It's funny how now that Obama is president suddenly the conservatives have come out complaining about deficit spending. This last week across the country small conservative groups held "tea party" demonstrations protesting Obama's budget. Yet over the past 6 years they haven't had any problem with Bush running the deficit to record heights.
I decided to do a little research on deficit spending and I found this graph on u-s-history.com, which is pretty telling about the Republican Party, the party that is supposed to be all about fiscal responsibility.
As you can see back to Johnson and even Nixon, the government was run via some deficit spending but it wasn't a massive amount. Not even with the Vietnam War going on. Nope, it didn't really shoot through the roof until Regan. Ronald Regan, the poster child for the Republican Party. For those of you who don't know (most Republicans) during the Regan years, the government started spending tons of money it didn't have. Also during the Regan years we had a large unemployment rate, and interest rates on loans were super high. How did Regan deal with all of this? Well besides spending tons of money on things like the military, he de-regulated the banks. Yep, most of the trouble we are experiencing now can be attributed to the Republican idea of letting business regulate itself.
George Bush Sr. continued Reganomics during his 4 years, and if you will notice on the chart the only time that we had a budget surplus was during the Clinton era… That's right, the only time over the last 40 years that we had a balanced budget, was when a Democrat was in the white house. Which of course was quickly ruined when Bush Jr. was elected. Because after all, it costs a lot of money to invade other countries, and spy on it's citizens.
I decided to do a little research on deficit spending and I found this graph on u-s-history.com, which is pretty telling about the Republican Party, the party that is supposed to be all about fiscal responsibility.
As you can see back to Johnson and even Nixon, the government was run via some deficit spending but it wasn't a massive amount. Not even with the Vietnam War going on. Nope, it didn't really shoot through the roof until Regan. Ronald Regan, the poster child for the Republican Party. For those of you who don't know (most Republicans) during the Regan years, the government started spending tons of money it didn't have. Also during the Regan years we had a large unemployment rate, and interest rates on loans were super high. How did Regan deal with all of this? Well besides spending tons of money on things like the military, he de-regulated the banks. Yep, most of the trouble we are experiencing now can be attributed to the Republican idea of letting business regulate itself.
George Bush Sr. continued Reganomics during his 4 years, and if you will notice on the chart the only time that we had a budget surplus was during the Clinton era… That's right, the only time over the last 40 years that we had a balanced budget, was when a Democrat was in the white house. Which of course was quickly ruined when Bush Jr. was elected. Because after all, it costs a lot of money to invade other countries, and spy on it's citizens.
Comments
I, for one, think these tea parties were BS and completely agree with you when you ask "where were these people when Bush started two wars on false pretenses and started the so-called patriot act" that put us where we are today.
Well, haven't I turned around since a few years ago?