Wallace: Kudlow ‘seems to have found religion’ on government spending

A debate over the GOP’s stance on the national deficit played out in real time on Fox News on Friday as host Chris Wallace called out former White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow over his criticism of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package.

Kudlow had torn into Biden’s legislation, warning it would “kill the economy” because of what he said would be an inevitable rise in the national deficit.

“Larry Kudlow, when he was working in the Trump White House and passing huge tax cuts and huge spending plans, including multitrillion-dollar bills for COVID relief, there wasn’t so much concern about deficit and debt,” Wallace said Friday. “He seems to have found religion now that he’s back out of the government.”

The rebuke was the latest indication of an intraparty feud over how much to prioritize the deficit.

Republicans supported big spending measures during the Trump administration that helped fuel a rise in the deficit, which increased by about 36 percent during his administration. 

However, lawmakers have indicated that they will oppose plans under Biden out of concerns for the deficit. That effort was put into action for the first time as the White House pushed its coronavirus relief package.

“I think that’s kind of getting back to our DNA. … I think spending, entitlement reform, growth and the economy are all things that we’re going to have to be focused on next year, and, yeah, I would expect you’ll hear a lot more about that,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said in November.