Read their lips: For the origins of today’s deficit fight, look to 1990

By Steven Mufson,
WashPost
Published: July 27 | Updated: Saturday, July 30, 7:13 PM

A scorching summer. A struggling economy. A stalemate in budget talks. A Republican leader reluctant to break his anti-tax pledge. Democrats balking at spending cuts. A proposal for a balanced budget amendment.

It was 1990, the year Congress passed one of the biggest deficit-reduction packages in American history. But before it was cemented into law, the country endured months of bickering and brinksmanship. Sound familiar?

By some measures, the 1990 budget deal was a success: It helped shrink the deficit, then at 5 percent of gross domestic product, by $492 billion — $850 billion in today’s dollars — over just five years. And it passed with support from both parties.

But in other ways, the 1990 budget deal set the stage for today’s fiscal deadlock. At the center of it all was the Dirty Harry-style pledge that President George H.W. Bush had issued during his 1988 presidential campaign — “Read my lips: No new taxes.” Although an agreement was eventually reached that raised taxes and cut spending, many Republican lawmakers thought the deal and its aftermath proved the folly of compromise.

(More here.)