I thought Clark might have been too harsh on Thomas Sowell, but reading the column in question I have to agree with him. Sowell presents the Republicans as gullible innocents tricked by Democrats into raising taxes, when left to their own devices they would not only cut taxes but reduce spending, too. (When Sowell says, “Republicans complain about deficits and the national debt,” the implication is that they really want to do something about deficits and the debt, which can only mean raising taxes or cutting spending.) This is a fantasy. Over the last 30 years, Republicans have indeed cut taxes, but they have never reduced overall federal spending — instead they have financed government with vast deficits.

There’s a certain mentality that says, in the words of Dick Cheney, deficits don’t matter. Keep something in mind: government debt gets repaid eventually, and when it does taxpayers are on the hook not only for the principle (that is, the upfront cost of government) but also for the interest. In other words, paying for big government through deficits winds up being more expensive in the long run than paying for big government through immediate taxes.

The key bit of political sophistry that allows Republicans to believe otherwise is the myth of perpetual growth, according to which by the time taxpayers foot the bill for old spending plus interest, everyone’s prosperity will have increased to the point where the pinch is not as painful. Paying for that old spending will actually take away a smaller proportion of what citizens have earned than if they had paid up front. The total cost may be higher, but the cost relative to GDP is lower.

There’s an element of truth to that, but only under certain conditions. Under other conditions, such as if the economy  shrinks, the scenario is reversed: paying back old spending (plus interest) at that point is proportionally more painful than it would have been to pay if off when times were good. Complicating matters further is inflation, which may dilute the wealth-drain of paying for deficits, but does so only at the cost of hurting taxpayers. Of course, there are many other debt- and deficit-related financial problems on top of these basic considerations, and ultimately there’s something else that should be a stumbling block for anyone who cares about the country’s economic health and liberty: namely, that deficit spending facilitates the growth of the federal government in the first place.

Republicans still profit from the impression that they are against high taxes. But they are not — because deficit spending ultimately means a higher absolute burden on taxpayers, even if that burden is expressed by inflation and other indirect economic costs. One could just as reasonably reverse Sowell’s fairy tale: naive, well-meaning Democrats who want to pay for programs up front and save taxpayers money in the long term are continually lured by devious Republicans into putting the charges on the federal credit card, leading to financial ruin down the line. Of course, that story is just as silly as Sowell’s, because both parties ardently adore deficit spending.

Both tell the American people that everything can be had for nothing: free healthcare, prescription drugs, retirement benefits, hundreds of  bases around the world, federal highways, subsidized education, civil servants with six-figure salaries, supermax prisons, support for farmers, NASA — all with no money down! It’s not just the Democrats; the Republicans too make Countrywide Financial seem like an honest enterprise.