How about this one?
Which of the following scenarios would be preferable for the U.S. economy?
9 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 22% of GDP, 250 billion dollar surplus.
10 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 20% of GDP, 0 surplus.
11 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 18% of GDP, 250 billion dollar deficit.
10 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 20% of GDP, 0 surplus.
11 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 18% of GDP, 250 billion dollar deficit.
Your choices implicitly assume that reduced government leads to greater GDP. This is a simplistic assumption, which seems primarily designed to spare supply siders the need to think about complex issues since cut taxes automatically becomes the obvious solution to all problems. I will, however, ACCEPT this Laffable assumption in order to demonstrate to you that even if it were correct the issues are far more complex that your seem to think, but first let me add two more choices for you to choose from: :
14 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 12% of GDP, 1 trillion dollar deficit;
16 trillion dollar GDP, federal spending 10% of GDP, 1.6 trillion deficit;
I guess you prefer the latter case, where taxes are zero (entire Federal budget covered by borrowing). Now lets further analyze your choices as if they represented reality:
Case 1: $9T=GDP; $1.98T=spending; $.25T= surplus; therefore, $2.23T=taxes:
Case 2: $10T=GDP; $2T=spending; no surplus; therefore, $2T=taxes
Case 3: $11T==GDP; $1.98T=spending; $.25T=deficit; therefore, $1.73T=taxes
Certainly without looking further case 3 looks best. It says, in effect, that if we cut taxes by $.5T the government stays the same size, but the economy "grows" by $2T. Now let me complicate it for you (I am not putting this forth as a realistic assessment; I'm just trying to turn on a lightbulb for you).
If the government stays the same size with a bigger economy and a bigger portion of its budget going to debt service as your example implies, some other services have to be cut. Let's assume, they eliminate everything related to evironmental protection controls. Further assume that $1.6T of $2T "growth" was due to medical expenditures due to the unhealthy environment and/or privately expended money to clean up polluted rivers streams and drinking water and the other $.4T was due to the inflationary impact. Which would you prefer under that scenario?