I have mentioned before a conference I saw on C-SPAN, nearly 20 years ago, that was put on by the Concord Coalition. There were several juicy tidbits said, like the one panelist who noted that, while there may have been a stimulation argument for the first round to tax cuts to help pull the US out of the 2001 recession, there was absolutely no economic argument for the second round of tax cuts.
Another panelist said he had a conversation with one of the “starve the beast” proponents. He summed up the “STB’s” argument. words to the effect “what you are saying is you intend to do nothing (about the deficit) until there is some sort of financial crisis. Then you are going to tell all these elderly people, who have few financial assets, ‘sorry, we can’t do it anymore’ And you don’t think there will be economic, moral, and ethical, consequences?”