# Republicans and Democrats both want to take your money. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 22, 2008, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655 "2008-09-22T07:31:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655/21 "2008-09-22T22:36:31Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > OK, let’s look at some reality here, as in past records, instead of throwing fantasy around. > > Spending: > [2007 Budget](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_budget_(United_States))(not including Iraq) > Defense: 20% > Social Security: 21% > Medicare & Medicaid 21% > Other Mandatory (whatever that means - probably nuts & bolts of admin): 11% > Interest: 9% > Other Discretionary: 18% > > Looks like the military is a pretty darned big chunk of the pie there. > > [Federal Debt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt) appears to have gone down from the end of WWII until the beginning of the Reagan administration, where it took the biggest jump in history. It continued to rise quite steeply through Bush 41 and early Clinton, but then it looks as if two years into Clinton, it turned around and headed down and came down to about 1990 level. In 2000 it started heading up again. > > It doesn’t look to me as if the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655/22 "2008-09-22T23:05:29Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Really? Because I still seem to be paying taxes (quite a bit actually) despite 7+ years under Bush and his merry men. And are you one of the top few percent economically ? How many hunderds of millions do you have ? Those are the people they are in favor of. The rest of the Republican voters are voting against their own economic self interest. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655/23 "2008-09-23T02:12:04Z")
Okay, so I guess the thread is moving into the direction of a debate on whether Republicans really care to balance the federal budget. I think all of the evidence we see from the McCain campaign, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, Reagan and Nixon’s presidencies show that Republicans do NOT think balancing the federal budget is a particularly high priority. Do those of you who support Republican economics agree with this? Why? Do economists support the idea that an economy can thrive under a government that continues long periods of defecit spending? ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655/24 "2008-09-23T04:52:36Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Okay, so I guess the thread is moving into the direction of a debate on whether Republicans really care to balance the federal budget. I think all of the evidence we see from the McCain campaign, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, Reagan and Nixon’s presidencies show that Republicans do NOT think balancing the federal budget is a particularly high priority. > > Do those of you who support Republican economics agree with this? Why? Do economists support the idea that an economy can thrive under a government that continues long periods of defecit spending? Well, as I recall, back in the late fifties, sixties, and early seventies, no one really thought it mattered all that much. It took the eighties for people to start becoming concerned. By then, the idea of Democrats/Liberals being the Tax and Spend people and Republicans being the Fiscally Conservative people had been firmly established in the minds of the low info voters - to heck with the subsequent facts. That, I think, must go back to FDR, because we did have a large deficit to deal with under him. Then again, the government had had the Great Depression immediately followed by WWII. It’s hardly surprising that he had to run up a big deficit. But it came down under Truman, continued under Eisenhower, and stayed pretty much the same, with fairly minor bumps, until the Reagan years. Since then, it has been the Republicans who are the ‘lower taxes and spend more’ people, and the democrats who are the ‘raise taxes just enough to manage at all if necessary and cut spending if at all possible’ party. The big difference is what we want to spend the money on. Basically, to the Republicans, any money not spent on weapons or other military or police applications is apparently wasted. The Democrats want a strong military, but we want to make damn sure it’s not being wasted in plum contracts to contractors and suppliers. We also like social problems that try help people bootstrap themselves out of poverty. Republicans appear to view poverty as a moral failing on the part of the poor, and not something that should be the province of government to help. They also appear to believe that infrastructure will mend itself, or that it will be taken care of locally, even if the item in question is a federal item such as an interstate highway or a Army Corps of Engineers built dam or levee. ---
**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:** [September 23, 2008, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655/25 "2008-09-23T05:16:30Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Not bad. > > But you’re showing your colors when you throw in the word ‘help’, as if to suggest Democrats running for office in 2008 have a nice, healthy chunk of altrustic motivation in what they do. And Republicans do not. > > I don’t have a position on that particular point either way. I just believe it to be false. You know, I don’t care if Democrats want more people to be insured out of altruism, because it will help them get elected, or because they are under the control of space aliens. It will help people in need, and that is good enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655/26 "2008-09-23T13:40:47Z")
I think the piece of the equation we’re missing here is that very wealthy businesses actually benefit from there being a very large, permanent underclass. This provides an endless source of cheap labor. Of course, the fact is they have both overseas and illegal immigrants, which are the obvious first choices for this purpose, but it’s better to have backups, especially when using those backups is much better from a PR point of view. But I have to remind myself, it’s not just that wealth doesn’t care about the poor. Real wealth actually _wants_ the poor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-democrats-both-want-to-take-your-money/464655.md?page=1)