Starve the beast Totally Explained

Everything about Starve The Beast totally explained

"Starving the beast" is a fiscal-political strategy of some American conservatives (External Link

) to use budget deficits via tax cuts to force future reductions in the size of government. The term "beast" refers to government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, and Medicare.
US President George W. Bush has invoked the concept in reference to his administration's tax cuts. He has said "so we've the tax relief plan [...] that now provides a new kind -- a fiscal straightjacket for Congress. And that's good for the taxpayers, and it's incredibly positive news if you're worried about a federal government that has been growing at a dramatic pace over the past eight years and it has been." (External Link

) Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson's tax-cut plan, incorporating a flat tax, also defers paying for the larger deficits it would create. (External Link

) It "would most likely be funded by lower government spending on Social Security and Medicare benefits" according to the Wall Street Journal.(External Link

)

History

Prior to being elected as the President, then US Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan described the strategy during the 1980 US Presidential debates, saying "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker." It appears the earliest reference to "starving the beast" as such was former Reagan budget director David Stockman's 1986 book The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed. Stockman was quoting an anonymous Reagan staffer.

Impact

A well-known proponent of the strategy is activist Grover Norquist. (External Link

)(External Link

) Vice-President Dick Cheney said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" as then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill warned of financial dangers presented by them ahead, according to O'Neill. (External Link

) Some empirical evidence shows that such a strategy may actually be counterproductive, with lower taxes actually corresponding to higher spending. A October 2007 study by Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer of the National Bureau of Economic Research found: "[...] no support for the hypothesis that tax cuts restrain government spending; indeed, [thefindings] suggest that tax cuts may actually increase spending. The results also indicate that the main effect of tax cuts on the government budget is to induce subsequent legislated tax increases."

Further Information

Get more info on 'Starve The Beast'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://starve_the_beast.totallyexplained.com">Starve the beast Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.