Today, I review, link to and embed Here Comes the Republican Santa Scam Again from The Hartmann Report. [Note to readers, I subscribe to the paid version of the Hartmann Report on Substack. It is only $8 a month and is truly worth it.]
All that follows is from the above resource.
Here Comes the Republican Santa Scam Again by Thom Hartmann
Hopefully this time Democratic politicians and our media will, finally, call the GOP out on Wanniski’s and Reagan’s Two Santa Clauses scam and put an end to it once and for all…
Here is the intro to this important article:
Merry Christmas!
The GOP-caused fiscal disaster and government shutdown has been postponed until March, but in the meantime, House Republicans have laid out their vision for the future of America.
In a budget document they released last year, anticipating this very moment, the legislators proposed dramatic $9 trillion cuts to Social Security, food stamps, aid to women and children, Medicare and Medicaid, along a new round of tax cuts for America’s billionaires. Their argument is that we need to “balance the budget now!”
This is the classic Two Santas strategy that the GOP has been running ever since 1981. In addition to showing the hypocrisy and depravity of these politicians who are happy to live on the largesse of rightwing billionaires but see no benefit in feeding hungry children, it also shows that Jude Wanniski’s grand plan, adopted by Reagan in 1981, is alive and well.
It’s no accident or coincidence that the threat of a failure to pay the nation’s bills or fund an upcoming year constantly happens when Republicans control the House of Representatives.
You could even call it a conspiracy: there’s an amazing backstory — with a unique name — here. And it all started with a guy named Jude Wanniski, who literally transformed Republican Party politics with a plan that the American mainstream media, astonishingly, continues to ignore.
Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary:
To set up its foundation, Wanniski’s “Two Santas” strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes on the rich, all to intentionally run up the US debt as far and as fast as possible.
They started this during the Reagan presidency and tripled down on it during the presidencies of Bush and Trump with massive tax cuts for billionaires and increases in spending across-the-board.
Those massive tax cuts and that uncontrolled spending during four Republican presidencies produced three results:
- They stimulated the economy with a sort of sugar high, making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy;
- They raised the national debt dramatically (it’s at $36 trillion today, all of which tracks back to Reagan’s, Bush Jr.’s, and Trump’s massive tax cuts and Bush’s two illegal off-the-books wars);
- And they made people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”
Then comes part two of the one-two punch: when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “you must cut spending to solve the crisis!”
The “debt crisis,” that is, that they themselves created with their massive tax cuts and wild spending.
Do whatever it takes, the “Two Santas” strategy goes. Tie up legislation, deny a quorum, filibuster, shut down the government, whatever.
Which is why, following Wanniski’s script, Republicans were squealing about the national debt and saying they will refuse to fund the government, possibly crashing the US economy on Biden’s watch.
And, once again, the media covered it as a “Debt Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s, and since then rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.
Politically, it’s a brilliant strategy that was hatched by a fellow most people have never heard of: Jude Wanniski.
Republican strategist Wanniski first proposed his Two Santa Clauses strategy in The Wall Street Journal in 1974, after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace and the future of the Republican Party was so dim that books and articles were widely suggesting the GOP was about to go the way of the Whigs.
