Via Punkass Marc comes Gail Russell Chaddock's article on the GOP estate tax bill in the Christian Science Monitor:
"I want permanent death tax relief. But I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that also contains an excessive minimum wage increase that will hurt small businesses and cost American jobs," said Rep. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana, a fiscal hawk.
Why is Pence being called a "fiscal hawk" for liking a tax cut that screws up American fiscal policy? (I doubt that this is a sly reference to the way that hawks have screwed up our foreign policy.) Pence likes spending cuts, but fiscal policy has two sides, and an estate tax cut would knock a $300,000,000,000 hole in the budget over ten years. While there is general media awareness that spending more increases deficits, the equally obvious fact that tax cuts increase deficits seems to be beyond their ken.
