# Fuck you Republicans and your bullshit economics. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 11, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841 "2009-01-11T22:14:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/41 "2009-01-12T17:53:30Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Why are you blaming the Republicans? Bush didn’t act alone to pass spending bills - he worked with congress. Democrats took the majority in congress in 2006. Did the economy get _any_ better since Republicans lost their majority? No, the economy swan-dived into a death spiral. And it’s the Democrats who are **again** lobbying for new stimulus packages. So you are actually trying to absolve Republicans of economic blame by trying to point a finger at a congress that has only had a _token_ majority, but not an effective voting majority, for a whole year and a half, and that the countries economic ills were supposed to be solved by them in that short time with an opposing president who vetoed/amended anything that deviated from executive desires? Oh yeah, and you of course would never admit that there were economic ills to be corrected by the Dems at all, because Republicans were at the helm for the prior 6 years and that might imply that they may have done something wrong during that time. Wow, talk about hiding from blame…do you want to try to blame Clinton next? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/42 "2009-01-13T19:12:39Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Uh huh. Like no democrat has submitted an unbalanced budget. Like democrats are all about fixing the single biggest cause of our shortfall, Social Security. You realize that Social Security is still cash flow positive at the moment, don’t you? Fixing Social Security, assuming that it is actually broken, won’t be hard. The assumptions in the model that shows the shortfall are conservative, as they should be. I wonder if the fact that no one can afford to retire now thanks to the crash won’t make the numbers a bit better. Anyhow, a small increase in the cap for the tax should go a long way to helping - though now is definitely not the time to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/43 "2009-01-13T19:30:49Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > Did we not have troops there, and did he not push for a tax cut? There were about 9,000 troops there during the Kennedy years, mostly in “advisor” status. The war at that point was between the governments of the north and south, with the USSR “advising” the north. To say that the US was engaged in war in Vietnam in 1963 would be largely a semantics argument by people trying to stretch a point. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/44 "2009-01-13T20:04:38Z")
> [@furt](#): > > raising taxes doesn’t make them fiscally responsible, any more than a pub who advocates cutting one part of the budget (and growing three others) is. Obama said he wanted to raise taxes _even if it was stipulated that doing so would result in less actual income._ Sorry, but that ain’t a guy that’s motivated by balancing the books. Cite? That’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/45 "2009-01-13T20:12:40Z")
I…uh…was told that the future generations wouldn’t have a problem paying for our mistakes. You know…because they were in the future. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/46 "2009-01-13T20:58:42Z")
Funny, I was told that Iraq’s oil would pay for everything, once we got hold of it. If tax cuts for the already wealthy didn’t pay for it first. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/47 "2009-01-13T21:34:36Z")
My recollection is that US national debt, as a percentage of GDP, is comparable to many developed nations, including Canada, France, and Germany, and significantly lower than others, such as Italy and Japan. To me, this suggests that this phenomenon arises from many different political sources. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/48 "2009-01-13T22:08:37Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > My recollection is that US national debt, as a percentage of GDP, is comparable to many developed nations, including Canada, France, and Germany, and significantly lower than others, such as Italy and Japan. To me, this suggests that this phenomenon arises from many different political sources. You are correct but, according to the [CIA Factbook](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html), The USA had a public debt of 60.8% of GDP in 2007. This ranked it 27th highest out of 126 countries. I don’t imagine this number has gone down markedly in the last year. Also, here is some recent information about the Canadian debt [From here](http://www.budget.gc.ca/2008/plan/ann1-eng.asp) ``` * The OECD expects Canada to record the largest budgetary surplus as a share of GDP in the G7 in 2007, 2008 and 2009. * It projects that Canada’s total government net debt-to-GDP ratio, which has been the lowest in the G7 since 2004, will continue to decline in future years. * Canada is on track to eliminate its total government net debt by 2021. By doing so, it will be able to count itself among the few OECD countries that are in a net asset position. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/49 "2009-01-13T22:37:22Z")
God, outraged ignorance is always amusing, or it would be if it wasn’t so pathetic. The rant here is against Bush running deficits while saddling future generations with crushing debt. It’s a good point, a fair point, one that I’ve made more than once. The ignorance and the irony come into play when the OP tries to make it a partisan thing, completely ignoring that the incoming Democratic President promises that the very first thing he’s going to do after the 20th is defect spend $1 trillion dollars on top of the half trillion in deficit spending that the current budget supports, and acting like the debt is solely and completely the fault of the Republicans! That’s an…astonishing bit of self delusion. “You big bad Republicans have been deficit spending us into Bankruptcy! You suck!” “Uh…OK…your party has control now, what do you propose to do about it?” “Spend 3 times as much!!” Madness. Utter madness. Oh, and FTR, the last round of Bush tax cuts ('03) were for about $45 billion. That seems…quaint now, God help us all. ---
**Author:** ![BigNik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/73ab20/32.png) [@BigNik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigNik)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/50 "2009-01-13T23:35:52Z")
One of the joys of pop economics is that everyone loves to lump all the problems together and call it a “crisis”, when things don’t actually work that way. The current crisis was _not_ brought on by deficits. It was brought on by regulatory failures (absence of regulation in most areas, overregulation in a couple of isolated incidents) which - allied to poorly-chosen corporate prerogatives - fed a short-term focus across financial markets. This has led to an asset price crash, which in turn has led to poor access to credit, which is now starting to kick across to an economic downturn. Those are three interrelated, but separate issues. None of them were caused by governmental deficits. Government deficits will restrict the ability of economies to bounce back, and for those economies to grow in future, but that’s not the cause of any of the current crises. The way it’s heading, eventually the US will have to default on its debt. That’s the tidal wave that’s building, but it’s not here _yet_. Economists who look at the situation tend to agree that it’s a matter of time - probably between ten and thirty years away unless something is done - but that’s not the problem right now. Once that happens, the interconnectedness of the global economy to that of the US is so great that no-one can really say with any certainty what’s going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/51 "2009-01-14T01:46:22Z")
> [@BigNik](#): > > None of them were caused by governmental deficits. > > Government deficits will restrict the ability of economies to bounce back, and for those economies to grow in future, but that’s not the cause of any of the current crises. The real sin was that the deficits didn’t finance infrastructure improvement, which continued to go to hell during the past eight years, or productivity improvements like money for education. It all got pissed away on tax cuts which did a crappy job stimulating the economy and which remained even when the economy recovered, and the useless war. And waste, of course. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/52 "2009-01-14T05:32:16Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The real sin was that the deficits didn’t finance infrastructure improvement, which continued to go to hell during the past eight years, or productivity improvements like money for education. It all got pissed away on tax cuts which did a crappy job stimulating the economy and which remained even when the economy recovered, and the useless war. And waste, of course. It’s like they were _trying_ to fuck up the economy. Let’s give tax breaks to the wealthy so that we can create a large supply without a corresponding demand, and then spend lots of money blowing up things rather than on domestic infrastructure. Christ, even if we had bombed Detroit to the ground it would have been money better spent because we’d have created jobs rebuilding. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/53 "2009-01-14T08:27:13Z")
deleted ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/54 "2009-01-14T15:45:19Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The real sin was that the deficits didn’t finance infrastructure improvement, which continued to go to hell during the past eight years . . . Every damn interstate highway that I’ve driven in the past 7 years has undergone significant maintenance - if not entire reconstruction. And I have driven over 30,000 miles in each of those years. So, just which poorly maintained infrastructure are you speaking of? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/55 "2009-01-14T15:48:04Z")
[http://nationalbridges.com/](http://nationalbridges.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/56 "2009-01-14T16:15:22Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The real sin was that the deficits didn’t finance infrastructure improvement, which continued to go to hell during the past eight years, or productivity improvements like money for education. Really? > [@](#): > > Annual U.S. Department of Education spending on elementary and secondary education has increased from $27.3 billion in 2001 to $38 billion in 2006, up by nearly 40 percent. According to the department, annual spending on the Title I program to assist disadvantaged children grew by 45 percent between 2001 and 2006. In 2007, the department will spend 59 percent more on special education programs than it did in 2001… > > Under a Republican-controlled Congress, federal spending on higher education has increased almost as dramatically as K-12 spending over the past six years. For example, annual Department of Education spending on federal Pell Grants grew from $8.7 billion in 2001 to $13 billion in 2006, nearly 50 percent growth. The federal government spends considerably more on higher education today than it did during the Clinton administration. According to the College Board, federal funding for higher education in 2004-2005 totaled $90 billion, a real increase of 103 percent over ten years. > > An increasing number of students receive federal subsidies for higher education. For example, 5.3 million students received federal Pell Grants in 2005, an increase of 44 percent over ten years. In all, in 2006 more than 10 million Americans will receive various federal subsidies for higher education. [Cite.](http://www.heritage.org/research/education/ednotes49.cfm) This is in contrast to defense spending, which only increased 34% ([cite](http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3184)). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/57 "2009-01-14T16:55:53Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > Every damn interstate highway that I’ve driven in the past 7 years has undergone significant maintenance - if not entire reconstruction. And I have driven over 30,000 miles in each of those years. So, just which poorly maintained infrastructure are you speaking of? How about [this?](http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2007/10/united_states_infrastrucure_bridges_roads_congestion_funding.html) > [@](#): > > Poor road conditions cost motorists in the United States $54 billion a year in 2005 for repairs and operating costs, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) most recent Infrastructure Report Card. Yet “the $59.4 billion spent annually is well below the $94 billion needed each year to improve transportation infrastructure conditions nationally,” says the ASCE. I’m hardly claiming no improvements have been made, not just enough, considering that the oldest interstates are now 50 years old, and need more improvements. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/58 "2009-01-14T17:00:27Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > It’s like they were _trying_ to fuck up the economy. Let’s give tax breaks to the wealthy so that we can create a large supply without a corresponding demand, and then spend lots of money blowing up things rather than on domestic infrastructure. Christ, even if we had bombed Detroit to the ground it would have been money better spent because we’d have created jobs rebuilding. To be fair, the wealthy are smart enough not to create production without demand. What did happen was the need for investment opportunities. I read somewhere, I forget where, that investment houses were under pressure to create mortgage bonds with high yields (and high real risk) - so one cause of the rush to subprimes was the demand for the bonds that got created by them. In the electronics business there doesn’t seem to be the level of inventory writeoffs that there were when the bubble burst, and I haven’t read about contract manufacturers getting stuck with inventory. We seem to have gotten a bit smarter. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/59 "2009-01-14T17:24:06Z")
[quote=“Voyager, post:57, topic:480841”] How about [this?](http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2007/10/united_states_infrastrucure_bridges_roads_congestion_funding.html) And how much of that infrastructure is the **federal** government responsible for maintaining? Aren’t we taking about federal gov’t spending? > [@](#): > > I’m hardly claiming no improvements have been made, not just enough, considering that the oldest interstates are now 50 years old, and need more improvements. And as I said, the interstates on which I drive regularly (in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana & Illinois) have undergone vast improvements over the past 7 years. > [@squink](#): > > [http://nationalbridges.com/](http://nationalbridges.com/) Again, the vast majority of these bridges are not maintained by the feds. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841/60 "2009-01-14T17:39:27Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > the vast majority of these bridges are not maintained by the feds. That doesn’t make em “not infrastructure” now, does it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-republicans-and-your-bullshit-economics/480841.md?page=4)