Hiding in Plain Sight -- the Abysmal Record of the GOP

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Brian Cooney - Writer

Despite the great damage they have done to our economy, Republicans have a good chance of winning a majority in the House of Representatives on Nov. 2. Incredibly, their campaign promise is to do more of the same damage.

The unwavering goal of the Reagan-Bush GOP has been to drastically reduce the role of government. Its biggest obstacle is that most Americans want the programs that would have to be cut back or even eliminated if Republicans get their way.

To overcome this obstacle, the GOP has devised two strategies. The first is to divide and conquer by supporting some programs while attacking others. For example, Rand Paul appeals to seniors and aging Tea Partiers by supporting Medicare while opposing national health insurance for everyone else.

The second strategy is to reduce taxes. When taxes are cut, one of two things happen: (1) spending on social programs is reduced to offset the revenue loss or (2) the spending is not reduced, so the government runs a deficit.

The first rarely happens, since most social programs are so popular that Republicans rarely attack them in the open. Instead, we get recurring deficits and a growing national debt. Republicans seem to hope the deficits and debt eventually become so large that the government is forced to cut spending by reducing social programs.

In carrying out this strategy, the Reagan-Bush administration enacted massive tax cuts, ran large deficits and tripled the national debt from $930-billion at the end of 1980 to $4.2-trillion in 1992. George W. Bush did the same, raising the national debt from $5.7-trillion in 2000 to $10.7-trillion at the end of 2008.

The best way to judge the size of our national debt is as a percentage of the nation's income -- its gross domestic product (GDP). As with a household, the larger its income, the more debt it can responsibly carry.

The highest ratio of national debt to GDP in American history was 120% in 1945, due to the expense of WWII. Since then, each American president reduced this ratio until it reached its low point of 33% at the end of Jimmy Carter's term.

Then came Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, under whom the ratio climbed from 33% to 74%. The only exception to this steady and steep climb was under Clinton. He brought the ratio down from 68% to 58% by reducing the deficit and eventually running a surplus.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hiding-in-plain-sight-the-by-Brian-Cooney-101026-369.html?show=votes

[unblock]

1. hiding in plain sight -- they've reframed the debate so it doesn't matter

i've talked with plenty of republicans (rank & file) and they ALL recognize that their leaders have failed them, lied to them, failed spectacularly to meet even stated objectives while getting us into serious messes to make things even worse.


why then continue to vote republican?

because they're convinced that democrats are worse.

republicans lie? sure, but so do democrats. they'll come up with some example of a kerry campaign flip-flop as if that remotely compares to shrub lying to get us into war against iraq for no reason.

republicans run up deficits? sure, but so do democrats (nevermind that they always get smaller under democrats)

republicans get us into silly wars? sure, but vietnam was under democrats.


whatever, they always have an answer, even if it's ridiculous.

no matter how bad the republicans are, they're convinced democrats are worse.
this is why the republican noise machine takes it to such an extreme, they have to really demonize the democrats to make sure they are covered -- to make sure that no matter how bad republicans get, your impression of democrats is even worse.

[struggle4progress]

2. gotv

[unhappycamper]

3. They certainly did a 'good' job - interest on the National Debt is 7% of all discretionary spending

in the 2011 National Budget. For comparison purposes, Education gets 4% of all discretionary spending in the 2011 National Budget.