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Killgore Trout12/20/2012 9:09:00 am PST

History lesson: Why the Bush tax cuts were enacted

With federal revenue soaring in 2000, generating budget surpluses, there was pent-up desire for a tax cut, especially among Republicans.

George W. Bush had just been elected on a pledge to cut taxes, but his plan did not get much traction among Democrats until then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress of a dangerous new specter — that the government would pay down the national debt, and there would be no place to park excess funds.

“At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses currently projected imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government,” he declared.

Yep, you read that right. The perceived danger was — believe it or not — that there would be no national debt left.

Greenspan, however, offered caveats and warnings that were largely ignored by Congress. In fact, he said that any tax cuts should have triggers that would halt them “if specified targets for the budget surplus and federal debt were not satisfied.”

In other words, the tax cuts would have been terminated or reduced, depending on the nation’s economic circumstances — precisely the tactic Republicans said was a non-starter in the 2011 debt-ceiling debate.