I think anyone who has ever had a political conversation about the essential nature of the Democrat and Republican parties has heard the idea of the “Fiscally Responsible Republican” and the “Tax-and-Spend Democrat.” These titles that are used on a daily basis by people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Rielly seemed to have seeped into the American public’s thinking so thoroughly that most democrats and republicans accept their roles and consider it a moot point to be ignored.
I’d like to do some research into these little beat-it-into-your-head terms. To start our investigation, I suppose we should lay some ground rules down. What exactly constitutes fiscal responsibility? I think some things that everyone agrees on, for personal and governmental responsibility, are as follows:
a. Not spending more than your earn. Ignoring the fact that most folk nowadays do in fact live in debt (myself included), momma did always say that credit cards are for emergencies only.
b. Having a plan and sticking to it. Because we only get paid every so often, your monthly or yearly budget should take into account most possibilities. You shouldn’t have to call your dad to wire you money because you spent too much on beer last Friday, right?
c. Buying/borrowing only the things you need. Don’t buy a plasma screen TV when you need new underwear, and don’t buy a new car when a used one will do you just fine.
So how do the parties stack up to one another? Well, each budget proposed and signed into law requires the workings of both congress and the president. However, the president is the one doing the proposal and the signing, with congress usually haggling only a small amount. So, I decided to use the president in office as the signifier of the party responsible. If anyone reads this and knows of some better signifier that I’ve overlooked, let me know.
National Debt
So, unfortunately, just about every year in our recent history (think 1978-present, from Carter and on) has resulted in an increase in federal spending deficits. Maybe Ross Perot was right about running the government like a business in order to lower debt was the only route. Running the government like a government certainly hasn’t been working. I could go as far back as 1945, given the information available, but it didn’t seem fair to include the post WWII downturn in spending and debt. Also, because the two modern heroes of each party (think Reagan and Clinton) each had a turn. So how do the two heroes stack up? Well, Ronald Reagan brought the total national debt up from about $1.8 trillion to $3.8 trillion. At the start of his first term, the National debt to GDP ratio was 32.6% (which is perhaps a better number for analysis) and at the end? Well it was at 53.1% (an increase of 20.5%).
Bill Clinton received the presidency while the national debt was at a whopping $4.9 trillion, and through his two terms it was increased by $.7 trillion to $5.6. Not exactly the greatest accountant, but certainly not as bad as some. Debt to GDP ratio is where you can see the difference. Bill Clinton’s budgets actually decreased the ratio by 8.8%. With a 4.2% increase in national debt since 1978 by the democrat presidents, and a whopping 36.4% increase by republican presidents, it’s amazing we don’t hear the term Borrow-and-Spend Republican.
Plan for the 2nd
Even though you pay your rent and phone bill on the 1st, you should probably put some money aside before you buy that sweet Schwinn. GWB has shown us that if you’re running a country, you don’t really need to plan ahead, because congress will get your back so that they don’t seem like they don’t support the troops. Since we began the strengthening in colonial policy in around 2002, we’ve seen yearly “supplemental funding” bills go through congress mostly unimpeded that ranged from 90 billion all the way up to $178 billion. The vast majority is for military spending that “couldn’t possible have been planned for,” such as body armor and AAFES establishments.
This is one area where the fault doesn’t go exclusively to the GOP, though, as congress has started to use these supplemental war funding bills as an excuse to fund projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funding (read: Katrina rebuilding efforts and veteran’s health care). Regardless of their purposes, probably half of the added pork was predictable and should have been included in the budget, as well as another quarter that has no real business being spent anyway: $1.1 billion in relief for “recreational fishing industries,” and another $2.3 billion to combat a possible avian flu outbreak. You read correctly, a possible avian flu outbreak. Almost sounds like a $5,000 hammer doesn’t it?
Do You Really Need That Harley?
Here is one area that I have trouble getting people to come with me on, and it comes down to what you the federal government should be responsible for. If you believe that the federal government’s purpose is maintaining a military that accounts for almost 50% of the entire world’s yearly spending (while accounting for 18% of it’s domestic product), accounting for about 20% of its budget (more like 23% if you add supplemental funding) while spending 3% of its budget on education and training, then I suppose we have our money in order. The reason we have trouble funding things like social security and education has nothing to do with lack of funding. It has more to do with the fact that we spend far more on our military than is necessary. This is not an instance of me “not supporting our troops” or me being anti-military. I know military is necessary for self defense (especially when you make a habit of pissing everyone off like the US has been). The problem I see is we’ve now established a military that is far greater than necessary.In short: we’re not paying for our defense, we’re paying to attack and intimidate others for personal gains.
So let’s say we cut our military spending in half. It would never ever happen, but let’s say for the moment it does. 2008 military spending is put at around 710 billion dollars, which would become 355 billion. If we spent that on paying down the debt (which we would also not do, we’d cut taxes so the nation could buy a collective Harley), instead of just ignoring it, we could knock down the 9 trillion dollars in about 25 years (ignoring any hiccups along the way).
In the end, every side of a political conflict will resort to mudslinging, but it’s nice to know which filth is partially true, and which filth is complete bullshit.
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