Deficits Only Matter if a Democrat is in the White House

So Donald Trump has unveiled his new tax plan.  Surprise, surprise, it looks very much like every other Republicans' tax plans, i.e., it makes across-the-board rate cuts, while promising to make up the difference by closing loopholes.  Like all other Republican plans, the numbers don't add up.  Trump at least implies that he would make up for his income tax cuts with a stiff imports tax.  The problem, of course, is that a revenue-raising tariff and a protective tariff are basically incompatible.  One depends on a large volume of imports to raise revenue; the other is in place precisely to reduce  imports.  (The Laffer curve at work!)

In the meantime, Rolling Stone reports:

He's called for immediate tax hikes on hedge-fund profits; tax hikes for the ultrawealthy like himself to pay for sweeping cuts for the middle class; vast spending increases on health care in general and for veterans and women in particular; huge capital investments in the country's infrastructure, beginning with roads and bridges; and a wartime-era ramp-up of the Defense Department budget to "make our military so strong that nobody would mess with us." How would he plow such mandates through a Congress that is run by the very party he's betraying? And where does he find the money to do these things when he himself says we're nearing the point of no return on a deficit of $19 trillion?

Maybe he thinks that if he yells at basic arithmetic and says "You're fired!" it will go away.  After all, a whole lot of people seemed to think Obama could stop the BP oil leak by getting angry enough.

But by and large, the Republicans are all up to their old tricks.  They are all proposing huge across-the-board tax cuts, with most of the benefits at the top, and with no clue given as to how they propose to pay for them.  After years of ranting about deficits.

This primary makes one thing very clear.  Deficits only matter if a Democrat is in the White House.