Republican Presidents Always Ones Responsible For National Debt

In his very fine article "United States National Debt: An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible for the Borrowing", Steve McGourty dissects the National Debt in a readable and understandable format with graphs and figures from US Government data and Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia.

This short discussion of that work delves more specifically into why the prevailing conversation in politics has not included the massive run-up of the National Debt by the Republican Presidents starting with Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush.

It is said (over and over again) by Republicans that the Democrat (sic) Party is the party of "Tax and Spend." But no Democrat has ever pointed out that the Republican Party is the party of "Borrow and Blow." Why is that? When the National Debt is reviewed, as done by McGourty, we immediately notice one very critical issue: Namely, that the Republican Presidents have consistently borrowed huge sums of money and spent it on things that have provided no return to the American People. Huge military build ups and wars do not add to the economy, they diminish it.

Reagan believed in the Milton Freidman's Chicago School of Economics credo that giving huge sums of money to the richest people will create financial opportunities to those less fortunate -- the "Trickle-Down" financial model. George H.W. Bush continued this policy and Congress went along with it by de-regulating practically every industry and financial institution in America. Reagan and George I increased the National debt from under one trillion dollars to over 4.4 trillion dollars in their twelve years in power. This is an increase of five hundred percent! Reagan himself tripled the National Debt during his Presidency and rolled up more debt that all other presidents combined!

President Clinton inherited this monumental debt and actually halted the upward movement during his two terms as President. And we all remember with fondness the level of prosperity that we reached under Clinton. "Tax and Spend" is tantamount to "Living within Your Income." And, low and behold... it worked!

George W. Bush has little or no regard for the dire consequences of the Republican philosophy of "Borrow and Blow." He is their greatest cheerleader, in fact. He has taken the "Borrow and Blow" philosophy to a whole new level. Consider his misguided foray into Iraq: 700 Billion Dollars without anything positive to show for it. Truly "Borrow and Blow" in action.

And what about this latest crisis: the Wall Street Bailout--seven hundred billion dollars that will be used to purchase worthless debts created by the greedy Republicans on Wall Street who want all the profit and want to "socialize" the debt. This again is the top-down (or trickle down) philosophy of Milton Freidman that has created the unprecedented National Debt that we are burdened with today. Why is there such and urgency to resolve this crisis immediately? Obviously if you have enough time to review it, you will not agree to these very unfavorable terms from this disgraced President. It is one last effort on W's behalf to provide huge sums of money for his neo-conservative supporters prior to his removal from office. And the urgency is another use of the Fear Card (Smoking gun...Mushroom cloud) that has worked so well in the past to get his war in Iraq.

If "Tax and Spend" is the mantra for the Republican Party against the Democrats, then "Borrow and Blow" should be the answer by Democrats to the Republicans.

Honestly, can you name anything of lasting benefit that any recent Republican President has left us?

Comments

[LanguagePolice]

I just looked at the graphs, and they include FDR to the present. The graph remains almost flat during Eisenhower's administration.

[LanguagePolice]

This is a rather sweeping generalization. If you go back as far as Reagan, the generalization fits.

But Eisenhower left us the interstate highway system and the beginning of the country's strategic defense infrastructure.

It depends on what you call recent.

[Gasparilla]

I agree it depends on how far you go back. Eisenhower was a half decent president and I think his view of the present war mongering of the Republicans would not be a good one.

[ElBruce]

"Honestly, can you name anything of lasting benefit that any recent Republican President has left us?"

Hmm... how recent? Nixon signed the EPA, lol.

[Figglebob]

"Consider his misguided foray into Iraq: 700 Billion Dollars without anything positive to show for it."

If by "without anything positive" you mean that providing relief for Iraqis from an oppressive tyrant who routinely had his troops cut out tongues/ears, drop people out of 3rd story windows, bury thousands of executed in mass graves, and use mustard gas to permanently silence opposing voices is worthless then yes, you are right, nothing positive came out of the war.

Amnesty International cites figures in the hundreds of 1,000s of dead under Saddam Hussein with countless others mutilated in some form, mostly civilians with no means to defend themselves. But for the war, this would no doubt be going on today. It's all good as long as you don't have to pay for it right?

[kdogg]

While I agree that Saddam was a tyrant and a madman, thats not why we went to war. I can guarantee if that is how the war would have been sold then we would have never gone there in the first place. The people that instigated the war had many reasons but protecting the citizens of Iraq was not one of them. Please save your false sympathies for some one that believes you.

[Gasparilla]

The thing is people like figglebob couldn't have given a damn about what Saddam did. There are countries all over the world with atrocities going on, and you don't hear anyone on the right clamoring to overthrow them. Since it became obvious that the WMD excuse was just a lie by the Bush administration, now his supporters try to claim it was all worth it because we "freed" the Iraqis. I'm glad he's gone, but there are plenty out there like him, and no one is saying let's invade those countries. It's a phony justification.

[Gasparilla]

Very true, and when Clinton passed his tax increases on the wealthy in his first term, all the Republicans predicted disaster. Didn't happen. Reagan spent a bundle on a enemy that had long been defeated, the Soviet Union. The Soviet system was bound to fail because it provided neither political or economic freedom. I didn't have a problem with him being anti-Soviet, but we did not need to run trillions in debt to counter an enemy that was not really a threat.

What most people do not realize is the difference between the "debt" and the "deficit". The deficit is the yearly difference between money spent and income [taxes collected]. The debt is the accumulation of those yearly deficits. We now have an interest expense of a couple hundred billion a year on the accumulated debt. It's exactly like a credit card, and we are going to get to the point where we spend a great deal of the yearly budget just on interest for the debt we have run up for so many years. Which is why I'm not for Obama's tax cuts either. Time to live within our means and cut up the credit card.