As someone who only started to vaguely pay attention to politics starting after I got back from war in 2008, this has been the GOP's game all along. Nothing has changed. And then I started looking at the kind of deficits Reagan ran and I realized that this game went back to before I had been born in '86.
As someone who only started to vaguely pay attention to politics starting after I got back from war in 2008, this has been the GOP's game all along. Nothing has changed. And then I started looking at the kind of deficits Reagan ran and I realized that this game went back to before I had been born in '86.
The only president who has run a surplus budget in my lifetime was Clinton. Everyone else ran deficits, it just was a matter of degree. For instance, under Obama, the deficit shrunk at the fastest rate since we had gotten out of WW2. This was partly a reduction of the government no longer doing bailout programs post-'08, and also winding our physical footprint down in both Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush had been writing blank checks to the Pentagon since 9/11 while expanding Medicare Part D and signing off on revenue cuts (tax breaks for the rich). Reagan also ran large Cold War military budgets (relative to his time) and cut revenues (tax cuts for the rich) while still spending plenty domestically. You've already covered that Trump spent more in one term than Bush or Obama had with their two on--you guessed it!--tax cuts for the rich to the tune of trillions.
When emergencies like global pandemics or recessions or wars happen, I get it. Uncle Sam needs to step in and spend a bunch of money to make sure Bank of America doesn't become Bank of China when it collapses under its own leverage or to launch a Warp Speed program and lock down public activities to make sure excess deaths don't happen. But when you're running deficits in good economies like Reagan and Trump and had and their "fiscally conservative" party doesn't give a shit, it tells you exactly what you need to know about that party. The GOP has always been an unhappy marriage between the culturally-resentful and the business elite who want less regulation and lowered taxes. It is a gentleman's agreement between resentful working class voters and rich conservatives whereby the rich conservatives get lowered taxes so long as they use the political power that the resentful working class gives them with their votes to punish the people they don't like in the culture wars. That's why they don't care about the deficits they run in the good economies they had. George Bush Jr put the whole Global War on Terrorism on the credit card and congress gave it to him on a platter via the AUMF. The GOP has a looonnnggg history of hypocrisy on "fiscal conservatism." Ask me about their hypocrisy on being competent with the military and foreign policy next and I'll give you an earful lol.
As someone who only started to vaguely pay attention to politics starting after I got back from war in 2008, this has been the GOP's game all along. Nothing has changed. And then I started looking at the kind of deficits Reagan ran and I realized that this game went back to before I had been born in '86.
The only president who has run a surplus budget in my lifetime was Clinton. Everyone else ran deficits, it just was a matter of degree. For instance, under Obama, the deficit shrunk at the fastest rate since we had gotten out of WW2. This was partly a reduction of the government no longer doing bailout programs post-'08, and also winding our physical footprint down in both Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush had been writing blank checks to the Pentagon since 9/11 while expanding Medicare Part D and signing off on revenue cuts (tax breaks for the rich). Reagan also ran large Cold War military budgets (relative to his time) and cut revenues (tax cuts for the rich) while still spending plenty domestically. You've already covered that Trump spent more in one term than Bush or Obama had with their two on--you guessed it!--tax cuts for the rich to the tune of trillions.
When emergencies like global pandemics or recessions or wars happen, I get it. Uncle Sam needs to step in and spend a bunch of money to make sure Bank of America doesn't become Bank of China when it collapses under its own leverage or to launch a Warp Speed program and lock down public activities to make sure excess deaths don't happen. But when you're running deficits in good economies like Reagan and Trump and had and their "fiscally conservative" party doesn't give a shit, it tells you exactly what you need to know about that party. The GOP has always been an unhappy marriage between the culturally-resentful and the business elite who want less regulation and lowered taxes. It is a gentleman's agreement between resentful working class voters and rich conservatives whereby the rich conservatives get lowered taxes so long as they use the political power that the resentful working class gives them with their votes to punish the people they don't like in the culture wars. That's why they don't care about the deficits they run in the good economies they had. George Bush Jr put the whole Global War on Terrorism on the credit card and congress gave it to him on a platter via the AUMF. The GOP has a looonnnggg history of hypocrisy on "fiscal conservatism." Ask me about their hypocrisy on being competent with the military and foreign policy next and I'll give you an earful lol.