Tax-Cut and Spend Republicans

[NVMojo]

As Republicans celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Contract With America, where is the zeal for smaller government that was such a central aspect of the 1994 Republican Revolution?

In the five years he has been in office, President Bush and the GOP-led Congress have added $1.5 trillion and counting to the federal debt they inherited after Bill Clinton left office. Even many of today's conservative pundits and activists are questioning the party's priorities.

But does the president deserve all the blame?

With a large number of Republicans left over from the 1994 revolution, what happened to the zeal for reining in spending?

In a story that ran in The Washington Post in 2000 during the election, Dan Balz and I wrote that Bush was staking ground as a new kind of Republican, "a tax-cut and spend" politician.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100300322_pf.html

[ramapo]

1. Plenty of Republicans deserve blame

Start with Reagan and his voodoo economics, followed by Bush I, and capped off by Bush II. Bizarre as it sounds, the only fiscal sanity in the last 25 years came during the eight years of Clinton's presidency.

Oh yes, don't forget to allocate a generous amount of blame to the American people for electing and re-electing these financial cretins.
Of course that's all part of the "I want a lot for nothing" philosophy that has become a cornerstone of our "democracy".

[Laelth]

4. Bizarre?

Not at all. I wonder if all this red ink isn't part of Grover Norquist's plan to drown the federal government in the bathtub, so to speak. Since the R's have proven themselves incapable of cutting spending to reign in the size of the government, perhaps they have decided to bloat it to the point of bankruptcy, thereby accomplishing their ultimate goal.

In principle, though, I agree with your main point. Clinton left us with a budget surplus. The R's have been a financial disaster. The lie that the R's are more fiscally conservative has been thoroughly debunked by 25 years of history.

-Laelth

[Lasher]

2. Republicans lie about their desire for small government

The facts are, Democrats are the small government party, not the borrow-and-spend Republicans.

***

We all want prosperity, oppose unemployment, dislike inflation, don't enjoy paying taxes, etc. These values are Republican only in the sense that Republicans are supposed to treasure them more and to be more reluctant to sacrifice them for other goals such as equality and clean air.

Statistics back to 1959 make this clear. A consistent pattern over 45 years cannot be explained by shorter-term factors, such as war or who controls Congress. Maybe presidents can't affect the economy much, but the assumption that they can and do is so prominent in Republican rhetoric that they are stuck with it. So consider:

Federal spending (aka "big government"): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president's policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.

Leaning over backward even farther, let's start our measurement in 1981, the date when many Republicans believe that life as we know it began. The result: Democrats still have a better record at smaller government. Republican presidents added more government spending for each year they served, whether you credit them with the actual years they served or with the year that followed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20059-2005Apr1.html

[Slyder]

3. Terminology wrong

How about "Tax-cut and Borrow Republicans"? That rolls off the tongue a tad easier. And its sounds even more perverted!

[meow2u3]

5. Credit Card Conservatism

When you cut taxes and increase spending--especially on war, pork, and oppression--you have to borrow because you're spending more money than you have. The credit card conservatives in the White House can't afford to call Democrats tax-and-spend liberals.