If You Are Listening to the GOP on the Deficit, You May Be Certifiable

That is not just my opinion, mind you. It is based on the historical record since 1980. 

This chart shows the Federal debt, both in a dollar amount and as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product:



As you can see, for the thirty years from 1950 to 1980, both parties did a pretty good job at paying down the debt that was run up during the Second World War. But then the GOP passed from the hands of people who believed in things such as "economics", "science" and "reality" into the hands of people who believed in an economic ideology that was clearly a form of insanity.

For nearly thirty years, the Republican mantra has been "tax cuts for the rich, to hell with the poor, fuck the middle class, who needs infrastructure and spend like a motherfucker on defense". Coupled that with the GOP's uter hostility to regulations and laws that control the behavior of rich people and corporations and, as a result, you have the economic disaster that confronts President Obama.

None of that, however, stops the party of Hoover from proposing slashing social programs and giving more money to rich people as their cure-all. The record is clear: The only thing that will be "cured" by the prescription of the Disciples of Reagan is the status of the United States as an economic power, for the Hooverites would, if given the chance, complete their destruction of the middle class.