Eight things I wish people would understand about the Republican approach to economic policy.

1. Deficit reduction does not lead to economic health. Economic health ENABLES deficit reduction—a la the Clinton administration. When George W. Bush took office, the federal budget was in the black.

2. Slashing the federal budget will not lower your taxes. It shifts the burden of service provision to local and state governments, which then must pick up the slack by raising taxes—if not immediately, than eventually. Just look at the mess unfolding in Texas. Denial cannot drive their budgeting approach forever.

3. Lower taxes do not automatically equal job creation by freeing up more money. If this were true, big business in this country—flush with cash from the recent run-up on the stock market—would be on a hiring spree. They aren't.

4. Job growth from lower taxes cannot wipe out the federal deficit. It did not work in the Reagan years, and it won't work now.

5. Privatization does not necessarily mean greater effectiveness or efficiency. Look at for-profit prisons or the outsourcing of security and other contracts in Iraq. While privatization of public services is sometimes a good idea, as a blanket policy it's a terrible plan. With privatization comes a loss of transparency that can create its own web of corruption and special interests rivaling anything that has ever occurred in the public sphere.

6. Much of the rhetoric coming from Republicans in Congress is based on false assertions about the recent past. It seems ridiculous to even have to point this out, but the 2009 Obama stimulus is not the primary reason for our debt situation. That would be the two Bush tax cuts (2001 and 2003), the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recession. Also—just to be clear—TARP passed under Bush.

7. The Obama 2009 stimulus does not disprove Keynesian economics. Nearly 40 percent of the money spent on the plan went to tax cuts. In addition, many economists feel the effort was too timid overall to achieve its goal of kick-starting the economy. More generally, drawing conclusions about the correlation between government spending and economic growth is difficult and the debate among economists continues (unlike what some conservative bloggers would have you believe). Some very good empirical studies conclude there is a positive correlation between government spending and GDP growth. Certainly, robust government spending—and even large deficits—do not necessarily prevent economic expansion, as was proven in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

8. The vaunted prosperity created by Reagan was a house built on sand. Since the '80s, our economy has been propelled by 1) The housing market; 2) The rise of two-income households; and 3) Rising consumer debt, with an added boost from ever-cheaper goods from China. Well, housing is a bust; in most households, there are no more adults to go to work (unless you practice polygamy); Americans are maxed out credit card-wise; and the price of imported goods is starting to rise. There is no Republican plan that can bring to the table what the country most needs: real wage growth. (Not coincidentally, the only uptick in real wages in the last 35 years occurred during the Clinton administration.)