free-lunch republicans

[jazzfish]

Well, well. The debt ceiling has to be raised again because the public debt has risen by an astounding 40% since George W. Bush took office. You mean to tell me that, even with a Congress controlled top to bottom by the "party of fiscal responsibility" and a President who's committed to cutting the deficit in half before he leaves office, both government debt and government spending have grown over the last five years?

The standard small-government-conservative response to shockers like this is "well, those weren't REAL small-government conservatives." (This leads me to believe that conservatism is the new communism: you can't say it doesn't work if it's never really been tried.) These arguments would have a lot more force if voters didn't keep falling for the same old tricks. Anyone who claims that they will cut government spending is either lying or delusional. People like their government programs; thus, politicians who vote against those programs are likely to be bounced out of office in the next election cycle.

[To the first person to mention "tax-and-spend Democrats:" 1) Which is more fiscally responsible: tax-and-spend or deficit-spending-'til-the-end-of-time? 2) Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilised society.]

Comments

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

Thing is, we cut the spending to various pet projects all the time. Money gets shuffled from one pet project to another. And spending has been cut in the past. Both cases just require the legislators to be magicians; "now, now, why worry about that drop in educational spending when we're spending more on the war on terrorism? I mean, c'mon, *terrorism*!"

Also, while I grant it's more akin to rats jumping off a sinking ship than anything else, I think it's fair to say that at the various caucases in the coming months to whittle down the line of heir apparents, Bush ain't exactly gonna be the guy anybody wants at their side, even in the primaries, to say, "I'm gonna be just like him when I get elected!"

Finally, while I certainly agree that taxes are necessary (and not particularly evil), level of taxation is another matter.
(Having said *that*, at no point in my life have I ever felt over-taxed, and I think the real solution to cutting the deficit isn't cutting spending, it's closing tax loopholes that are generally exploited by the rich on both the personal and corporate level.)

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

Since this led my curiosity to check, Andrew Jackson was the last sitting president when the US wasn't in debt. LBJ managed to fiddle with the numbers enough that in 1969, he managed to leave office with a balanced budget. Since then, we've had about 24 years of Republican Executive/Democratic Legislative inability to balance the budget, and 10 years of democratic Executive/Republican Legislative inability (since Clinton and the Republican Congress of '94 managed to balance for a couple of years).

[laughin.livejournal.com]

Which is one of the many reasons I am disgusted with the GOP. Both parties love to spend our money.

I am all for the fair tax (fairtax.org) and would love to see it pass, but then again, I would love to have a million dollars put on my doorstep.