This is an argument I can respect. You actually provide an analysis. Thanks!
So, the tax cuts were a Republican thing (no argument here), but the Medicare entitlement was a bipartisan (meaning R and D) thing, and the wars kept getting funded by Congress, even when the Dems took control of both houses in 2006. Two out of three, the Democrats were equal "conspirators" with the Republicans, yet it's all the Republican's fault?
:hmm:
What about 2009? We knew we were in a recession by that point (the Dems and the media told us every day for a year now), so the smaller revenues weren't a surprise. Bush was out of office, the Republicans were three years removed from controlling Congress. What about the stimulus? Is that Bush and the Republicans' fault too? Will the second stimulus, government health care and cap and trade somehow be Bush and the Republicans' fault as well? Surely, with the Dems assailing the Republicans daily about how "irresponsible" they've been under Bush, and with the recession already being a well known fact, the Dems should have righted this ship they've so long screamed was so off course, right?
Then why hasn't it happened? Is that all the Republicans' fault as well? How many years is this silly blame game going to continue? 2010? 2012? It's ridiculous. Did Bush whine in every major speech about the mild recession he inherited from Clinton in 2001?
All of these are fair points. I will reiterate a point I made above, which is that neither party is fiscally responsible. I think that is abundantly clear and beyond dispute. The major differences I can see, however, are twofold.
First, the dems tend not to campaign as the party of fiscal responsibility. They will say it is important in their campaign speeches, but repubs make it a signature issue in their platform and rhetoric. But ask them about their plans for fiscal responsibility, and you get no substance. They attack "earmarks" and "pork barrel spending" in their rhetoric but these are a tiny portion of the budget. This is a hollow, symbolic campaign issue, something they can claim to oppose when they run for elections. Yet even if they oppose it while in office (which some do and some do not), it doesn't amount to anything. At the same time, they always want to cut taxes, and they will never raise them to pay for spending they propose, whether it be for wars or for new entitlements like Medicare part D. While the moderate or "new left" dems are basically complicit with the repubs on all this, they at least do not claim that fiscal responsibility is their top priority while pursuing these fiscally disastrous policies.
Second, the dems will tend to support stimulus spending during a recession to prime the pump, while repubs oppose it. But repubs support economic stimulus just as much as dems do. They just support doing it by way of cutting taxes rather than by way of spending. If memory serves, this stimulus bill was about 60% tax cuts and 40% spending. This is why some repubs voted for it. Yet if it had been 100% tax cuts, but the same overall size, it's a good bet the repubs would have voted for it in force. And yet it still would have had the same negative fiscal impact. So the difference here over stimulus spending it not at its core an ideological battle over the premise of stimulus, but rather one over how to implement it, with repubs wanting all tax cuts, progressives wanting all spending, and moderates wanting a mixture. Now we can debate whether tax cuts or spending are more effective in creating jobs and stimulating the economy. Both will stimulate the economy to some degree, and it may be that either are both are worth the price in the short term increase in the deficit they create, or it may be that neither are worth it. But both will enlarge the deficit and therefore neither party can claim "fiscal responsibility." The only people who can claim that are those who opposed any form of stimulus, be it spending or tax cuts, which is basically no one in Congress.
Finally, with respect to healtcare, I will say this. The bills floating around Congress are paid for by additional taxes, unlike the wars or Medicare part D. Again, we can debate whether the goals being pursued are worth the tax increases, but at least there is a notion of fiscal resonsibility here. And the repubs are being fiscally responsible, in this case, by opposing the entire thing. The premise here is right, with every form of new spending, you need to either support it, but only if it is paid for on the revenue side, or else oppose it. This needs to be the continued philosophy of government.
- wolf
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