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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't misunderstand anything, except for the fact that you refer to budget issues when you have no clue to what you are talking about.

This isn't just a one year adjustment. The whole deficit forcast has been changed for the future. When you have a growing economy - and revenues go up- they permanently go up year after year.

Under Clinton, and a Democrat congress Clinton raised taxes and the deficit actually increased. When the Republicans came in Clinton constantly hampered congresses ability to cut spending. He even shut down the government to avoid budget cuts. But the growing economy pulled us out of the deficit anyway. Of course alot of the growth was attributed to the fact that long term interest rates were dropped. Why were they dropped? Because the people that set those numbers knew now that the Republicans ran congress that the budget was eventually going to get balanced. Fiscal discipline was restored. How do we know this? That is the reason the people that set these numbers gave (by the way this is the part of interest rates Greenspan does not directly control). They said that they knew that all Clinton could do was delay when the budget was balanced but it eventually would so they could reduce long term interest rates.

So a Republican congress comes in, insists on balancing the budget, Clinton fights it every step of the way, yet Clinton takes credit for when the budget is balanced.

Bush inherits a recession from Clinton, and does exactly what anyone would do in a recession. Cuts taxes and raises spending. Standard Keynsian policy. Yet the Democrats scream bloody murder because - heaven forbid - Bush is creating a deficit. Bush is ruining Clinton's surplus - of course ignoring the fact that Clintons last budget was not balanced, Clinton fought fiscal sanity every step of the way, and it was Congresses policies that gave us the balanced budget. When you go into recession you get deficits.

Now that the economy is growing and the deficts are now diminishing and will continue to diminish if the economy stays the course, Bush gets no credit for that. Even though that is what Keynes said would happen.

So excuse me when I get a little annoyed when Democrats talk about fiscal discipline. Actually I don't get annoyed when Democrat politicians scream about this stuff because they say this stuff to get reelected. It is when their followers, who pretend to know something about budgets, repeat this propaganda, that any one with one economics or accounting class should see through, as if it were the truth instead of just political hyperbole.

The dynamic you describe could be attributed to political fighting over spending priorities -- there is a natural tendency of the two parties to check each other's most profligate urges when they share power. So the better comparison between Democrats and Republicans is between Clinton's first term, when he had a Democratic Congress, and Bush's tenure with a GOP Congress. Of course, we all know that under Clinton and the Democrats, the government's fiscal discipline improved -- over GOP opposition -- while under GOP control, the government lately has bled money like an anemic in the shower with a bunch of cats strapped to him.