17 February 2009

Fiscal Responsibility Check

At Balloon Juice, John Cole posts a number of graphs of the U. S. economy--surplus and deficit--from the 1960s until 2003/2004. The charts rather put a kink into the GOP argument that it's the party of fiscal conservatives, and they do seem to support Cole's assertion that "Republicans were never fiscal conservatives."

Excepting a spell in 1970 and a few of the Clinton years, it's pretty clear that both parties enjoy spending far more than "conserving" our wealth; the only difference is where the money goes.
Labels:

2 comments:

LazySusan said...

The conservatives who have been in power over the last few decades have made us believe that ANY government spending is socialism. That's just not true. This country was built through strong government programs and spending. The conservative myth that all private spending is wise and productive and public spending foolish and wasteful is what has gotten us into the economic mess we find ourselves in today. There is nothing socialist about having a government that serves the people - we live in a democracy, not a socialist state. It's the decline in national investments that has led us to a place where from 1989 to 2006, the highest-earning 10 percent of U.S. households collected over 90 percent of the nation’s income gains. Today the top 1 percent of American families receives 23 percent of all personal income, up from just 10 percent in 1979. Corporate executives earn 275 times as much as average workers, compared with 27 times in 1973 (these facts are taken from the downloadable book Thinking Big from the Progressive Ideas Network.

19:47
mpandgs said...

Hi Lazy Susan.
Yes, Republicans will have to find a way to effectively deal with this seeming contradiction--especially as so many red states have traditionally been among the top receivers of government funds. Thanks for coming by and for dropping the link.

19:00

Post a Comment