If a tax break isn't matched by a corresponding budget cut, it is literally spending money to give people a tax break. What really sucks about unsubsidized, targeted tax cuts is that it's the result of politicians essentially taking everyone's money (the American taxpayers), then instead of using that money for the sorts of things taxes are supposed to be used for (the government), they just hand out a bunch of money to their donor class and essentially defraud the government. The biggest R donors have literally made a profit off of this over the years.

It's less a tax break and more like vulturing public money to pay off their friends and maybe buy some more votes. Unsubsidized tax breaks of this nature, by these people, for their stated reasons over the last 40 years are really just ripping off the entire American public and funneling it to the likes of Betsy Devos' family, and the Koch brothers, and the Mercers. And obviously Trump himself has been dipping his beak in it, any way he possibly can. A better man would do everything in his power to avoid even the appearance of corruption, but he has been utterly shameless about it. Example: raising the fees for Mar-a-lago membership from $100k to $200k at the same time as he became president. I believe they are $500k now. That makes a lot of sense, I'm sure there's nothing weird going on there and that's just a totally normal thing to happen in plain sight.

But seriously, it sure as hell looks like base corruption to me, nothing high-minded or philosophical about it. The Austrian economic philosophies used to justify the whole R fetish for unfunded tax cuts were the economic equivalent of healing crystals and magnetic bracelets 40 years ago, never mind now. Now it's just embarrassing to see anyone making these claims. Especially the whole notion that it is somehow fiscally conservative to have huge unfunded tax cuts, because cutting taxes will magically increase tax revenue by fueling growth. They may as well change their platform to, if elected they promise to be really good boys and girls and will donate the additional gifts from Santa to the IRS, thereby offsetting the huge transfer of public funds to their donor class.

Of course there are no shortage of people who think of themselves as smarter than average (and unburdened by weaknesses like empathy, or feelings of great responsibility towards their fellow citizens) might excuse it as a "starve the beast" scheme, but if anything that's even more idiotic. "Starve the beast" is a shitty excuse for passing the buck in the shittiest way possible, when all you really want to do is take a bunch of everyone's money and give it to yourself and your donor class. It is such a weak excuse, and is especially feeble when it's used in the name of some brand of fiscal conservatism.

I remember a comedian in the '90s fondly describing Republican politicians as, more than anything else, "mean old men who will guard your money". Like, sometimes you need that- you need people who will make it a priority to guard public money tooth and nail, and fight to lower taxes and let people keep more of their money. I don't know if I would vote for that person, but I get it, and for most of my life at least that's how they've unapologetically presented themselves. And I kinda get it, there's a need for fiscal watchdogs like that in the government. They're still using a lot of the same words that they did in the '80s and '90s, but they have never been more hollow, or used to this degree to defend what appears to be the diametric opposite of their fiscally conservative claims: bankrupting the government and paying off their donors and trying to brush it off as some noble act that somehow increases freedom and prosperity for all of America.