The Triumph of Deficits: Supply-Side Economics, Institutional Constraints and the Political Articulation of Fiscal Crisis

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the institutional conditions of possibility for the political articulation of fiscal crisis. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the 2012 Kansas tax cuts, I argue that the political articulation of fiscal crisis is conditioned largely on the institutional capacity to run deficits. The ability to run deficits at the federal level delays the structural reckoning of fiscal crisis, but also delays the subjective dimensions of crisis. In contrast, the absence of deficit financing at the state and local level amplifies the subjective dimensions of the crisis, constraining Republican’s ability to articulate alternative causes for austerity.