Bruce Bartlett (Forbes), Tax Cuts And "Starving The Beast": The Most Pernicious Fiscal Doctrine in History:

I believe that to a large extent our current budgetary problems stem from the widespread adoption of an idea by Republicans in the 1970s called "starve the beast." It says that the best, perhaps only, way of reducing government spending is by reducing taxes. While a plausible strategy at the time it was formulated, STB became a substitute for serious budget control efforts, reduced the political cost of deficits, encouraged fiscally irresponsible tax cutting and ultimately made both spending and deficits larger. …

For some years Bill Niskanen of the libertarian Cato Institute has argued that STB actually increased spending and made deficits worse. His argument is that the cost of spending is ultimately the taxes that will have to be raised to pay for it. Thus fear of future tax increases was the principal brake on spending until STB came along. By eliminating tax increases as a necessary consequence of deficits, it also reduced the implicit cost of spending. Thus, ironically, STB led to higher spending rather than lower spending as the theory posits.

In the latest study of STB, political scientist Michael New of the University of Alabama confirms Niskanen's analysis. "Revenue reductions by themselves are not an effective mechanism for limiting expenditure growth," New concluded. "The evidence suggests that lower levels of federal revenue may actually lead to greater increases in spending."  [Starve the Beast: A Further Examination.]

In effect STB became a substitute for spending restraint among Republicans. They talked themselves into believing that cutting taxes was the only thing necessary to control the size of government. Thus, rather than being a means to an end–the end being lower spending–tax cuts became an end in themselves, completely disconnected from any meaningful effort to reduce spending or deficits.

See also Bruce Bartlett, “Starve the Beast”: Origins and Development of a Budgetary Metaphor, The Independent Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, Summer 2007, at p. 5.