Actually it is more like spending goes up no matter what. Bush cut taxes and held the line on tax increases and that hardly restrained his government spending, in fact spending went nuts historically.
A real problem is once you got citizens paying zero income taxes not only does that not pay for itself, but to them the government looks free and they see little reason not to want it to do more.
I agree with the Laffer curve theory as it is obvious that zero or 100% tax rates must kill the revenue. But there is also the liberal and conservative Santa Clause theories of spending and taxes, one that we saw under Bush.
Nope, not true. The deficit increased when Clinton had a Democratic Congress -- and during that time he raised taxes. "His" balanced budgets resulted from an economic boom and a [Republican] Congress which did not increase spending at near the historic rate.
Bush cut taxes and held the line on tax increases and that hardly restrained his government spending,
True.
in fact spending went nuts historically.
Not true. As a function of GDP Bush's spending was not historic. High yes; nuts, no.
A real problem is once you got citizens paying zero income taxes not only does that not pay for itself, but to them the government looks free and they see little reason not to want it to do more.
Yes. That is correct. The solution to spending on discretionary items is to tax those who are not being taxed. At present, they (>half the country) are contributing NOTHING. The solution to entitlement spending is to either make people actually pay what the programs are projected to cost, or adjust benefits to actuarial realities. There really is no alternative. But what we are actually going to do is monetize the debt. That will be a tax on everyone. But the poor will think they're getting away with something because "the rich" will continue to pay [visible] taxes.
But there is also the liberal and conservative Santa Clause theories of spending and taxes, one that we saw under Bush.
Like Nixon, Bush was not a conservative. But like Nixon, Bush was correct on the Great Issue of his time, so conservatives toed the line. Because of his anticommunism, conservatives carried Nixon's water despite his egregious liberalism. Bush had more conservative instincts than Nixon: he certainly didn't create OSHA, the EPA, or do revenue sharing or wage and price controls. But he also didn't use his veto pen, and he needed to. Often. And, as I said, he was not a conservative.
Conservatives have no "Santa Clause" theories of spending and taxes: we believe the problem is spending.
It is.