That’s true, but you neglected to mention that, at the time, Congress was operating under rules put in place by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. That law was passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress without a single Republican vote in favor of it.
And their GOP replacements are different how?
We all know the game: the GOP is all about cracking down on deficits - when a Dem is in the White House, and only then. Bush the Elder was the one exception to that in the past 40 years, and he all but had an intra-party rebellion on his hands.
And yet, in all of your bothsidesism, you appear congenitally unable even to acknowledge that the party of fiscal responsibility has, even when it held BOTH houses of Congress AND the White House, shown basically no interest in adhering to one of its own central principles, as articulated with mind-numbing frequency by party leaders.
This is a key issue here. It’s not simply that both sides spend money like crazy. They do. It’s that one side spends money like crazy while constantly harping about NOT spending money, and about the need for balanced budgets and reduced deficits. And it also does this while bribing its own voters with irresponsible tax cuts that actually make things even worse.
I think that’s true, but as a lefty I do wish that people on my side of the political fence were at least a little more willing to take seriously the question of spending, deficits, debt, and the long-term consequences. It’s one thing to engage in deficit spending to alleviate hardship and keep things going during an economic downturn. It’s something else altogether to simply continue to spend more and more and more without taking into account the long-term consequences. Every dollar spent servicing our massive debt is a dollar that can’t be spent on useful things.
Some of my favorite Democrats are guilty of this sort of thing. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was asked how she would pay for some of the her policies like the Green New Deal, her answer was basically, “You just pay for it!” I want a little more nuance than that from my politicians when it comes to economic policy.
Elizabeth Warren has promised a wealth tax that would, by some calculations, raise almost $3 trillion dollars over ten years. Even if that amount is correct (and some economists are dubious), she then puts forward a range of spending plans that, she says, would benefit from the wealth tax. But if you add up all of her spending plans, it’s clear that she’s double and triple and quadruple dipping into the same pool of money.
If I give you $100, you can’t then go out and use it to buy a $100 hard drive, AND a $100 dinner, AND a $100 dress. That’s not how economics works, but that seems to be how it works for some candidates. “I’m speaking to an audience of college grads today, so I’ll talk about how my wealth tax will pay for student loan forgiveness. Tomorrow, I’m speaking about health care, so I’ll use my wealth tax to help pay for increased coverage. Then, next week, it will help me promise a new child-care plan”
Of course, the problem for Democrats is that, if they now start to get brutally honest about the economics of some of these things, they will lose some voters, and the Republicans will take advantage double down on their own hypocrisy by once again becoming the party of rhetorical fiscal responsibility, for just as long as it takes to win another election.
A) The tea party wasn’t about the debt, as was clear to anyone who actually looked for 3 seconds at one of the protests.
B) The guiding principle of the conservative movement on fiscal matters is that there should be stimulus during Republican presidencies and austerity during Democratic presidencies.
I’m not sure if there can be a better answer to this. While I don’t heavily disagree with any one point in Bernie’s platform from last campaign, (even though it was too much spending as a whole), he had a detailed plan for how to pay for each bit, which seems a bit overboard since for instance I don’t see what a tax on financial transactions has to do with free college tuition. (Actually, that’s sort of a bad example because I don’t think a tax on financial transactions is all that great. But I can’t think of any other of his revenue proposals that I heavily disagreed with.)
I’m pretty disappointed in the level of spending - I’d like it to be cut quite significantly.
The question was in regard to how many are in office as a result of that Tea Party push in 2010. If they were all still there but have since changed their tune, that would be different than if they all turned over and the replacements didn’t campaign on the same issues.
The key issue is when YOUR party controls the White House or the Senate or the House, the deficit is obscenely high and needs to be addressed. When MY party controls any or all of those, it’s different.
Regards,
Shodan
I would argue it’s the belief that water running downhill will never reach the bottom. So long as we remain the world’s reserve currency, that’s fine. But eventually pressure will grow and rates will climb and we’ll either devalue the currency or have some other calamitous thing occur to force things into balance again.
Gotcha – saying that the Pentagon was “all set at $733 billion” is both perfectly accurate and perfectly able to be misunderstood, since others here are under the impression that the military decides what it wants to spend. So we appear to be in violent agreement.
All I have to say is that as a lefty Dem, I really, truly hope that the Trump-era actions re: Republican deficit increases have finally convinced my party that the GOP is spectacularly full of shit on the deficit issue, and that the next time the GOP/media sounds the five-alarm fire on deficits the Democrats must collectively tell them all to screw off and proceed to implement whatever policies they want to implement.
From a purely political standpoint, nobody cares about the deficit and it should basically just be ignored. I hope that the Democrats have finally learned that.
I disagree. The size of the deficit and whether it is a big problem depends more on circumstances than political fortunes.
If we are in an economic downturn, receipts are going to be in the dumps and it’s downright stupid to cut spending for an arbitrary reason. In a war, expenditures are going to be sky-high, and it’s stupid to cut the deficit in the 2:1 ratio you suggested.
In an economy with full employment, high deficits is indefensible. Cutting taxes during a good economy with high deficits is lunacy. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge, it’s sheer stupidity in its most obvious form.
Assume all that is true. Can’t vote for Trump, because of the deficit. Can’t vote for Warren, because of the deficit. Can’t vote for Sanders, because same. Who else? Biden?
Now’s the moment. Who’s going to step up?
IMO no one. “The deficit is a huge problem, but I am still going to vote for whoever” is what is being said on both sides.
I wish Trump didn’t increase the deficit. I also wish some Democratic front-runner isn’t going to increase the deficit. I don’t get either wish.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, we know nobody who votes on the deficit should vote for Trump. No education in the second kick of the mule.
What do you mean that someone can’t vote for the Dems because of the deficit? I thought conservatives were afraid of them because they would raise taxes to pay for the stuff they want to do? “OMG! Fiscal responsibility! That’s like SOcIALisM!!!”
Because they are all going to increase the deficit. Read the cites, read mhendo’s post about Warren, read what AOC says, read what they all say.
Regards,
Shodan
Neither party has the moral high ground on this particular issue. It’s just that Republicans are more hypocritical since they spout a line about how fiscally responsible they are, and constantly hammer the Democrats for not being fiscally responsible. Sadly, both parties, in practice, are pushing us further and further into debt. What is really in contention is who’s gore is getting oxed…IOW, what we are spending the money on is more important to each side than the fact that we are spending too much.
This is all beyond what the OP was asking, of course, which as a slam on the Tea Party, but really the OP should have just asked ‘Where is the Republican Party’ wrt increasing debt. Their one trick pony tactic of tax cuts (for the rich) was never supposed to be some sort of silver bullet, just like tax increases aren’t a silver bullet. They both have their use and their time and place, but, sadly, neither party seems to know when that is and so they always advocate for the same thing (cut or increase), instead of advocating for what we need at a given time based on where the economy is.
Trump took a basically strong economy, juiced it in all the wrong ways, and before his term is even out has basically driven us onto the rocks with his stupid policy decisions. Not everything he’s done or is doing is stupid, in isolation…but in the aggregate, it’s a freaking disaster. And the Republicans haven’t done anything to stop him.
Stop changing the subject, and everyone else, stop letting him change the subject.
This isn’t about the Democrats, it’s about the Tea Party and the Republicans who couldn’t shut the fuck up about deficits when the Black Democrat was in office, and who now won’t say a damn thing about the White Republican who jacked that shit up the moment he got to vote on a budget.
Do you have a comment on why Republicans are suddenly silent on deficits? I would find that silence curious if I didn’t already think the Republicans were all dishonest shits to begin with.
Except that the Democrats are at least willing to address the problem, primarily by raising taxes on the wealthy, and have had notably better success than Republicans in actually addressing it. As this Oct. 2018 report notes,
Unfortunately, the deficit does have real effects. This sounds like the USA and China quarreling over who emits more carbon emissions, and then saying “the next time you complain about my emissions while you spew billions of tons, I’m going to ignore you and keep spewing mine as well.” The net result is the same: A heated world environment.
D’s and R’s can spar and accuse and criticize, but the numbers will go up steadily - $25 trillion, $30 trillion, $40 trillion.
I am 95% I’ll vote for a candidate other than Warren in my (meaningless) primary, and AOC is an idiot. I’m far more likely to vote for someone with a reasonable fiscal policy, but I just haven’t decided who yet.
That’s the difference between me and a Republican voter.
The R’s were 100% responsible for this recent increase in the deficit, they held both houses and the presidency, and voted to sharply increase the deficit despite complaining about how high it was for the last 8 years.
Every single Democrat voted against this deficit increasing crapshow, stop with the BSAB.
So, must we ask the question again? What happened to the deficit hawks in the Republican party who wouldn’t shut up about them when Obama was in office?