Yes, but you have to remember that the Far Right Republican leaders (not necessarily the mainstream Republican voter) actually believe that: Jesus is coming in another 5-10 years, to slay gays and unbelivers (and also end the world at the same time); conservation is somehow antichristian; Americans have a divine right to waste, pollute, and squander; Jesus is a white, rich CEO.

 

The title here is

Quote:

Democrats Good For Hybrid Cars

and not open season for Republican or conservative bashing or jesus's occupation.

Please stay on topic.

 

How about: "Republicans Good for Starting Unilateral Wars over Oil and for Crushing Electric Cars"?

 

I look at it this way (warning, craziness follows):

I voted for Ross Perot back in the day (hanging head in shame), because I thought he could get us out of our huge debt and balance the budget. I presumed that he would suck at foreign policy. But I figured, "hey, if he can fix that one thing in four years, the next guy can fix the rest".

Today, I think if the Democrats can bring more focus on the environment and get us moving in the right direction again (I'm looking at you, Kyoto), then the economy will figure a way to thrive WHILE being environmentally sound. I really think we are nearing a point where we won't be able to fix the mess we made. Let's give it a try.

 

It's interesting to note that Clinton expanded the federal budget less every year than Bush has expanded the federal budget every year. The Republicans still somehow get economic conservatives to vote for them, but a growing number of that voting group is realizing the Republican party has nothing to do with a balanced budget. Reagan. Bush. End of fiscal responsibility argument.

If you want a balanced budget, it may sound absurd with labels like "spendocrat" out there, but Democrats are your best bet. Clinton's living proof, ******* or not.

 

I've always understood that Clinton and the democrats weren't allowed to spend like they'd have wanted because the republicans controlled Congress. Of course the republicans weren't being fiscally responsible, they were just c@ck blocking Clinton. It wasn't Clinton's choice to hold a tight budget.

Once gaining control of the presidency and the congress the republicans true colors were shown, no fiscal conservatives to be found.

The current situation will likely be similar to Clinton, with gridlock and Bush finally vetoing something, with slower growth in spending.

The best bet is a divided government.

If the democrats get a hold of the presidency and congress, I think they will quickly dwarf Bush's expansion of government spending, and they will likely raise our taxes high enough that the Alternate Minimum Tax won't matter to most of us again.

 

The empirical data shows that only the party holding the White House instigates and sustains the largest deficits and the Democratic White Houses are shown as reducing and even eliminating the deficit:


We can clearly see this pattern in the following data:



We can actually see GW's progress:


But the clearest mapping that includes which party controls Congress:


Look, I'm just a humble engineer who believes in using facts and data. When some speculation is offered, I go to the source to determine if the facts and data match the speculation. So far:

1. Deficit spending is not a function of which party controls Congress
2. Deficit spending has a positive correlation to the Republican party controlling the White House since Nixon

The source of this data is the US Treasury Department.

Bob Wilson

 

But I wasn't addressing deficits, I was talking growth in Federal spending during divided government vs one party rule, got any data for that.

 

The flaw in 'spending' only is to ignore revenue, the means for paying for spending. It is like someone who gets a credit card without the means for paying the bills . . . and then using it. In Engineering, we call this ignoring the obvious. It is a seriously flawed view since it ignores the resulting deferred tax liability, the future, taxes to pay the debt interest and principle.

But in both absolute and relative to GDP, again, the rule is spending, called "Outlays" in the Federal budgets, also comes from excessive Republican White Houses:
The patterns:

• Ford - massive increase in spending in last two years
• Carter - only one year with more spending than Ford
• Reagan - there was no stopping him
• Bush I - same as Reagan but leveled off in last two years
• Clinton - reduced spending every year, including two years of Democratic Congress
• Bush II - repeated Reagan's pattern (see earlier charts)

No matter how you look at the US Treasury data, both in spending and outlays, the Republicans have been and remain irresponsible. Worse, it has been the political party of the White House, the ones who write the checks that sets the pattern.

Now the usual pattern, after the facts and data puncture any illusion of Republican fiscal responsibility, when the facts and data reveal the Republicans to be wastrel spendthrifts, is to make 'special pleadings.' A 'special pleading' means something else 'made them do it.' It is a pattern of denying responsibility.

An engineer, I'm not allowed to ignore the facts and data and any 'special pleadings' are not allowed. Reality has nasty ways of correcting fantasy thinking.

BTW, one of my Senators, Shelby, has proposed a flawed, balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It simply states you can't have a deficit budget. But this amendment can be fixed very easily that in the event of two years of deficits, all members of the House, Senate and White House must leave their current office and new representatives be elected. In short, a balanced budget amendment that throws them out.

Bob Wilson

 

You're relying on percent of GDP as the measure of increased spending. I'd prefer to look at actual spending bills and subdivide the entire budget into cost per bill from inception, and party most responsible for spending. Reductions in spending would be more difficult, I don't know how we'd show how a democrat action that reduced military spending would be graphed as a democratic reduction, or a republican action that reduced welfare cost would be graphed as a republican reduction. The "Contract with America" spending cuts that happened during Clinton's term actually reduced spending, but Clinton fought it, your graph doesn't reflect this.

As we know most of government spending is non-discretionary spending that is just an accumulation of spending required from previous bills.

From your graph, if GDP goes down it could appear that spending has gone up when it may not reflect any action to increase spending by the current president, or congress.

Tax increases and cuts have long term effects, not measurable in 1 or 4 years. Of course a large tax increase will immediately raise receipts in the short term but the long term reactions are harder to identify.

Republicans continue to squander trillions on the military and wars, but democrats want to spend that same money on something else, not actually reduce spending. But neither party seems willing to cut defense in their own district or state.