In the 1980s, however, tax cuts and spending increases created large structural deficits and much higher debt levels. With only a brief interruption in the late 1990s, deficit politics has been a mainstay ever since. Over this period, the Republican Party has passed large tax cuts but failed to retrench the large entitlement programs that continue to raise spending. Likewise, the Democratic Party has expanded the domestic role of government but has abandoned the broad-based taxation it supported in the 1990s. Funding their domestic agenda with matching revenues is now as unappealing for Democrats as entitlement cutbacks are for Republicans, contributing to the current stalemate of Republican tax policy, Democratic spending policy, and soaring deficits and debt. The economic risks this entails are serious, yet an end to the era of deficit politics is nowhere in sight.