The left embraces spending someone Else's money , and spending money that does not even exist........
View attachment 23657
Well, then there's this:
THE REPUBLICAN LEGACY ON DEBT
"In fiscal 1971 and 1972, Richard Nixon ran back-to-back deficits of $23 billion. This was unprecedented. Nixon was overseeing the Vietnam War. He was trapped by the first recession since 1957. As he admitted, he had become a Keynesian. So, he took the nation off the international gold standard in 1971, as deficit spending increased. But then there was an economic recovery. The deficit fell. In 1973, it was $14 billion. In 1974, it was $6 billion.
Then the 1975 recession hit. A tipping point took place. In 1975, the deficit was $53 billion. In 1976, it was $74 billion. These were unprecedented deficits in peacetime."
"I joined Ron Paul's staff in June of 1976. He was defeated by fewer than 300 votes out of 180,000 in November. But in my brief period in Washington, I became convinced that America had begun the transition from a creditor nation to a debtor nation. Without the remains of a gold standard, the last restraining force was the bond market. I did not think this would be enough to bring the Federal government back to anything resembling fiscal sanity.
In early 1977, I predicted in my newsletter, Remnant Review, that the annual Federal deficit would reach $200 billion in 1984. That was considered highly unlikely at the time. Yet I was too conservative. The 1983 deficit was $208 billion. "
THEN CAME REAGAN
"We can see what happened under Reagan. His first year was 1981. The deficits were in billions of dollars. We can see the transition: from Carter (1977-1980) to Reagan. Carter had a recession in 1980. Reagan's recession began in 1981 and extended into 1982. Then came Armageddon.
1977: 54
1978: 59
1979: 40
1980: 74
1981: 79
1982: 128
1983: 208
1984: 185
1985: 212
1986: 221
1987: 150
1988: 155
Reagan completed the undermining of the (undeserved) Republican tradition of being opposed to deficits. George H. W. Bush continued this tradition of record-breaking deficits.
1989: 153
1990: 221
1991: 269
1992: 290
George W. Bush did even more to undermine the Republicans' supposed tradition of fiscal responsibility. He had one year of surplus, a legacy of Clinton's economy, though of course bolstered by Social Security receipts, as all of these figures are.
2001: +128
2002: 157
2003: 378
2004: 413
2005: 318
2006: 248
2007: 160
2008: 459
In 2004, Harry Browne summarized Reagan's legacy on Federal spending.
Few people may remember that when Ronald Reagan took office, the federal budget was only $678 billion. During his 8-year tenure, the budget grew by 69% – on its way to today's $2.3 trillion budget.
The annual average increase in government during Reagan's administration was 6.8%, compared with "big government" Bill Clinton's average annual increase of 3.6%.
Reagan promised to balance the budget within his first term. Instead, the annual deficit rose from $79 billion to $212 billion in that first term – and the Reagan years added $1.9 trillion to the federal debt.
Reagan is known as a tax-cutter, and the term "Reaganomics" implies dramatic cuts in tax rates. But after pushing through a tax cut to be implemented over three years, he cooperated during the second year in the largest tax increase in American history up to that time. The nation's annual tax load increased by 65% during his time in office. "
"So, we should not regard the enormous hike in the debt ceiling as anything but business as usual.
Under Reagan, the debt ceiling was hiked 18 times. People forget."
Debt Impasse: Fake and Real by Gary North
"Reagan significantly increased public expenditures, primarily the Department of Defense, which rose (in constant 2000 dollars) from $267.1 billion in 1980 (4.9% of GDP and 22.7% of public expenditure) to $393.1 billion in 1988 (5.8% of GDP and 27.3% of public expenditure); most of those years military spending was about 6% of GDP, exceeding this number in 4 different years. All these numbers had not been seen since the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973.[13] In 1981, Reagan significantly reduced the maximum tax rate, which affected the highest income earners, and lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%; in 1986 he further reduced the rate to 28%.[14] The federal deficit under Reagan peaked at 6% of GDP in 1983, falling to 3.2% of GDP in 1987[15] and to 3.1% of GDP in his final budget.[16] The inflation-adjusted rate of growth in federal spending fell from 4% under Jimmy Carter to 2.5% under Ronald Reagan; however, federal deficit as percent of GDP was up throughout the Reagan presidency from 2.7% at the end of (and throughout) the Carter administration.[2][16] As a short-run strategy to reduce inflation and lower nominal interest rates, the U.S. borrowed both domestically and abroad to cover the Federal budget deficits, raising the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion.[17]
This led to the U.S. moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation.[18] Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency"
Reaganomics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
