What Killed Off The GOP Deficit Hawks?

The Republicans are now the ones making excuses for big deficits

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December 27, 2004 at 5:00 AM UTC

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By Robert Kuttner

Last month, I posed a rhetorical question: Whatever happened to fiscally prudent Republicans? The question deserves a proper answer. In the early 1990s the bipartisan, business-led Concord Coalition made the accumulated Reagan-Bush deficits a major public issue. George H.W. Bush had to break a pledge and raise taxes because of mounting concerns in financial markets. H. Ross Perot put the deficit center stage in the 1992 election, helping to defeat Bush I and elect Bill Clinton. He made fiscal responsibility his signature issue.