Bruce Bartlett, senior policy advisor in the Reagan and Bush I administrations and staffer for Jack Kemp and Ron Paul, describes the origin of modern Republican fiscal policy in the Economix section of today's New York Times.
Bartlett makes it pretty clear what former Vice President Dick Cheney meant when he said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." That comment didn't refer to the economic effect of deficits, but the political effect. Bartlett's article provides detailed background to the "two Santa's" theory of Republican politics.
Irving Kristol, who was well-connected in Republican circles, immediately embraced the "two Santas" idea - that the GOP needed to be the "tax-cut" Santa. "I was not certain of its economic merits," he later confessed, "but quickly saw its political possibilities."
Bartlett's article doesn't address the related "starve the beast" policy. I look forward to future revelations on that score.
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