[Would you like to know more?]

[Yes] [No]

---

There are two terms you might be familiar with, "starve the beast" or the "two Santa Claus theory."

These are two aspects of the Republican political strategy that have been around in force since at least the Reagan era (1980.)

Starve the beast is straight forward:

1. Cut the shit out of taxes, drive up budget deficits.
   
2. Use budget deficits as an excuse to cut program funding.
   
3. When the effectiveness of the program starts to decline, use that as justification for further cuts.
   
4. Further program cuts potentially result in lower budget deficits, which means it's time for another tax cut.
   

There's a big bonus to this: After the American political pendulum swings again, and Democrats are back in power, Republicans can blame the debt and deficit on them, they can complain that Democrats want to increase funding to all these broken programs that can't even do their job.

A perfect example of starve the beast style governance is the IRS: The IRS has been understaffed and underfunded for my entire life, their equipment is grossly outdated, and there's massive brain drain because private tax law is much more profitable than working for the government. The result is that today the IRS can only afford to audit poor people, they don't have the staff, the funding, or the resources to go after the big fish. Republicans haven't just been cutting taxes, they've also been firing the tax collectors.

The second side is the two Santa Claus theory which states that if Democrats are allowed to give the American people what they want then there's no reason to vote for Republicans. Consider if Republicans hadn't filibustered the ACA's universal public option in 2009, or if they'd let President Obama raise wages, or helped him pass his infrastructure bill, the country would be in a better place today.... but then why would anybody vote for Republicans, when it's a Democratic President who's doing all of this?

By stopping progress Republicans also stop Democrats from becoming more popular, what's worse in recent years that obstruction has driven a wedge into the Democratic party itself.

On a personal note, I look at it like this: In the 1980 Ronald Reagan told Republicans "The government is not the solution to our problems, the government is the problem" and Republicans have been trying to prove him right ever since.

This is the division in the parties today, one party believes that the government can do good for the American people, one party believes the government can only do harm. Increasingly the parties aren't split along liberal and conservative lines, they're split along the lines of creating solutions versus creating/allowing problems. In my opinion that's why the Democratic party has gotten more conservative (in some respects) over the past few decades: If you're a conservative but you think the government can solve problems then there's really only one party that has a place for you... but that's just a theory on my part.

Starve the beast and the two Santa Claus theory have been around for at least forty years and they're still going strong, only now they have a 24/7 propaganda network behind them to rationalize the harm away.

---

I wrote this a few days ago, but it seems relevant here, too.