Do you remember back eleven or twelve years ago? The national debt was gone as an issue. The "debt clocks" were running backwards. There was a budget surplus of over $200 billion. There was actually talk that the national debt might even be fully paid off.
So what happened?
First, the Bush tax cuts.
Second, the Bush Administration began two wars with absolutely no attempt to pay for them. That was nearly unprecedented in American history. Wars were deficit generators, but there was some attempt to raise revenue to offset it. Not this time, Bush prided himself on keeping taxes low. Dick Cheney declared that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
Third, Bush rammed through a large expansion of Medicare, again, with no moves to pay for it.
Fourth, the recession. While recessions happen, the Bush Administration and the Federal Reserve turned their back on the risky behaviors of the banksters.*
What we have are four direct causes of the current massive budget deficits, of which , 3.5 can be laid at the feet of the Republican party. But when you point this out to conservatives, they bleat about "we can't look back". They claim that only they know how to fix it, which is sort of like taking advice on building construction from the arsonists who burned down the previous building.
This is on you, conservatives. You guys pushed through the laws to ramp up the Federal debt. You guys advocated for and got the banks and financial institutions deregulated. You guys pushed through the wholesale scrapping of the Glass-Steagell controls.
All of those things not only brought about the current mess, they largely benefited the rich at the expense of everyone else. Yet any discussion of how we got here and any suggestions to reverse the things that brought about this mess, other than increased Medicare spending, are met with howls of outrage from you guys.
Why is anyone listening to you?
____________________________
* This whole mess will repeat itself because the Obama Administration refuses to hold those thieves accountable.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The Bush Tax Cuts weren't the first thing that got the ball rolling. Not that I don't blame his policies for the massive debt he incurred, but to be honest:
We also had the dot-com bubble pop and then 9/11 occurred. Both of these took a toll on the economy and tax revenue. I was working as an IT consultant at the time (and still am, until tomorrow morning) so perhaps I overestimate the economic impact of them.
The other goofy thing was depreciation schedules for businesses were mucked with during the Clinton administration. I'm fuzzy on the details, because it was only explained to me once, and only by one guy (my father) but you'd make a large business purchase, finance it for 7 years but under Clinton's schedule you had to write it off over 12 years. So, you're paying 1/7th the purchase price every year on the loan (ignoring interest) but you can only write off 1/12th of it. It hurt like the heck in the early years but in the last 5 you got to write off portions of your income without actually paying a dime for what you bought and that all happened (for us) under the Bush administration.
I'll grant you that these were minor problems in the grand scope of things. The real debt problem was starting two wars and implementing tax cuts at the same time. I only point them out because I felt the economic impact on the first two points and thought they should be mentioned.
On the last one: It's probably not a good idea to repeat that particular pattern. You can get away with it when the economy is booming, but I still don't think it's a good idea. You're just kicking the can further down the road. Unfortunately stuff like that never seems to bubble up in public debate.
Comrade Misfit, let's be fair here. You're absolutely right to point out the Republicans' share of the blame: but it was the Obama administration that incurred such catastrophically high deficits since their inauguration, and a Democrat-controlled Congress (for more than one term, including under Bush) that couldn't even pass a budget for the past two years. Both sides share the blame equally, IMHO.
I'm not faulting your distaste for the Republican Party - I share it! However, I have an equal distaste for the Democratic Party. A plague on both their houses!
"Both parties do it" is a cop-out, Peter. There was only one fiscally responsible president in the last 30 years and he was disowned by his party for taking real steps to reverse deficit spending.
The deficit only becomes an issue for conservatives when a Democrat is in the White House. They didn't seem to care so much during the George W. Bush administration.
Post a Comment