most essential function of the market is to establish a price at which goods can be exchanged and that the less that price is obfuscated and manipulated the closer we will get to a desired level of consumption. I think there are loads of ways the government could direct it's money to stimulate the economy and encourage the public welfare and happiness but I don't think there is much risk of many of them happening.
I don't follow this. I imagine myself paying less in taxes, but I can't think of any services that would make me want to demand more of. It makes more sense to me the other way around: if I'm paying more in taxes, I feel I should be getting more. What am I missing? Cutting taxes will always encourage people to demand more government services than they would have at the lower price. Lower taxes = increase demand for government services.
If cantaloupe gets cheaper people will choose to consume more of it. If the cost of government goes down, you feel less pain at tax time and the idea of introducing more government services doesn't seem as bad. If taxes are already high you don't want ant more government services because they are already breaking your back you will probably like less government services so that you can pay less taxes in the future. A supply and demand function is a snapshot, they are usually in constant motion. Consumers and producers constantly change the amount they will supply and demand in response to any change in input. Taxes go up people will desire smaller government. Lower taxes and the opposition to bigger government will slacken. Right now we consume more than we pay for. Consumption of government services is greater than the cost of those services because of tax cuts and borrowing. If people had to pay the true cost of government by paying a higher tax rate than the pressure to reduce spending would increase and government spending might actually decrease. With the current system Republican tax cuts will only serve to decrease the pressure for smaller government and should if market theory has any validity at all increase the demand for more government services. Each of us a a level of taxes and government services that we would prefer. Because we have to aggregate the supply and demand of these services you might feel like we have too much government while another person feels like they don't have enough but the average is what should guide the course of government spending (probably not true as campaigne money probably has the biggest influence). People think they are getting what they paid for with their tax money but in fact they are getting more than they paid for because of deficit spending. I don't know if this is still unclear to you but I'm doing my best. Summery: If you subsidies a good people will consume more of it than they would at it's market equilibrium price (milk subsidies for instance). If you tax a good people will consume less of it than they would at a market equilibrium price (think cigarettes). Right now we subsides government spending by borrowing. Tax cuts only make the consumption of government services less painful or more desirable. If we paid the true cost of government services the market forces (supply and demand) would shrink government and help establish the size of government that Americans really desire. Doing this would not be in the interest of Republicans because they could no longer campaign on shrinking government and lowering taxes. The real Republican agenda is too get elected not to shrink government (lot of the dingbats think they want smaller government but the guys up top probably know what they are doing).