Al
Trish
Allaire
In Burton Folsom’s book, New Deal or Raw Deal?, he describes in great detail how during the Depression, FDR increased government “relief” spending in election years, especially in so-called “swing states” which offered him the greatest return on his “investment”. Left to suffer were heavily Democratic states which were always assured in November, but which were worst hit by the Depression. We were left with a legacy of FDR which painted him as a great helper of the poor during our worst of time, but in reality, he was nothing more than a political opportunist, not for a second “wasting the crisis” that the Depression provided to pad his constituency with free money.
Several prominent lawmakers have pressed one of the nation’s top bank regulators to rescue financial institutions in their home states with money Congress allocated for government bailouts.
In letters, e-mails and faxes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), senior senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), wrote to agency Chairwoman Sheila Bair and others at the FDIC about applications by constituent banks for bailout funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
The correspondence, obtained by The Hill under the Freedom of Information Act, contained requests from the lawmakers asking banking regulators to reconsider applications for bailout money after they had already been rejected, or sought prompt consideration of bank requests by the FDIC.
Critics, including government watchdog offices, have charged that the TARP process and other decisions behind many of the government bailouts have been influenced by the political climate in Washington. Lawmakers who control the purse strings for the federal government can often sway an agency’s actions by personally lobbying for their constituents back home.
This is the scam. This is the game. This is why the so-called “stimulus” package was so chock full of pork. If the politicians were so concerned about economic recovery, they’d not have thrown so much money into projects that don’t stimulate anything, and which don’t even begin to work until 2011 or beyond. Make no mistake, the “purpose” of that spending bill was not to stimulate, but to twist open the spigots of government to the constituencies of the Democrat majorities in Congress. Pure and simple. The economic crisis was cover for their re-election campaigns.
And the world spins on and on.
Pay your taxes yet?
Filed under: Politics | Tagged: bailout, big government, obama, Politics, radical left, stimulus, Tax
While I share some of your concerns about the stimulus package overshooting the mark, it should be pointed out that taxpayers did not fund those expenditures. It is all deficit spending. It is being funded by borrowing, not taxes. (I’m not sure I would want to be my grandchild, though!)
http://thecentersquare.wordpress.com/
Correct…except that taxpayers will be repaying these loans long into the future…as we’re already currently repaying present loans. Anything spent or borrowed by the government is ultimately a charge to the taxpayer, so it’s a distinction without a difference.
That is a great insight, one that mainstream Republicans have long since lost sight of. For almost three decades now, they have been cutting taxes and adding to debt.
Under Reagan, federal debt nearly tripled, increasing by $1.7 trillion. In Bush 41’s four short years, it increased by another 56%, or $1.5 trillion. And under Bush 43, despite inheriting large spending surpluses, it went up another $4.3 trillion (+76%).
[Clinton added 40% in eight years, $1.609 trillion. This was heavily weighted to the early years, as the country worked itself away from the huge Bush 41 deficits.]
Yes, our three most recent Republican presidents account for about $9.1 trillion of our approximately $11 trillion in debt.
And as you say, all this has to be paid by taxpayers down the line. Republican tax cuts may just be the cruelest hoax ever perpetrated on us.
All data available for review here: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/
http://thecentersquare.wordpress.com/
Let’s cut taxes and cut debt. No need to accumulate that debt if we eliminate the wasteful spending larded on by liberals for 50 years. It’s done more to cripple our economy and the fiber of our society as anything. Republicans weren’t much help the past 8 years, admittedly, but if you’ll notice, they’re mostly gone now. There’s conservatism in the air now as Americans become more familiar with Socialism’s ugly face.
Actually, the idea that Republicans are more conservative than Democrats is almost entirely false on the spending side of the equation, too.
Federal spending has risen at an average annual rate of 6.8% under Republican presidents, versus 7.8% under Democrats. I cannot locate it right now, but I have read a study that shows there to be no correlation between spending growth and the party who controls Congress.
Every time we have entrusted spending decisions to Republicans, they, too, have fallen prey to the same temptation as Democrats. Nixon/Ford: spending up 9.6% annually. Reagan: spending up 7.6% annually. Bush 41: spending up 6.7% annually. Bush 43: spending up 6.2% annually (not to mention a lot of off-book spending for the war in Iraq).
You want to know who did the best? Clinton: spending up 3.3% annually.
Check the data here: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/
Sorry, but I’m not going to be suckered by the Republicans this time. I refuse to buy the, “Sure we spent like drunken Democrats all through the past three Republican presidents, but we learned our lesson and we’re different now” line.
The enemy of fiscal conservatism is not Democrats. It is politicians. And when they all get together at night to feast and drink, they laugh like hell at all of us.
http://thecentersquare.wordpress.com/
Conservatives are not Republicans, but it’s silly to analyze spending under “Presidents” without analyzing which party controlled the levers of that spending in Congress. Clinton’s reduction in spending had little if anything to do with Clinton and everything to do with the Conservative assault on his policies beginning in 1994. Are Pelosi and Reid and the rest now spending because they’re somehow “conservative” since “Republicans” have spent in the past and “conservatives” are in the Republican party now? Nice try.
Liberals spend. Republicans, despite being the historical party of government intervention, mercantilism and anti-federalism (cf. Abraham Lincoln), were supposed to be newly rooted in the fundamentals of Conservatism. That of course has proven to be false, and so many of those so-called Conservatives are gone. The rest (witness the latest budget vote) have pretty much lined up against this monstrous spending that is unprecedented in this nation, despite, as you say, eras in the past where “Republicans” (not conservatives) permitted spending to rise. Past increases are NOTHING at all compared to Obama’s and Reide’s and Pelosi’s monstrosity. To compare them is silly.
The enemy of fiscal conservatism, as you call it, are politicians who increase our taxes and who increase our spending. To date, no single party has done those things more often and with more relish than Democrats. Not because Democrat is a bad word, but because the Democrats are full of misguided people called “Liberals”…who embrace a socialist state and the surrender of individual liberty to the leviathan. This is their battle cry (cf. the campaign of BH Obama).
They are first liberals, second politicians, and third democrats. These are the enemies. Find them and beat them in 2010. Replace them not with “Republicans” like Arlen Specter, but with “Conservatives” in the mold of Newt Gingrich, who single handedly led the charge in 1994 to jerk Bill Clinton back to Center, tame welfare, reduce spending and set America up to benefit from a late ’90’s economic boom.
I am not saying that Pelosi et al. are conservative. Good Lord, no. They represent the worst of liberal spending ideology. I am saying that we have all been hoodwinked into some Republican mythology that their party representatives a fiscally conservative alternative.
As to your Gingrich example, you’d think so, wouldn’t you. Guess what? NOT TRUE!!! Here are the incredible facts, and I ask that you read this carefully:
Believe it or not, of the four Congresses Clinton worked with, spending rose the least under the first (1993-1994), the one that was Democratic controlled. Spending actually accelerated once Gingrich and the Republicans came to power.
The year before Clinton took office, 1992: $1.382 trillion in spending.
By the end of Clinton’s one Democratic-controlled Congress Congress, 1994: $1,462 trillion in spending. Two year average increase: 2.9%.
By the end of Clinton’s three Republican-controlled Congresses, 2000: $1.789 in spending. Six year average increase: 3.4%.
No matter what Gingrich said, no matter was in the “Contract with America,” no matter his attempt at a showdown with Democrats when the government was shut down — none of the rhetoric ever translated into results.
When Republican Congresses were paired with a Democratic president (1995-2000), spending rose. When Republican Congresses were paired with a Republican president (2001-2009), spending rose. (MUCH faster, I might add — 6.2% per year.)
I really wish I could find the study that demonstrates there is no statistical difference between spending under Republican versus Democratic versus mixed Congresses, but I can’t so I ask for a little trust on that.
Here is my opinion, and this is shared by many independent political analysts. The systemic forces bearing on the political party in power — Congress or White House, Republican or Democrat — nearly overwhelmingly lead them to increase spending. Politically, there is everything gain by increasing spending. There is a huge price to be paid for cutting it.
The conclusion is that the inherent nature of the political process is the culprit, and the outcome is unaffected by the fiscal ideology of the party in power. There is no such thing as fiscally conservative political party.
Thanks for sharing a thoughtful conversation, Al.
http://thecentersquare.wordpress.com/
Thanks for your thoughts.