Brian Beutler captures this from the Senate Republican leader:
“[T]he American people have never given us the kind of hammerlock on Congress that Democrats had during the New Deal, that they had during the Great Society, and that they had in 2009 and 2010” … In other words, just wait until we have a filibuster-proof majority and then we’ll make our move. It explains, by implication, why Republicans didn’t do more when George W. Bush was president to cut or phase out safety net programs through the filibuster-proof budget process. But if Republicans take over Congress and the White House next year, even with thin majorities, conservatives will be clamoring to streamline major changes to popular programs like Social Security and Medicare anyhow.
In other words, voting for Republicans means good bye to Social Security, Medicare, and even ObamaCare. Glad we cleared that up! But now the great lie from the Senator:
And the Democrats have had Congress, sometimes with whopping majorities, most of the time since the New Deal. And that’s a great disappointment — I think that’s the reason the country has the kind of debt and deficit that it has
Wrong. The government debt fell relative to GDP from the time of the Truman Administration to the end of the Carter Administration. It exploded under Ronald Reagan because of the great Laffer lie. Under the Clinton Administration we saw declines in government debt relative to GDP but the administration of George W. Bush threw that all away. And the great Laffer lie is the centerpiece of Mitt Romney fiscal plan. In case Senator McConnell has forgot, Reagan, Bush, and Romney are Republicans.
"Wrong. The government debt fell relative to GDP from the time of the Truman Administration to the end of the Carter Administration. It exploded under Ronald Reagan because of the great Laffer lie. Under the Clinton Administration we saw declines in government debt relative to GDP but the administration of George W. Bush threw that all away. And the great Laffer lie is the centerpiece of Mitt Romney fiscal plan. In case Senator McConnell has forgot, Reagan, Bush, and Romney are Republicans. "
ReplyDeleteThe standard 'response' to this is that
1. Reagan was the victim of Carter's malfeseance regarding the budget.
2. Clinton was the beneficiary of Bush I's enlightened fiscal policy and
3. Bush II had to contend with the disastrous results of the second half of Clinton's reign of evil.