Way back in the 1980’s I first conceived of my fictional character, Seth Jackson, and the universe he inhabits. Seth is an American who has risen through the ranks of the European Star Forces to command a starship. In this universe, Nationalism has not faded away as is so often the case in science-fiction and the Unites States is no longer a dominate power-player.
Part of the themes I wanted to play with back then were the ideas that America without money and without dominance would find itself nearly friendless and alone on the international stage and that Americans would be scorned in general. To get to that situation I had to work out how America might fall by the wayside and become a second rate power.
I looked at two forces that concerned me for the future of my country.
First – the growing sense of political correctness in our culture along with its twin evil, collective rights, and second the out of control spending by a government that didn’t seem to understand that every bill must eventually be paid off. Extrapolating those trends outwards and without and restriction in their growth gave me the future I needed foe the stories I wanted to write. This was not me trying to play prophet, but merely playing with ideas.
Politically in the 1980 I did fear is the liberal faction of our political culture retained control for too long in our government. I didn’t see that faction as putting the breaks on either of those two trends. I myself am much more of a libertarian-conservative. Leave people alone unless that are actively violating the rights of others. I had hopes that the conservative movement in the Unites States, which called for sensible fiscal spending might someday exact that sort of control.
In 1994 the conservatives took power in the legislature, while the liberals retained the executive. For a brief period we seemed to have found a return to intelligent fiscal planning.
By 2000 the conservative took all the executive and were firmly in control of the purse and the spending. They quickly exposed themselves as hypocrites and liars in matters of spending. Our debt ballooned and no spending bill was ever vetoed while the conservative controlled both the legislature and the executive.
Now it is the of 2009 and the liberals have returned to power across the government and spending is on the rise. The Conservatives — who until recently informed us that deficit spending doesn’t matter — are now making noises about being concerned about our spending. Sadly it is the exact same politicians who spent madly when they held the checkbook, so they are no better than a prostitute lecturing us on chastity.
The deficits under the Obama budget plan aren’t from recession,
I will concede that I should not have used the word majority, but here are the figures and you can find them over here.
2009 Deficit 1.4 trillion dollars.
Economic Downturn contribution: .427 trillion
TARP Fannie and Freddie: .247 (we’re up to .674 of the 1.4 already)
War Costs: .178 (.852 trillion of the 1.4 and it’s all economics and the previous — conservative — administration’s policies.)
ARRA (Obama’s recovery spending) .184
Bush era Tax cuts (and I concede that counting tax cuts as spending is very dodgy.) .364 Trillion
Also I was not talking about the projected deficit, but what we’ve already seen. But for sake of argument lets say that the Democrats are 5 five worse than the Republicans at deficits spending — if both parties are doing deficit spending without trying to reign it in, the results are still the same. You’re doing a fine job of throwing blame at the democrats, and they do over spend I never said otherwise — but can you show me any evidence that the Republicans have changed?
The deficits under the Obama budget plan aren’t from recession, you need to take a closer look at that deficit graph. The graph dates from March 2009 and includes the overly rosy economic assumptions of the Obama administration from that time, such as unemployment never exceeding 9%. And even under the false assumptions of the Obama budget plan the sea of red ink goes all the way out to 2019!
What I’ve noticed (and observation regarding it was made on “West Wing” years ago) is that both parties actually agree about cutting the budget. They disagree about what is to be cut. Typically, “conservatives” want to cut social programs and education and “liberals” want to cut business subsidies and the military.
I’m thrilled to bits that the current administration sees the sense in NOT cutting the military at this time and is instead deficit spending on a push in Afganistan. It irritated me beyond all reason that we started the campaign in Iraq before finishing the job in Afganistan, and I told then-President Bush that at the time. (Isn’t it classical military strategy to avoid fighting a war on two fronts? I think if you end up doing that in “Risk”, by example, you typically lose everything.) Anyway, we do need to spend more right now so that we can finish what we started and I think that would be the case no matter who was in office.
The only point I take issue with in what you wrote, Bob, is the observation that the Dem. Pres. and the Republican Congress returned to intelligent fiscal spending. Although it is tempting to assign that victory to them, I am not totally clear on whether or not that is their victory or if it could more rightly be attributed to the financial upswing the economy was experiencing due to the tech boom. Personally, I prefer the balance of having the executive branch controlled by one party and the legislative branch controlled by another. I believe we generally get better decisions that way because both sides are forced to compromise. But we also get the scandalous, extreme partisan politics – which if you both recall was running rampant when Bill Clinton was president. I’m not sure what is best or how we are going to fix this mess. I think we just need to hold on because it IS going to be a bumpy ride.
The exact same politicians? Care to name names? Karl Rove. A respected voice in conservative circles, who plainly said that deficits didn’t matter then and they do now. He’s not been run out on a rail for this heresy. I will also point out that the Republican Leadership are the same one today as the the big spenders. Yes Ron Paul is a republican but he has no power in the party of the movement. Did Senator Coburn actually vote against the Bush budgets? What actions did he take to stop the spending by President Bush? any?
While it is fair to accuse ex-president Bush of unwise deficit spending, it is most unfair to accuse sitting conservative Republican congressman of hypocrisy. Eric Cantor has been in Congress for 10 years,Tom Boehner has been in Congress for twenty years, Mitch McConnell has been in the Senate for 25 years, I think it is fair to accuse the current batch of Republicans hypocrisy.
I’ve seen that graph before. Yes, the deficit has exploded under Obama and it would have exploded under McCain. The majority of the current deficit comes from the fall of revenues due to the recession. In terms of spending Obama has proposed about 10% more than Bush did in his final budget. Too much spending to be sure, Bush spent too much and Obama is spending 10% more than too much. However there is no evidence that the conservatives, returned to power, would behave any differently on spending than they have already done so in the recent past.
“…[conservative Republicans] are no better than a prostitute lecturing us on chastity.”
Oh really? Allow me to retort!
“The Conservatives — who until recently informed us that deficit spending doesn’t matter — are now making noises about being concerned about our spending. Sadly it is the exact same politicians who spent madly when they held the checkbook”
The exact same politicians? Care to name names? The make up of Congress today is awfully different from 2003-2006, when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Exactly which conservative congressman claimed Bush deficit spending didn’t matter back then and now claim Obama deficits do matter? In truth the conservatives who today are the harshest critics of spending have always been the harshest critics of spending, such as Senator Coburn and Rep. Paul.
Also, keep in mind the Democrats had a majority in one or both houses of Congress during half of the Bush presidency. Was deficit spending during those Dem years the fault of conservative Republicans? Even when the Democrats were in the minority they consistently pushed for more spending than the budgets that actually passed under Bush, so it’s no surprise the deficits have exploded under Obama.
This fiscal mismanagement of Democrats is more than just at the Federal level. You will also find the bluest cities and states with the worst deficits (and not coincidently also the worst corruption).
While it is fair to accuse ex-president Bush of unwise deficit spending, it is most unfair to accuse sitting conservative Republican congressman of hypocrisy. But when the deficit graphs look like this…
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
… the weak reed that Obama supporters cling to is accusing Republicans of hypocrisy.