Republicans for Fiscal Irresponsibility?

There are three really good reasons Limbaugh and Noonan did not use the words deficit, balanced budget, and debt in their critiques of the stimulus bill. Those reasons are

Reagan

Bush 41

Bush 43

Any Republican who even mentions deficit, balanced budget, or debt at this point sounds about as tone deaf as the racist who defends himself by saying "Hey, some of my very best friends are n!ggers."

OK we can argue all day about who gets the credit or blame for whatever in our federal fiscal history and never get anywhere. You have your hindsight view, and I have mine.

But I think we can all agree on some historical facts that apply since Ike was in office. The federal budget has always been pretty damn near 20% of GDP no matter who was in the White House or who controlled congress. That percentage is what it takes to keep the USA chugging at numero uno on the world stage. Argue smaller government all you want. If you don't spend 20% of GDP we start slipping down to the level of France or England and are no longer a "superpower". Just a major player.

So we have to collect 20% of GDP in tax revenues plus a bit more to responsibly service our debt..  That is just common sense responsible fiscal policy that the right and the left should have no problem agreeing upon.  The right and the left can then go at it hammer and tongs debating where that money should come from. Capital gains tax? Soak the rich? Death tax? Etc.? ad infinitum.

That would be an honest and fun political debate. But our first priority should be to get everybody on the same page of coming to agreement on what is true fiscal responsibility in terms of spending and tax revenues. We all know it isn't endless deficits. The current situation is an unprecedented emergency that no one on either side would be in favor of if our current global economy was not in an obvious frozen death spiral.

There is a very good reason why the GOP isn't talking fiscal responsibility: the last time they got serious about deficits they got creamed in the next elections and still haven't really recovered. Cahnman is right, Gingrich and Kasich did balance the budget and forced Clinton to sign it. That was one of the big accomplishments of the GOP Congress when they finally took control in 1995. And in 1996 the airwaves were full of ads about how the cruel Republicans were cutting Medicaire and school lunches, and the rising tide of the Gingrich revolution was stopped cold. If they'd stuck with popular policies, they might have expanded their majorities in 1996, and maybe even swept Bob Dole along with them. Instead, the GOP majorities were stalled with very narrow margins so that they could never seriously attempt the kind of sweeping changes that the Democrats are trying now. By the end of the Clinton administration they'd figured out that maintaining control was going to require some good old fashioned vote buying, whether that was with tax cuts or new spending programs. That approach allowed them to hold on until 2006 when it finally came crashing down on them. But even now they have very good reason to be afraid that a big push for deficit reduction is going to lose them even more seats in 2010, or at least prevent them from making the gains they need to actually get anything done.

It is possible that they are wrong this time. Maybe the recent financial disasters have people really convinced that its time to get serious about deficits. Maybe swing voters are finally willing to see the deficit reduced instead of getting a check in the mail, or a tax cut, or a new construction project in their home towns, or more funding for their favorite government programs. But congressional Republicans have very good reasons to be skeptical.

Our nation has been running up a debt most of my life. Now it is a fever pitch. The Democrat "stimulus plan" contains large segments of funds directed toward enshrining in power political/cultural socialism. Much of the nation, in one way or another, is eating and drinking at the public trough.

Americans in general as individuals seem to have little discipline in their spending habits.

Living responsibly as individuals, families, states and nation might be a novel idea.

We need deficits to restart the economy. If the economy doesn't start growing again, then the government will still suffer a defecit because of lost tax revenue, and also because of increased spending from liberal entitlement programs which already exist.

I think your analogy of a family budget is a good analogy. If every family stopped spending, or dropped it massively, then economy will be badly hurt, as is actually the case right now. Yes, it would have lower expenses, but no money would be being paid to the family. They'd be worse off. The main difference between the analogy and real life is that, in real life, the US is so large that we are the equivalent of, in the US, around 60 million families. We can't afford to not spend the money. It's truly unlucky, but deficits are the least bad option.

1: Hoover raised taxes without raising spending, in order to balance the budget. That is, I believe, what is being suggested. FDR raised taxes even more, but he also increased spending, and this ended the Great Depression. Raising taxes alone doesn't cause a depression, as long as spending is raised by at least as much.

2: Try extending that thought a little further. If ncessecity is the mother of invention, and invention is that good, then why do we even want to get out of a recession? Why not stay in the recession forever? For that matter, why not run up a huge deficit, and then leave it to the next generation to solve; after all, that necessity will create invention when the debt comes due.

On a slightly more serious note, whatever little value comes out of this recession- and there wll be little; see below- will not be worth the pain it causes to Americans. After all, the government's purpose is to help people to be happy.

Finally, not all the invention will be good. The Great Depression caused innovotion; to be slightly more specific, it created the Nazi party, and helped the communists. In fact, it's not much of an exageration to say that it nearly destroyed democracy, capitalism, and freedom worldwide. Today, some of the "innovation" coming out of the recession has been new tarriffs (the "Buy American" provisions, the War on Cheese, etc)