Liberals and Conservatives Both Won Too Much

A while back, Yglesias wrote a semi-inflammatory post essentially arguing that liberals have won.  FDR started the process of social insurance for white elderly folks, and since then that safety net has expanded to provided a baseline of social insurance (retirement and medicine) to everyone.  This culminated with ObamaCare, which officially granted (near) universal health insurance to all Americans, regardless of income. Any future changes to this will either be tinkering about how to pay for these programs, or conservatives roaring back and eliminating them.

I think that's 100% right, and something liberals should really keep in mind. But the flip side to that is that conservatives have won too.  Ask an ideological conservative the #1 thing they want, and the answer will be "lower taxes." [Smaller government might be an argument, but that's really not what conservatives have fought for -- including Reagan. Government has grown hugely under Reagan and Bush, the two most electorally successful Republican presidents].  Anyway, taxes are historically low now -- so Republicans won that battle too.

Incidentally, yes, the tax rates for the top 20% account for pretty much the entirety of the tax cuts. But still - that is what Republicans fight for the hardest.

That is really the cause of the deficit. Both sides won! In the next few years though, one side is going to lose - we're either going to eviscerate some of the social welfare programs we've put in place or raise taxes (particularly on the top 20%). It'll be interesting.