Justin Wolfers

So look, first go around.

Reagan says cut taxes.

People will work so hard.

We'll actually raise money.

May have believed it.

It's possible.

Clearly not true.

Fast forward, though, and we've played this game enough times, and I think there's actually a very different story, but it's one that may be more worrying for the future.

So, look, what if the story is this?

I'm currently in power, but the other guys are going to be in power maybe in four years' time.

Every dollar I spend is a dollar less for them to spend.

I think I'm a good guy.

I think they're bad guys.

Therefore, my job as a responsible Republican is to spend all the money before a Democrat gets elected.

You actually hear a lot of this rhetoric actually coming out of Republican think tanks and you have more or less since the Bush era.

So once they understood that Reagan's it'll all take care of itself isn't true, we have a completely different, purely political rationale.

Now here's the problem, right?

So you run up a big deficit, Clinton solves it, right?

Then we have another go at it and then Obama solves it.

And so what you've got time and again is clean up on aisle three and