Red-Ink Republicans, Revisited and Reviled
The post-New Deal Republican party has delivered endless strings of deficits and debt. That is their historic legacy to America, the bare fact on the ground that unfortunately requires endless repetition to impart the reality, and counter the tea-party fantasy of fiscally irresponsible Democrats.
Also required is a catchy moniker that encapsulates that reality:
Use it. Everywhere. Make it a meme. Republicans are irresponsible profligates. We can’t afford them anymore. We’ve run their experiment. It failed. Disastrously.
With the ever-vigilant likes of The Heritage Foundation continuing to promulgate debt/deficit hysteria using what they openly call “A toy economic model,” ”a back-of-the-envelope calculation,” stating outright that “the numbers and events used in this model were made up” (they call themselves an academic think tank?), it seemed like time to revisit the big picture of American government debt and deficit since the last great depression.
Here’s the make-believe story Heritage wants to tell:
Here are the actual facts on the ground over eight decades:
In the 35 years following World War II, (some) Republicans and (mostly) Democrats steadily and responsibly reduced government debt from 130% to 45% of GDP. (And worth noticing: that 130% figure preceded two decades of the fastest prosperity growth in American history.)
Then came 1980. The Reagan/Republican revolution. Aside from a brief respite under Clinton, government debt has been heading rapidly north ever since.
Debt was reduced under every president since World War II, with three exceptions: Reagan, Bush, and Bush. (And Obama, who had the numerator, GDP, pulled out from under him before he even set foot in the oval office.)
Eighty years of history tells us one thing for certain: if you want to get debt under control, don’t rely on the Red-Ink Republicans.
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Politics works like physics, where, as Max Planck famously noted “[A] new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
The Republicans will be the party of fiscal probity until everyone old enough to actually remember Eisenhower is dead.
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Mr. Michel
I noted previously, and now again, that you are a boor of the worst caliber. What is this fixation that you seem to have with oral activities? Is this the result of a reaction formation on your part? Or, maybe it is more accurate to note that you may be projecting your own deeper feelings to those with whom you disagree.
A by-product of the move to Blogger comments from JS-Kit is that moderation powers have been restored to all people with main page posting privileges. Whereas moderation under the old system required knowing a password and sacrificing a new born kid (goat or in a pinch a rug rat) to the Authentication Gods. Personally I gave up and realistically only Dan and maybe Ken still retained the Power.
Well it is a snap now, and while I don’t plan to exercise this much if at all and NEVER to suppress substantive content, I have to say that “Suck on THIS” and versions thereof doesn’t make the substance test.
Anyway don’t blame Dan for this particular excision. It was me.
Irresponsible Republicans.
They increase the deficit when the economy is booming and we can afford to reduce it. They try to reduce it when the economy is in a slump and we need gov’t to spend.
If this concept is hard, read Genesis about the Fat Years and Lean Years.
Republicans are irresponsible.
Republicans are irresponsible.
Irresponsibility is, however, quite popular. Consequently Team Grasshopper has no problem recruiting, not compared with Team Ant.
And if you have no real interest in governing — that is, beyond genteel forms of legal pillage — but only in winning elections, why change?
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No comment….Dan deletes this one.