Spend and Spend
Brought to you by Nick Caraway
Just looking at some numbers as I used to be in the bond business when I lived in that shack next to Jay. The GOP loves to call the Democratic economic plan “tax and spend”. Well, the Republican plan seems to be spend and spend. Compare Trump and his first (and hopefully only) four years with Obama and his first four years. Boy it sure looks interesting
2009-2012 in billions: 5094
2017-2020 in billions: 6128
Sure, a lot of that is the pandemic, but Obama was trying to recover from the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, so we will call it even. The GOP loves to cast themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility. That only seems to happen when it’s time to spend money on social programs.
When we “need” to spend money on tanks, planes, bombs, and corporate bailouts there seems to be plenty to go around. When we “need” to give tax cuts to the top one percent there seems to be plenty to go around. Meanwhile, I’m still looking for the 2000 dollars Pence said we got in the VP debate. I’ve misplaced it I guess. I can’t find it.
And their reluctance (and continuing to roadblock anything proposed by democrats) to do what’s right about the coronavirus spells volumes about the repugnantican senate and repugnanticans in general. Hope this haunts them after the election, but if they lose, they’ll just go back to politics as usual.
1Still waiting for my trickle down from the Reagonomics era.
2While true, that kind of meme bothers me a little bit. The whole “imagine if Obama did the same thing, they’d be all up in arms about it,” thing. Of COURSE that’s true, because we’re in a very uneven media universe. The networks are all owned by corporate conglomerates, who bought them not because news in inherently profitable (it isn’t), but because they wanted to pump a pro-Wall Street view of the world into every household. The Fairness Doctrine, which kept network news as impartial as possible, and gave most of us a more balanced view of the world growing up, is deader than Julius Caesar (thanks Bill Clinton). Fox is just the most obvious example, CNN has a corporate spin too. When did you last see a Democratic Socialist Party of America opinion on TV? Or even a very liberal one? They’re banished by ownership. Bernie is the exception because he brute forced his way into the news, by getting millions of votes. And almost nobody really talks sympathetically about his agenda, it’s all “get a load of this lunatic” stories. Deficit will make the news when Democrats start making plans, and you already know the Wall Street view will get the most coverage of it.
3Brad in Dallas – I believe it was Saint Ronnie that deep-sixed the Fairness Doctrine.
4I think it was Eisenhower that warned about the military industrial complex. If you look at how we are different from the period immediately after WW2 it isn’t because of taxes necessarily but because we ramped up defense spending to fight a cold war. The cold war is over and yet we are still spending like drunken sailors on shore leave.
Imagine if you cut the military budget in half. We’d still have the largest military in the world and might have a half a trillion dollars a year to spend on something else. Maybe you cut down the deficit or maybe you invest it in health care, free and/or reduced college, or attacking poverty.
5I just read the Pete Souza book Shade. If you need to read a picture book that will make you feel good again, rent it from the library or cough up $30. It’s not just the economy, it’s everything – e v e r y t h I n g – that his majesty says or does is just so white trash!
6My I please share this story on my Facebook page? Please.
7Yep.
8Genevieve, Juanita Jean is one of my favorite go-to sources for Facebook posts. Couldn’t live without her!
9nothing actually new here. since Nixon, every Republican administration has blown up the annual deficit, and left a vastly increased national debt/debt service. these are just mathematical/accounting facts. Republican administrations spend money like drunken sailors on shore leave.
10Billionaires – and some millionaires – just don’t have any cents of finance. Get it?
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