Some Economic Information for You

This is a rather long article that examines the history of our national debt. It examines the increases in spending since WWII and shows who is mainly responsible for. Some highlights:

• As President, Reagan entered office in 1981 he repeatedly called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, yet never submitted a balanced budget himself.
• It appears that the frequently referenced Reagan’s Conservative mythology is contrary to the truth, he was an award winning, record setting liberal spender.
• The fact is that Reagan was able to push his tax cuts through both Houses of Congress, but he never pushed through any reduced spending programs. His weak leadership in this area makes him directly responsible for the unprecedented rise in borrowing during his time in office, an average of 13.8% per year. The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined.
• In 1993 President Clinton inherited the deficit spending problem and did more than just talk about it; he fixed it. In his first two years and with a cooperative Democratic Congress he set the course for the best economy this country has ever experienced. Then he worked with what could be characterized as the most hostile Congress in history, led by Republicans for the last six years of his administration. Yet, under constant personal attacks from the right, he still managed to get the growth of the debt down to 0.32% (one third of one percent) his last year in office. Had his policies been followed for one more year the debt would have been reduced for the first time since the Kennedy administration.
• When President Bush II came into office in 2001 he quickly turned all that progress around. With the help of a Republican controlled Congress he immediately gave a massive tax cut based on a failed economic policy; perhaps an economic fantasy describes it better. The last year Mr. Clinton was in office the nation borrowed 18 billion dollars. The first year Mr. Bush II was in office he had to borrow 133 billion.
• As a result of all his [Bush II] tax cutting with no cutting in spending, in 2003 President Bush set a record for the biggest single yearly dollar increase in debt in the nation’s history. He did it again in 2004, increasing the debt more than half a trillion dollars. Since 2003 total borrowing has exceeded $500,000,000,000 per year. Even Mr. Reagan never increased the debt that much in a single year; Mr. Reagan’s biggest increase was only 282 billion, half of GWB’s outrageous spending. As a result of the fact that the debt was already pretty high when Bush II entered office, his annual rate of increase is only averaging 7% per year so far. In 2006 he was holding press conferences bragging that the debt was increasing at the rate of only 300 billion dollars a year, yet in reality it was twice that. Again the facts do not match Neo-Con rhetoric.

So, again, people wonder how the economy got in such bad shape, well, here's a bit of the answer. Of course some people (my family) think that trickle down economics works, history has shown that it really doesn't. Somehow they think that voting another Republican into office is just what the country needs. Unfortunately, there too history shows us that another Republican increasing spending and decreasing taxes is not what we need. We need someone responsible enough to cust spending, stop tax cuts for the rich and reign in spending. I can't say for sure that person will be Barack Obama, but I'm pretty darn sure it's nopt going to be John McCain.

My favorite paragraph in the article:

While it is a great jabbing sound bite, the facts show that the “tax and spend” rhetoric Republicans often spew about Democrats is not as bad as it sounds. Taxing before spending actually reflects good government. The facts also show that it most often takes a Democratic President to control and reduce spending. The truth is that the Republicans are the party of “borrow and spend”. They hate taxes, but love to spend; their solution is to put off paying till later for our security today. They prefer to see our children pay for their debt. Neo-Conservative thinking has run up over an 8.5 trillion dollar debt that will not be paid off for a generation or more, and is still increasing at an astounding rate with no end to deficit spending in sight.