Big Government Under the Bush Adminstration Nov. 16, 2008
How Bush Broke the Government Jan. 5, 2009
But even more telling is data directly from the Treasury Department as it concerns the National Debt. From Jan 20th 2001 to Jan 20th 2009 under the leadership of George Bush and 6 of those 8 years with a Congress very Republican dominated regardless of Sen. Jeffords shipjumping in May of 01,
here is the actual debt data from Treasury for that time period. Let's make note that when Bush took office in 2001, the national debt stood at $5.7 trillion dollars and when he departed in 2009 the national debt had increased to, discounting a little chump change, $10.7 trillion dollars. Just for the sake of contrast,
during the Clinton years, he came into office with an initial debt of $4.18 trillion dollars in national debt and turned over the housekeys to Bush in 2001 with a debt of the $5.7 trillion already mentioned above. (Make note under Clinton the debt still went up)
As has been often noted Reagan took us over the $1 trillion dollar debt mark during his term so between Reagan and Bush 1 we went from roughly just under $1 trillion to $4.18 when the Clintons moved in. It also worth noting that during the Clinton years the actual number of federal employees went down or in other words,
gov't shrank in size. We can quibble on specifics and there's lots to quibble with and had there not been a republican Congress 6 of Clinton's 8 years, I can't say that we'd be still having this same discussion. I point this out only to show what was taking place when Bush and the republicans got it all in 2001.
But let's look at what republicans were saying leading up to that Nov. 2000' election and judge them by their own words. From the
2000' Republican platform itself. Scroll down past the Preamble to a Subtitled Section: The Republican Congress
We could have lost it all after the Democratic Congress passed the largest tax hike in history in 1993 that threatened to bring back the tax-and-spend follies of the bad old days. But the voters wouldn't have it and, in the next election, for the first time in forty years, they put Republican majorities in charge of both Houses of Congress. The difference that made can be put into numbers. In the four decades from 1954 to 1994, government spending increased at an average annual rate of 7.9 percent, and the public's debt increased from $224 billion to $3.4 trillion. Since 1994, with Republicans leading the House and Senate, spending has been held to an annual 3.1 percent rate of growth, and the nation's debt will be nearly $400 billion lower by the end of this year. The federal government has operated in the black for the last two years and is now projected to run a surplus of nearly $5 trillion over ten years.
Just below the above in the platform we also find this equally true statement.
even in times of large surpluses, the economy is far from perfect and we should not be satisfied with the status quo. Budget surpluses are the result of over-taxation of the American people. The weak link in the chain of prosperity is the tax system. It not only burdens the American people; it threatens to slow, and perhaps to reverse, the economic expansion:
I would concur with the observation of over-taxation except for one fly in the ontiment. The National Debt. All things remaining equal and surplus projections of $5 Tril over 10 years coming true, what would the net result be if we applied that $5 tril to the then $5 trillion dollar debt? Again, all things remaining constaint (they didn't for the record) here we are 10 years later and now as a Nation we are completely debt free. According to the
Treasury Department again, in fiscal year 2009' interest payments alone on the national debt amounted too $383 billion dollars. That's just interest and if you noticed a drop from the last couple of years, that's because the gov't got the
Federal Reserve to drop the interest rate to virtually zero because we were likely to default otherwise. So much for the myth of Fed independence.
But let's say we paid off the debt and we now sit as a nation debt free so using the republican stance of over taxation we decide to return these tax dollars to the public. Using a figure of 150 million taxpaying workers divided into that $383 bilion dollars, if my math is correct that means annually every working taxpayer keeps on average $2500 plus dollars. Now this was a purely raw exercise and the actual numbers would have been different using a progressive model in which taxes are collected meaning a return on same structure but the more important point is that all of a sudden $383 billion dollars annually would be pumped back into the economy and I didn't touch and tamper with any gov't service or sacred cow. What would this also do to the strenght and value of the dollar itself not only here at home but also abroad? If $383 billion dollars were injected right now into the private economy, what would that do? What would it do next year or the year after that? Yet we see a guaranteed future of even increasing interest payments on the debt with no end in sight and either gov't will have to be cut or taxes raised in order to meet that service obligation. What will that do to the economy? We (well some of us) so worry about the radical terrorist but the truth is, time is one his side and like a vulture over a dying animal all he has to do now is circle overhead waiting for nature to take it's course. And it will!
Tie, had republicans even with all the events of 9/11, etc. even attempted in any way to follow that model of debt reduction, I contend the landscape of gov't as we know it today and the discussion we have here would be dramatically different as would be the face of gov't itself. Yet, they did not. We know now that in fact gov't grew in size and scope over the last 8 years (now 9 with 1 in the books for Obama) and
there seems no hope in sight that it will abate. Although
they speak up now, it seems self serving because of their silence over the last 8 years but the point still remains true, this is all totally unsustainable and contary to the belief in myths, this all did not occur beginning Jan. 20th 2009' no matter how hard someone might try to fool themselves otherwise.
What we got in Washington right now sux and I mean the deep throat kind but don't try and tell me that for the last 8 years, the other party wasn't swallowing either. Remember the Congressman who yelled out at Obama, "you lie" well the truth is Obama wasn't the only liar in the room and at least on that night and in that situation, Obama wasn't the bigger hypocrite either!