> balance the budget Reducing spending power through austerity policies directly reduces the GOP. Lower GDP means lower taxes. This is practically guaranteed t

> balance the budget Reducing spending power through austerity policies directly reduces the GOP. Lower GDP means lower taxes. This is practically guaranteed to make debts worse. You don't balance the budget by cutting a large portion of the revenue. Historically - as Prof. Blyth shows in his academic work - austerity programs have always lead to increasing debt. > the long term problem of living within one's means Then why aren't austerity programs aimed at the people that actually overextended their spending: the banks/etc that bet against everyone else by becoming such a large systemic risk that they had to be bailed out? ("too big to fail") If you want a much better description of Prof. Blyth's point that he only briefly summarized in this article, I suggest watching the talk[1] he gave last year. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=778 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=778