Is the Republican Party’s Refusal to Raise Taxes Fiscally Irresponsible?

Open to Debate

Education, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Whether to extend four trillion dollars in tax cuts or raise them next year is in question, with 34.1 trillion dollars in federal debt hanging in the balance. Some argue that tax cuts don’t do enough to pay off the debt and not raising taxes imbalances the federal budget. Others argue our debt is caused by government overspending and will be helped by tax cuts that help promote a flourishing economy. Now we debate: Is the Republican Party’s Refusal to Raise Taxes Fiscally Irresponsible? Arguing Yes: Oren Cass, Executive Director of American Compass Arguing No: David McIntosh, President of the Club for Growth Nayeema Raza, Journalist at New York Magazine and Vox, is the guest moderator. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. This is open to debate. I'm John Donvan. Hi, everybody. Today, in the
0:34.1	wake of a pivotal presidential election, we are revisiting a recent episode about a persistent
0:39.2	Republican tax strategy. Our guests in this debate include two influential thought leaders
0:44.6	who are both conservatives, but they are on opposite sides of a policy choice that has seemed
0:48.9	almost fundamental to the Republican agenda in recent years, namely cutting taxes.
0:53.7	What follows is a really interesting conversation, and I am delighted to pass the
0:57.4	moderating duties for this one on to my colleague Naima Reza.
1:00.7	Naima, it's all yours.
1:02.5	It is often said that there are only two guarantees in this life, death and taxes.
1:08.1	But if we were to add a third in the 21st century, it might be that the Republican Party will almost always refuse to raise those taxes. But if we were to add a third in the 21st century, it might be that the Republican Party
1:12.4	will almost always refuse to raise those taxes. Indeed, we saw major tax cuts under President
1:18.1	George W. Bush, and we saw more yet under President Donald Trump's first term. Some of those tax
1:23.5	cuts are set to expire next year. And with Donald Trump returning to the White House and GOP
1:28.7	majorities in Congress, we know Republicans will determine what happens to those expiring tax credits.
1:35.0	Keeping them in place will cost the government about $6 trillion in revenue over 10 years.
1:40.1	To put that in context, that's almost 20% of our current national debt level of 35 trillion and counting.
1:46.7	Yet the GOP is not a monolith, and there's an important internal debate playing out about whether the Republican Party's refusal to raise taxes is fiscally irresponsible.
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