Bruce Bartlett, a former policy analyst in the Bush and Reagan administrations (read this as the guy is a Republican and has worked for Republican administrations in the past) warns that the current house republicans are going too far when they confuse good accounting and tax policy with political ideology (see here) He writes in part that
...this fits into a pattern – since getting control of Congress in 1995, Republicans have often abolished institutions that they couldn’t turn into puppet organizations for promoting their agenda.
In other words, it is an issue of credibility. Republicans don’t really care about accurate revenue estimates; they just want them to show that tax cuts pay for themselves, so they can pass more of them without constraint. As my fellow Economix contributor Simon Johnson has noted, the corruption of the agencies that produce budget data is a crucial cause of Europe’s debt crisis... Republicans want the world to know that tax cuts expand real G.D.P., the capital stock and labor supply, but if spending has any such effect they don’t want anyone to know. Implicitly, Republicans want everyone to think that spending never raises growth because it’s their dogma. But in the real world, everyone knows that government investments in the national highway system, medical and other scientific research, and other programs unquestionably add to growth. And there are times when government spending can provide macroeconomic stimulus, which the C.B.O. has repeatedly documented, to the consternation of Republicans. Over the last three years, we have seen Republicans politicize every aspect of policy making – filibustering virtually every administration bill and appointment in the Senate, risking default on the national debt by refusing to raise the debt limit, and routinely threatening government shutdowns unless the White House accedes to their demands."
Scary times.
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