In those moments in the past forty-hours when I’ve paid attention to the debt negotiations, I want to just ask every Democrat attacking House Republicans — and said Democrats’ allies in the mainstream media demonizing the majority party in the chamber attempting to face this* — “How do you plan to pay for this?”
As I scan my e-mail and scan the blogs, I keep coming across interesting tidbits that measure the increase in spending in the Obama years. Those on the left blaming George W. Bush for the current stalemate have been using gimmicks to explain away his successor’s spendthrift ways.
Yes, we grant that Republican could have done more — much more — to rein in federal spending (and we and other conservative blogs as well as conservative editorial pages took him to task for fiscal failures), but his spending spree seems restrained when compared to that of his successor. No matter how liberal economists try to dress it up, the Obama administration increased the rate of increase in federal spending above and beyond what it was under Bush. You just need look at the various budgets each president signed. (And the most recent one Obama submitted to show just how he sought to increase spending.)
Indeed, that increase began when Nancy Pelosi took over at House Speaker in 2007. (And yes, we can and should criticize W for not wielding the veto pen more regularly and more strategically.)
Earlier today, Glenn linked a post where Ira Stoll compared the spending habits of the Democratic incumbent to his most recent Democratic predecessor:
. . . the bottom line is that the federal government is spending about double what it was at the end of the Clinton administration. For all the clamor on the left to bring back the Clinton-era top tax rates, there are few, if any, politicians in Washington talking about bringing back the Clinton-era spending levels.
Then, there are these fun facts derived from studying past federal budgets:
- Reagan’s debt hikes were comparatively small and usually were temporary (thus the high number of changes)
- Obama in two years has already added a trillion dollars more debt than Reagan did in eight
- Total debt increase under Reagan ($1.865-T) was almost identical to increase under Clinton ($1.805-T)
So, if Democrats wish to invoke Reagan (as seems to be their wont of late), they should reference these stats. And if they want to wax nostalgic about the economic growth and balanced budgets of the Clinton era, then they should also recall that the Arkansas Democrat failed to increase spending at the levels the incumbent Democrat has.
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*At least the House Republicans have passed a plan and the House Speaker is trying to bring another up for a vote. And what do we have from the Senate Democrats?
Same shit, different day. Nothing but fear mongering and class warfare. It’s all they’ve had to offer for a half century now. They know better than to let the proletariat see behind their iron curtain.
I sort of feel the same way about blaming Democrats for the debt as I feel about blaming Bush; I think the Blame Game is unproductive and it’s time to move on to the Fix-It Game. I fault the Democrats much more for obstructing Republican efforts to fix the Debt Problem than I do for them causing it.
Simply not increasing it, would have done it. For example, not establishing a new entitlement.
Politifact, not exactly known as a right-wing organization, agrees: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/27/tom-coburn/tom-coburn-says-government-twice-size-it-was-decad/
In CPI-adjusted terms, it’s not quite double, but still on the way… about 1 and 2/3 more spending.
There’s no getting around it: Our budget problem today is a spending problem. It is not possible to make up that kind of revenue (to double Clinton’s spending) with tax increases.
Especially not with Obama’s other job-destroying, business-crushing measures in place. I have said before, that we might return to the Clinton tax rates with little net negative effect – *IF*, and only if, we simultaneously repealed ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. But of course, the Democrats won’t. In a context of having ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and other bad measures in place, tax increases could well be the last straw to break the camel’s back.
True. But one of the ways that the other side (the national-socialists) block any effective fix, is by denying and obfuscating the fact that we have, fundamentally, a spending problem.
When you borrow 42 cents of every dollar you spend, the math is not too difficult. You spend for 365 days. You collect enough money to finance the spending for 58% of the year and you borrow to finance the spending for 42% of the year. 211.7 days are on the borrowed dime.
The “budget” (which does not exist) increases automatically by roughly 8% every year. You take the budget from last year (which does not exist) and you gimmick in inflation, double accounting tricks, socialist voodoo and add it to last budget for last year and call it “zero.” But it isn’t “zero” because it is roughly 8% higher. Stop resisting. This is government common sense and the Washington way.
We grow the budget (which does not exist) and we “cap” it with a “debt ceiling” which is a number the Congress pulls out of its collective nether region and calls a spending barrier.
There are three ways to avert a debt ceiling crisis:
1.) Raise the ceiling and whistle your way to the golf course. After all, it is an imaginary number affecting an imaginary budget paid for with imaginary money from future generations of tax slaves.
2.) Tax the rich. The rich have a way of manufacturing money that is not understood by anyone but the rich. They won’t share their secret, so it is only right and fitting to take it away from them until they move out of the country.
3.) Cut the government spending and lower the bills. This can not be done because old people and children will starve in the streets and just removing their bodies will be prohibitively expensive and speed up global warming and threaten the polar bears.
4.) (I lied.) A combination of the above three.
Members of the government at times like these look at their watches and wonder if they have had enough. Others, like Frank, Waxman, Leahy, Saunders just go totally silent and wait for their safe district to send them back to rape them some more.