• The vaunted "Clinton Surplus" was, in fact, the work of a GOP House that was willing to fight for fiscal sanity (current Ohio Governor John Kasich was one of the architects of the surplus); in addition, two events conspired to turbocharge the economy -- in spite of Clinton, not because of him.• Liberals like to talk about Reagan's deficits, but they ignore the fact that every budget Reagan ever sent to the Democrat-controlled House was declared "dead on arrival". Reagan supported a Balanced Budget Amendment, sought to eliminate useless agencies like the Department of Education, and otherwise believed in the U.S. spending within its means.
• Since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, they have jammed through the most fiscally irresponsible spending programs in world history (I won't use the word "budget", because they've refused to propose a budget for roughly 1,029 days).
In short, Democrats never propose less spending than Republicans -- unless we're talking about defense. And now, after four years of Democrat-controlled spending, the federal government is forced to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.
And that, my friends, is bound to end badly since the hard left Democrat Party and the RINOs appear ready to turn the spending on auto-pilot -- right into the tarmac.
Lefties don’t really care about spending or GDP. After all, money grows on sugarplum trees and that pesky GDP problem can be eliminated simply by reducing production to 0.
ReplyDeleteWho doesn’t love shared sacrifice?
The deficit for fiscal year 2009 — which began more than three months before President Obama’s inauguration — was $1.4 trillion and, at 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the largest deficit relative to the economy since the end of World War II. At $1.3 trillion and nearly 9 percent of GDP, the deficit in 2010 was only slightly lower. If current policies remain in place, deficits will likely resemble those figures in 2011 and hover near $1 trillion a year for the next decade.
ReplyDeleteHouse Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.
Together, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News, these initiatives added $3.4 trillion to the nation’s accumulated debt and to its current annual budget deficit of $1.5 trillion.
By themselves, in fact, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will account for almost half of the $20 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019. The stimulus law and financial rescues will account for less than 10 percent of the debt at that time.
At no time in the last forty years have Republicans proposed a balanced budget.
As I recall, even quite a few Lefties voted to authorize force in Iraq and Afghanistan. Don't remember Bush claiming the 14th Amendment authorized him unilaterally raising the debt ceiling to do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I saw that BS Bloomberg article on debt last week. Responding to 9/11 wasn't in the 2001 budget outlays.
Remember that whole Never Forget motto? Didn't think so, Comrade.
There is something wrong with that first graph. Republicans controlled Congress for four straight years, 108th and 109th congresses: http://www.jpattitude.com/110826.php
ReplyDeleteThe Senate was Democrat controlled for much of 2001 and 2002, after Jim Jeffords jumped ship from the GOP to "Independent" and started siding with the Democrats.
ReplyDeleteNo shrapnel hear - not when your arguments are so transparent. Gross public debt is determined in the past and comparing it to what party was in power that year, is apples & oranges. Put on your headgear - federal spending was cut by the most in over 30 years(-2.4%)in 2010 (by Obama and Dem congress). Yet debt skyrocketed. Why? reduced revenue. Chew on that.
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