https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/01/08/gops-100-year-war-bigger-taxes-or-trump
"Their goal is to throw state governments, as well as the federal government, into fiscal crises that will allow Republicans to realize their ultimate ambition: the gutting of our shredded social contract and the dismantlement of the modern civil state. Don’t take my word for it. Ask them. This is what House Speaker Paul Ryan had to say as his party prepared to pass the tax bill: “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.” Ryan also said: “This has been my big thing for many, many years.” His fellow Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio, said: “You also have to bring spending under control. And not discretionary spending. That isn’t the driver of our debt. The driver of our debt is the structure of Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries.” They’re not “entitlements,” gentlemen, they’re “earned benefits.” This fixation on debt and deficits is misguided in any case, whether it’s expressed by a Republican or a Democrat. But it’s especially galling when expressed by Republicans whose tax bill adds a projected $1.5 trillion to the deficit. It’s illogical, unless their actual goal is to dismantle government programs that have succeeded where the private sector has failed. But then, that’s been the Republican ideology since Ronald Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” As the old saying goes: When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Mick Mulvaney, the former Tea Party congressman who now serves as both Trump’s budget director and head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has expressed open hostility to benefits programs and indirect opposition to the idea that the rich should pay any taxes at all. Republicans are equally hostile to regulations, which is another way of saying they are opposed to letting us protect ourselves from the death, disease, injury and devastation caused by private-sector greed."
