It’s the Spending, Stupid
It’s also the stupid spending. Here’s George Will:
At the end of the Clinton administration, when the budget was balanced (largely by revenue generated by commercialization of the Internet), annual federal spending was $1.94 trillion and revenue was $2.10 trillion. “Adjusting for inflation and population growth since the start of 2001,” Dorfman writes, “today’s equivalents would be $2.77 trillion and $3.00 trillion,” and a $230 billion surplus.
What is to blame for today’s huge imbalance? The George W. Bush tax cuts? The recession? Obama’s spending? Dorfman answers yes, yes and yes — but that “spending is the main culprit” because: Today federal revenue is $2.67 trillion (slightly less than “the Clinton equivalent”) and spending is $3.76 trillion, so we are spending $987 billion more than we would be if we had just increased Bill Clinton’s last budget for inflation and population growth.
George W. Bush’s “compassionate” “conservatism” really lifted the lid for what followed. The idea was for Republicans to spend like Democrats, only without all the nasty taxes. Tax & Borrow & Spend Democrats were replaced by Borrow & Borrow & Spend Republicans.
As soon as the Democrats returned to power, they could point to the awfulness of the Bush budgets. When they did that, they could (and did) say that Republicans didn’t spend enough, which they’d always said before. This time, though, they were pointing to enormous GOP budget (which Democrats said were still too small) and to enormous GOP deficits (which Democrats had zero intention of shrinking).
They also got to point to the Bush tax rates and claim that “the rich” aren’t paying “their fair share.” I mean, just look at those huge deficits.
So when the Republicans tried to mount a defense, they looked like the Jacksonville Jaguars. But they have no one to blame but themselves, for following along with Bush’s folly.
Basically the Republicans wrecked their chances through their own hubris over the past decade or so. Whatever suggestions they make will be through the screen of smashed credibility. Accordingly, they cannot reposition themselves as a meaningful alternative until the Democrats crash-and-burn even worse than they did. This does not bode well for getting the country out of the current financial mess without massive misery and collapse.
The late Christopher Hitchens once said he disliked the Republicans but he despised the Democrats, and I pretty much have always agreed. But barring a miracle, the Stupid Party seems on the way to imploding… just as the internal contradictions in the Democrook party are beginning to trigger hostilities (as Walter Mead says, a blue civil war.)
So we’re left with the prospect of the Stupid Party imploding and the Evil Party killing each other. Great, at last there really is hope…
Hey, Stephen. You get to look forward to Jeb’s attempt to continue the Bush legacy. If only retrogrades like you were more compassionate and could see the light of reason your countrymen would love you.
Bush (II) major fault was not using the veto pen. So he gets the blame, as it should be.
The Federal budget issues have always been about spending. Until entitlements are cut, the only thing happening is the rearrangement of the deck chairs.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.–Wilkins Macawber
Govt spending is politicians spending our money to buy votes to perpetuate themselves in power and riches. It has nothing to do with the economy.
Laws are always written to favor their donors on the back of the disfavored. Big Govt taxes the middle class to reward Big Daddies (e.g. half bil to daddy Kaiser of Solyndra, 2 bil to daddy Soros of Petrobra…), and to their footsoldiers, the “downtrodden poor”, to keep them in line to vote every two years.
We have an hour-glass economy that will break in the middle sooner than you might think.