It was a strange experience to read the comments and emails generated by yesterday’s post on the “Obama downgrade.”
Democrats and liberals were upset that I blamed Obama for the downgrade, as you might expect. Republicans and conservatives, however, were agitated that my first sentence pointed out that Bush bore significant responsibility for the spending binge that created the fiscal crisis.
This got me thinking about the underlying causes of America’s long-term fiscal problems and whether it might be possible to come up with some sort of reasonable estimate on which Presidents are most responsible for fiscal crisis.
So I decided to look at the most recent long-run forecast from the Congressional Budget Office. As you might suspect, entitlement programs are THE reason why the United States is in deep trouble.
What does this allow us to say about various presidents? Well, it turns out that Social Security is a relatively minor part of the problem, so even though President Roosevelt’s policies exacerbated and extended the Great Depression, the program he created is only responsible for a small share of the fiscal crisis. To give the illusion of scientific exactitude, let’s assign FDR 13.2 percent of the blame.
The health care numbers are much harder to disentangle because it’s not apparent how much of the increase is due to Medicare, Medicaid, Bush’s prescription drug entitlement, and Obamacare. A healthcare policy wonk may know these numbers, but the CBO long-run forecast didn’t provide much detail.
So with a big caveat that these are just wild estimations, I feel reasonably comfortable in saying that both Bush and Obama made matters worse with their reckless entitlement expansions, but that they merely deepened a fiscal hole that was created when President Johnson imposed Medicare and Medicaid.
With that in mind (and ignoring, for the sake of simplicity, the role of other Presidents – such as Nixon – who expanded the size and scope of health entitlements), here is my ranking of presidential responsibility for America’s fiscal decline.
This does not mean, however, that it was unfair yesterday to apply the “Obama Downgrade” label.
In part, he is responsible because the downgrade from Standard & Poor happened on his watch. But the real reason he earned that label is that he doubled down on the reckless policies of his predecessors and demagogued against lawmakers such as Cong. Paul Ryan who actually have tried to solve the problem.
[…] passing his agenda, becoming the most successful president since Franklin Roosevelt and the most consequential president in American […]
[…] Dan Mitchell, of the CATO Institute, slung mud at both Obama and Bush. However, he recognized LBJ’s contribution as well as Roosevelt’s. At the end of the day, Mitchell said, […]
The downgrade would have been averted if we had listened to our gut and did the hard thing,control our spending. You can’t blame it all on Obama but, he did spend more than his predecessors. Bush spent a lot. What no one is talking about is the crazy uncle in the basement “Obamacare” which by my calculations when implemented & all is said and done will cost 2 to 3.5 Trillion Dollars. Then it’s not Constitutional anyway.
The Supreme Court is to blame. They declared unconstitutional the line item veto that the Republicans voted to give President Clinton. Since then, nobody has been responsible for the spending mess. How could they be?
Much of what your article has researched is true…. But, as we look forward, perhaps there can be no other solvable equation, than to structure USA as a completely separate (& self reliant) “two tier economy.”
Perhaps we should divide the debt in half (equally), with a vow that BOTH will restructure their societies, to sustainable levels…
One would recycle and not reintroduce additional deb, limit its resource via ration and budgetary constraint; via single payer socialization…
The other would have a small safety net, but operate on Free Market principals of capitalism; via caps, cuts, and (also) without new debt…
It is important to note that both would be forced to trim waste for their own survival; and when we examine other causes of debt; we see that bad US policy (in 1 decade) lost $7T in JOBS (1/2 US Nat’l debt) to China…
I doubt that either the (new USA 1) and (new USA 2) would find it as easy to enter into bad policy, or follow into additional costly wars…
Ideas move men to action, even when those men are POTUS. Men acting on certain ideas created the debt. If you want a fall guy for the debt, you need to identify the fall guy for those ideas, beginning with the underlying metaphysics, epistemology and, most importantly, morality that supports those ideas that led to the U.S. debt debacle.
The Debt Metaphysics (nature of existence): reality is a product of consciousness, either an individual’s, a collective’s or a supernatural deity’s.
The Debt Epistemology (nature of knowledge): Emotion is the means for discovering truth (and then acting on it).
The Debt Ethics (nature of right & good): Self-sacrifice & selflessness are good; Self-gain (profit) & selfishness are evil.
Those categories represent the foundation from which all subsequent ideas spring. They are the three most important branches of philosophy. The philosophers to blame for those fundamental propositions above are, moving backward in time:
William James (Pragmatism):
“The true is only the expedient in a way of our thinking….Truth happens…It [truth] becomes true, is made true by events…For the feeling to be cognitive in the specific sense …it must…create a reality outside of it to correspond to its intrinsic quality….” (James, William. The Meaning of Truth. 1909 New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.)
Immanuel Kant:
Immanuel Kant writes in _The Metaphysics of Morals_: “Thus the selfish maxim conflicts with itself when it is made a universal law, i.e., it is contrary to duty.” For Christianity, duty is following the requirements of God. For Kant, duty is following the imperative of pure selflessness: Self-sacrifice for the sake of self-sacrifice, as both means and end; not as a virtue to achieve some selfish, ultimate goal—such as the salvation of one’s soul—but as an ideal practiced for the sake of nothing, save the wiping out of one’s existence.
Kant believed in two realities: the phenomenal & the noumenal, the latter of which was the real reality and held the true truth. While reason could be used in the phenomenal reality, it was useless–or, rather, inferior to the reason–in the (supernatural) noumenal realm. The only thing we humans could use to kinda, sorta make our way to maybe discovering some of the REAL truths found in the noumenal reality was to rely on what Kant called “intuition,” i.e., beliefs.
“I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.”
Kant also asserted that any act in which there was a personal stake could not, by (his) definition be a moral act. Only by following what he called the Categorical Imperative (which habitated, of course, in the oumenal realm and which communicated to us by means of something he called “conscience”) would we identify those acts that are moral. He asserted that moral acts were that in which there was no personal stake in the matter. Even if you acted to help others, if you “gained” a sense of satisfaction from it, it could not be a moral act. One must act in a completely selfless (self-destructive) manner for one’s act to be classified as moral.
“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
David Hume:
David Hume divorces morality from reality in his treatise, _Concerning the Principles of Morals_, thus paving the way for his successor, Immanuel Kant.
David Hume divorced fact from value in his sceptic philosophy—claiming that facts were objective and were approached by rational methods but that values were approached subjectively, the result of men’s biases and prejudices, i.e., the result of men’s feelings, which Hume claimed were intrinsically a-rational. He identified these two approaches as, respectively, Intellectualism and Sentimentalism. This (false) opposition of Hume’s is known in philosophy as the is-ought dichotomy (which, in justice to Hume, is a derivative of Descartes’ (and, before him, Plato’s) mind-body dichotomy).
What Hume did, in essence, was to render unto reason the world of science but unto emotion (a-rationality), the world of ethics and morality. Thus, one could prove—using Hume’s argument—that increasing the yield of crops on a given acre of land was in fact possible. But not that it was moral. One could prove that freedom increased men’s prosperity but not that this was necessarily good. One could prove that anesthetics relieved men’s pain, but not that this was right.
Hume had, in essence, placed morality outside the realm of reason. No one, after Hume, could state with any certainty—unless they refuted his argument at its base—that murder was objectively wrong; that progress was objectively good; that increasing men’s life expectancy was objectively right.
There is much more that Hume did to help extinguish the fires of the Enlightenment. He laid, for instance, the foundation for questioning the validity of the senses (on which Kant capitalized by inventing a supernatural “Noumenal” realm whose eternal Truths were forever beyond the grasp of men’s reason).
Further, Hume attacked causality as uncertain (on which Kant again capitalized by further claiming that men cannot truly know not only causality, but also identity—that men, because they can not be certain of a thing’s actions, can not, therefore, be certain in their knowledge of the thing itself.)
Christ:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. … Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you … For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses … Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 5:1-7:29; passim)
Augustine of Hippo:
Circa 440 CE, Augustine writes _The City of God_ in which he admonishes mankind to reject life on Earth to assure everlasting “citizenship” in God’s city. Writing that “The obedience of Abraham is rightly regarded as magnificent precisely because the killing of his son was a command so difficult to obey…”, Augustine clearly enshrines self-sacrifice as one of the cardinal virtues of Christianity and the means for entrance into heaven.
Plato:
Here’s is the origin of the two-reality proposition, from which derived the mind-body dichotomy, which later under Christianity became the soul-body dichotomy.
Here, too, is the origin of the totalitarian State:
The best ordered state will be one in which the largest number of persons … most nearly resembles a single person. The first and highest form of the State … is a condition in which the private and the individual is altogether banished from life… (Plato’s Republic & Laws c. 370 BCE)
The point?
Blaming LBJ, etc., for the state of this civilization is the same as blaming a German infantry general for World War II.
The antidote philosophy to all this–just in case anyone is curious–is Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.
But don’t take my word for it. Research all of the above & decide for yourself.
Regards,
SB
“The mind never fully accepts any
convictions that it does not owe to
its own efforts.”– Frederic Bastiat
At least when FDR set up SSI he made sure the eligibility age exceeded the life expectancy. Only half the enrolled would ever see a dime. It was not designed as a long-term retirement program.
If we retro actively went back to that measure then all is right with SSI.
LBJ plowed the ground, Carter planted the seeds, Clinton gave them some Miracle Grow, Bush watered them and Obama loaded them with triple 13 and harvested a bumper crop.
The others bear some responsibility but Obama made it not only possible but inevitable with his spendthrift, collectivist ideology.
TOO TRUE…TOO TRUE!
[…] DEBT DOWNGRADE: Blame LBJ? […]
How about all of the above. I found the following statistic from a comment at the Boston Herald blog…and copied it to my own blog…
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2011/08/democratic-control-of-congress.html
Rich Vail
Pikesville, Maryland
The Vail Spot dot Blogspot dot Com
Our government has acted in reflection of the people it has governed. While it is somehow comforting to assign blame to this or that political party or this or that President; this is misdirection. We the people should seek to fix the problem – not the blame. We have been consuming more than we have been producing for decades and have presumed a sort of entitlement in this regard. The lion’s share of political debate and talk show banter of late has been about “what I want” or “what ‘we’ are entitled to” at our neighbors’ expense. The American idea of individual dignity and responsibility has broken down. We are broke individually, corporately and collectively. We must suck it up and get back to work. We must embrace personal and collective austerity. Those who advocate more (dubious) Keynesian stimulus should consider that in the absence of fiscal restraint, we must induce inflation – intentionally or otherwise. In this setting, inflation will be the most regressive possible tax on those who are least privileged. There is no magic and no free lunch. We have put ourselves in this fix by succumbing to the collective fantasy of magically free lunches. That is the bubble which must now burst.
Probably what’s ahead for us will be one part Zombie invasion and one part French& Indian war. Those trained in arms will need to whip us suburban yokels into shape.
“Reagan in the first term had a Rep.-controlled Congress that help fuel the debt.”
No, he didn’t. Democrats controlled the House during the entire Reagan and Bush (41) administrations. Just as now, Democrats back then ran a “Mediscare” campaign to fight much-needed entitlement reforms that sent the deficit soaring long after the Cold War ended.
The fact that you link to the Washington Post also does not help your credibility.
Next time, read the history books.
So you’re saying that Bush’s Medicare Part D is as expensive and destructive as Obombercare, giving both presidents 15%? Huh? Something’s very wrong with that equivalency. What about mentioning how much collateral damage is done by the devastating Obombercare. Btw, he’s Obomber because he unilaterally bombed Libya. What he “promised” would be days is now many months. He is in violation of the War Powers Act because he never went to congress to get their support for the ongoing war in Libya within the lawful time limit. And to think… this after 8 years of seething, acrimonious, unhinged lies about Bush’s legally following up on Iraq’s breaking its 1st Gulf War obligations, saying he had no approval for the Iraq War. There are no bounds to the hypocrisies of the Left; wars, Gitmo, Bush’s 400 billion dollar deficit (when there was a Democrat House & Senate controlling the spending) being the worst economy since the Depression while the Dems. quadruple this deficit.
Why does almost everyone want to talk about what happened 20-yrs ago..it doesn’t matter, what matters now is what are we willing to do to stop the insanity now. We the people need to step up and gut the bogus entitlements that are not needed and frankly unwarranted. The FDA, EPA, DOT and most of the other alphabet agencies are in drastic need of restructuring. The pork in these agencies and their ridiculous laws have fractured the American economy more than the average American even knows.
Think about it….selling raw milk is now a crime!!!!!!!!!
The morality of imposing world-wide mandatory collectivism aside,
Americans cannot prosper under French or Swedish welfare state environments and the inevitably low incentives to produce that accompany having to work 50-60% of your day to benefit some distant unknowns, as opposed to yourself and you family– and the inevitably low correlation between ability, effort and standard of living.
Neither can the French or Swedes for that matter. Short term variabilities aside, both countries — as well as the rest of Europe — have been riding low growth 1-2% trendlines, which are a direct consequence of low correlations between effort and reward, for the past three decades or so, and have thus been loosing ground relative to the rest of the world even faster than Americans have. In a world growing at an aggregate average of 4-5%, riding a significantly lower growth trendline leads to certain economic extinction. It’s just a matter of simple arithmetic.
Besides, with most countries having already chosen (or fallen for) mandatory collectivism, why not preserve the American spirit as an alternative? — even if simply as a matter of cultural diversity and choice. It would be more efficient to press legislation towards a more open border policy (open to both goods, services AND people) so that every one can ultimately choose their respective paradise. Welfare states could charge entrance fees for those who want to enter the country at a non-young age to make up for lost revenue, though by voluntarily choosing subordination to a welfare paradise at an early age, people would be able to avoid any payment. Selfish societies where compassion is voluntary need not charge such fees. Social cohesion would increase, at least in the Welfare paradise states and political bickering would decrease since everyone would be more likely to find himself in the environment of his liking. One would be able to choose the specific type of central planning that he likes, or perhaps no central planning in those very few countries that escape that fate.
———————
In any case, when it comes to America, it all seems just water under the bridge at this point. Americans are on a more or less irreversible path to seeing how much greener the grass is in France – with American gardeners this time. The world renowned sharp Average American gardener, under French incentives to produce. Boy, now who’s going to be able to compete with that indomitable combination? The Average American’s current #1 position on the worldwide prosperity scale is all but guaranteed. Have hope. There are metaphysical forces of destiny at work here.
Or should we just cut to the chase and call it something like: “Prosperous lucky naives on a suicide path?”
The American voter, having reverted to world norm behavior, will inevitably see his prosperity being absorbed into the Borg of world averagedom.
I am not sure if I agree. Bush spent 1.6 billion per day. Obama spends 4.1 billion per day. The deficit has grown by 7.5 Trillion since Nancy Pelosi said ‘no more deficit spending’ in 2007. This happened on Obama’s watch. It is his downgrade.
You have two siblings with a drinking problem.
One drinks and often says that he wants to give up the bottle, even promises to do so repeatedly and sometimes his regret even seems sincere, but alas, invariably every other day he asks you for money and you have to go pick him up at the bar after mindnight.
The other brother drinks every day, believes you are obligated to pay him an allowance for his drinking, has no plan to change and goes around touting that drinking is what makes life worth living and the way to health and prosperity.
Which one do you resent most? The answer is not necessarily obvious. Is the first one just deceiving you? Does the second one just deserve the compassion of incurable stupidity?
So who is responsible for the wars were involved in and the 900+ Bases we retain around the world? You have presented valid information but there is much more to look at that warrants distribution of blame.
.
Crock. And don’t start quoting the ridiculous Dem/Rep. Congress correlation; even Reagan in the first term had a Rep.-controlled Congress that help fuel the debt.
Seems clear to me by the time we were hitting the Bush Sr. presidency, we were aware of climbing medical costs outpacing the program.
So what did that presidency do?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20059-2005Apr1.html
(and plenty more)
Simple prognosis: Republicans == bad for economy
H.-H. Hoppe and Richard W. Rahn’s take on this is very well done and explains it all. Obama or not – all of them are agents of “taxeaters” rather than “taxpayers”.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/1/democracys-spending-curse/
This article in my opinion is being WAAAYYY too kind to Obama to only assign him 15%, which btw would be equal to Bush. Wow! But even assuming this is true, notice which political party dominates in screwing up this mess? Which 1 scores 15%? And which 1 scores at an embarrassing 85%? It all boils down to who you trust. If Repubs are bad, Dems are 6 or 7 times WORSE!!! Ah, the words of Sarah Palin: ” How’s all that hopey-changy stuff workin out for ya?”
Dan, really enjoyed your analysis and some of the comments here as well. Thanks for sharing! Would also like to echo one other comment here, and that is that in how government is really a reflection of who we’ve become as a society.
Even as a small “L” libertarian, I’ve thought about this often, even about my fellow libertarian friends. And often I come back to the conclusion that most people do not walk the walk; groups and even tea party activists in particular. They want government to be transparent and accountable, but the very idea of finding people who are willing to be this way with themselves and those around them seems hard to find at times. Anyway, you’ve just won me over as a new reader, and I’ll be coming back for more. Best to you. -MB
Thank you, H.A. Cummings, for your service. From looking around at my friends and acquaintances I have hope that what you worry about isn’t as dire as you might think. Many are waking to the danger we are facing and are arming themselves both physically and mentally. Many of us have been or are now in the military and take our oath very seriously. Just a bit of information for you to think about: There are over 80 million households with guns in them. If you figure 1 person in each is a gun owner and 1% of those stand against the government when it acts to abridge freedoms such as the confiscation of our weapons, then you have a fighting force of 8 million people and once they stand more will follow. As we vote more strict constitutionalists into power we will solidify our strength and the old politicians will be pushed out. As long as the ones in power now don’t push the panic button an orderly transition back to limited government should take place relatively smoothly. Don’t despair, prepare.
TO BE FAIR ONE SHOULD REMEMBER THAT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE ARE NOT ENTITLEMENTS . WE PAY FOR THEM WITH MANY YEARS OF OUR WORKING LIFE . UNLIKE OUR ELECTED OFFICE HOLDERS WHO’S RETIREMENT AND HEALTHCARE ARE ENTITLEMENTS WHICH THEY DO NOT PAY ONE RED CENT FOR AND THE ARE FULLY VESTED AFTER SERVING JUST ONE FULL TERM . LBJ SHOULD BARE THE LINE SHARE OF THIS HE OPEN THE DOOR FOR THE SOCIAL SECURITY FUND TO BE LOOTED AND IT WAS VERY SOLVENT AT THE TIME
You can’t solve our problems by focusing only on debt or even so-called entitlements (such as Medicare–enrollment has been mandatory if you wanted to collect your confiscated social security taxes).
If we don’t approach this crisis from a standpoint of government reform–what exactly is the legal role of the central government in our country and in our lives–the status quo will not change.
Thank you Walter, I truly appreciate your post in that you have pointed out one of the most important aspects of all of this. The government is tearing apart our Constitution and the American people are letting them do it. As a soldier in the United States Army, I am sworn to protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, and yet the Army has so tied the hands of soldiers that it is not something we can even speak of. It breaks my heart to see articles like this. People really just do not get what is really at stake here.
Dan, you missed the mark. The electorate is to blame. We vote in politicians who promise more than this country can afford and then don’t hold them accountable.
Various presidents may have had a hand in this crisis and deserve the blame because they are the ones with ultimate responsibility but the congress authorizes the expenditure of the money. They have done this repeatedly without actually looking at the consequences of the laws they make. Now, when there is a group of legislators who were elected to specifically stop the wasteful spending and to return some semblance of sanity to our government, the people who exacerbated the problem are trying to blame them for stopping this administration from spending more. Thanks to the VP and many others in the democrat party the MSM and the political left are trying to make people believe that the use of constitutionally prescribed processes is equal to terrorism. The democrats should be thankful that there weren’t fisticuffs on the floors of the houses of congress after Biden’s comment about TEA Party terrorism. The leaders of both parties lied to the American people about the extent of the spending cuts because the cuts do not equal the debt ceiling rise, they only come to about 1/10 if averaged out because now the debt ceiling can still be raised more while it is doubtful that the cuts already agreed on will survive those ten years as nothing can stop future acts of congress from gutting them. The president now has the authority to raise the debt ceiling simply by telling congress that he needs to and can only be stopped by an act of congress which coincidentally he can veto. Congress has effectively circumvented the constitution and given the president one more power the founders wanted the congress to have. Checks and balances set in the constitution are being torn asunder with carefree abandon.
When we say that freedom is not free, we mean it must be defended, with ideas and treasure and even blood; it must be transmitted, the values and customs that insure its success must be taught, which comes at a cost. The rationale for the expense of public education always includes the notion that an uneducated citizenry will not defend a free society.
To pay taxes, to vote, to be drafted are the rights of free men, which makes them obligations. What I have a right to do, I should do, for it is part of my identity as a member of a nation. My ancestors, the Ogborn’s, Fraley’s, Wickhams, and Welch’s to include 1st Lieutenant Joseph Welch, who fought in many battles to include Bunker Hill, understood this very well. To be told to pay taxes, to be given a governor, to be ordered to support the troops (the Quartering Acts), these were the very opposite of rights. You did not need, as you still do not, a degree in political science or law to grasp this; you needed a cultural tradition that made any thing less than self-government feel like oppression and tyranny.
The government of the United States is, just as the British were, in a period of over-reach; it can not sustain its policy goals. The government is now under the power of a few powerful elite individuals hiding behind huge organizations, in control of every aspect of our lives and money and no longer build a consensus for them and acquire broad consent from its citizens.
This crisis hits any government whose legitimacy is based on respect for liberty, from which the rights and dignity of citizens are derived. The American government, in the past two and nearly a quarter centuries, often frayed this legitimacy. The unrelenting growth of government made this inevitable. We have been spared revolutions — Jefferson mused they might be salutary from time to time — because our common sense, reinforced by the transmission of our history — something our schools are not doing very well nowadays — reminds us to honor the line between the arrogance of power and respect for individual authority.
When individual authority is widely perceived to be lost to authorities to whom it was only lent by way of elected representatives, government begins losing its legitimacy. It is difficult, in the heat of a crisis, to pinpoint the moment at which a point is passed beyond which it is impossible to return to generalized consensus on how to run current affairs, however, I believe that moment came when we allowed the government to turn the power of our nations money over to five elite individuals.
It is too late for a revolution to fix our problems. These people have done too much damage to the very fabric of our country and to its’ citizens… and we have let them. The American people have forgotten their history, have forgotten that freedom is not free, and no longer have the stomach, the conscience, the minds, or the heart to fight for what is right or just… they have forgotten what it is to be a sovereign.
There will be a war, do not think that there will not be. But it will not be such as the revolution was, for when people cry to let freedom ring this time, banners other than the flag of liberty will be raised because they have so divided us along every line possible before the battle has begun. The people will not be able to put aside their resentments and fight for liberty alone, they no longer understand what the whole is, or what is truly important. Class will become a mobilizing entity and small groups will go after religious, economic, social, etc. enemies first before ever, if ever pursuing something so universalist as liberty; and since the few men in power knew this, they carefully constructed an education system to facilitate this circumstance. The people no longer learn the history of their own country let alone others. How important would it be to know African or European revolution history if about to embark on a revolution in your own country? Very, I say. For if you learned the lesson that solidarity always trumps class that you would learn had you studied Slav over Teuton in the clash between Russia and Germany for control of central Europe, and, internally, Georgian over Jew for control of the Soviet communist apparatus, perhaps you would not be so quick to call upon Republicans/Democrats/Rich/Poor/East/West etc., rather unite under the banner of liberty, let freedom ring, and then go back to your petty differences.
Yes, our country is lost. It was lost over fifty years ago. Our people are divided, and the only thing left is to divide the country along those lines with each division having their own “neighborhood” to live in. That is all that is left for us… to choose which house, which “neighborhood” you want to be a slave in.
obama, bush, lbj, fdr…. you’re just hitting the high spots – your list is too short. surely reagan and his “starwars” spending spree added a few points. carter? a little more. wilson with the fed and the income tax? the roots of this malady run deep.
I generally agree with Dan’s assessment here, and one thing I respect most about Cato people is that they try to be intellectually honest and will admit occasional goofs. But allocating blame among the presidents is purely a political exercise. The real question isn’t who to blame. The real question is what to do about it.
Democrats hound ‘terrorist’ Republicans – or Tea Party Republicans – on being inflexible on ‘revenues’. How many Democrats would take the following “deal”? We’ll return everyone to the tax rates (with brackets adjusted for inflation) that existed at the time of the last ‘surplus’, IF the government will cut spending (adjusted SOLELY for inflation and raw population growth) to the levels that existed at that same time.
Ii believe no “insider” Democrat would take that deal, while I believe that the man-on-the-street Democrat would. Why the disparity? Because the “insider” Democrat knows that senior entitlements are rising faster than inflation and population growth because of the baby boom, and reducing spending to the level required to allow for the out-sized growth in those programs would necessitate huge cuts in all other programs (not just defense). Not to mention that it would mean rolling back Medicare Part D, ObamaCare, and the spending on 2 – or 3, depending on how you count – wars.
The corollary is that even rolling back the Bush tax cuts on ALL Americans would not produce the revenue required to support discretionary spending at pre-Bush levels. So I don’t for a second believe the president or anyone else when they say that rolling back the Bush tax cuts on JUST those “millionaires and billionaires” (defined as anyone making more than $250,000…) would ‘solve’ the problem. It doesn’t come close to doing so. Those tax increases are just the beginning. They would have to be.
So let’s grant Democrats their tax increase, for arguments sake. Now, let’s see Democrats balance the budget in 10 years (time since Clinton) without even bigger tax increases… THIS is why you’ve not seen a Democrat propose a serious budget for the past 2+ years, even with tax increases. It would immediately put the lie to the argument that we are taxed too lightly.
We spend – and promise to spend – too much. When Democrats admit this and come to the table with their preferred solution for Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security reform, THEN we can start to debate fixes. Until then, any negotiations would be a waste of time. Of course, until then, the problem just becomes harder to solve as we have less time until the debt bomb explodes.
@75toulgyfiltgff – Exactly, we’ve put these people in office. At some point we’re going to have to pay the price.
That price will more than likely be an extreme degradation of our standard of living and will likely end in an acceleration of the socialist policies that created the problem in the first place. Americans have been trained to turn to the government for the answers, not themselves.
Call me a pessimist but I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.
“What percentage of the blame do you assign to the voters?”
LOL — nice. i blame anyone that’s ever said, “It’s ok to cut entitlements, as long as they’re not *my* entitlements”
What percentage of the blame do you assign to the voters?
We can put the blame on many different people for the credit downgrade, however, that will not correct the fiscal nightmare that the American people have been handed. Everyone knows what the problems are, but neither party is willing to admit that the solution scares them to death. The president seems to be hell bent on destroying America as we know it, maybe, so he can rebuild it in the image he sees America should be. He has cleverly kept his vision of the new America from everyone except for the select few in his inner circle.
There are many tough choices that Congress needs to make, however, the political fallout would be more than our self serving politicians are willing to take. Our Congressman are above the law and are exempt from the atrocities that the American people are now forced to endure.
Until the American people stand up in mass and demand that Congress pass new laws for the good of the country, this nightmare will continue.