Zakaria on GOP Win

Fareed Zakaria of Time notes the GOP history of cutting taxes but not spending and asks if they are serious about dealing with the deficit.

I would suggest three litmus tests to gauge whether the Republicans are serious about deficits: 1) Are they prepared to stop with the tax cuts? Because the deficit will keep widening with more of them. 2) Are they prepared to cut middle-class entitlements? Because the only places to find real reductions in federal-government spending are in the large, popular programs like Medicare and Social Security. 3) Are they ready to take on the Pentagon? Because at $717 billion, defense spending — more than half of all discretionary spending — has to be trimmed.

Former Reagan budget official David Stockman is skeptical.

On the Oct. 31 edition of 60 Minutes, Stockman weighed in on this madness. "We've demonized taxes," he said. "We've created almost the idea that they're a metaphysical evil ... It's rank demagoguery. We should call it for what it is. If these [Republicans] were all put into a room on penalty of death to come up with how much they could cut, they couldn't come up with $50 billion, when the problem is $1.3 trillion. So to stand before the public and rub raw this antitax sentiment, the Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of themselves."

--Ballard Burgher