Chart of interest
I found this on Matthew Yglesias' home page. Gaze at it for a few moments and ask yourself what the significance of having a conservative Republican in the White House for the national debt.
Test next Friday.
posted by Clemens @ 10:05 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I think I'll fail the test:
(a) Reagan would have cut spending, but for a Congress that refused and a media that was all too happy to play up sob stories and blame mean Republicans (Reagan's first budget director criticized him for this);
(b) Bush I was not a conservative Republican;
(c) the deficit did not go down during the first two years of Clinton's presidency, but once conservative Republicans did take over Congress, the deficit started to go down, largely due to spending restraint—even though the Congressional Republicans paid a political price for it when they were blamed for the government shutdown;
(d) Bush II was no conservative Republican, and worse he encouraged conservative Republicans to abandon fiscal restraint. Somehow the conservative media outlets insisted that this was a time of conservative paradise, until they lost control of Congress in 2006.
The most striking thing about this chart has nothing to do with politics.
The 70s and early 80s had the lowest debt-to-GDP in the last 60 years, and the worst economy by any measure (real GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, stock returns, consumer confidence, you name it).
The highest and fastest growing debt-to-GDP were in the 50s and 80s, respectively. Both were economic boom times.
So is government debt good for the economy? I doubt it. More likely, its influence is overwhelmed by other factors.
Jack - I thought there was probablly a way a conservative could nuance the interpretation! But here is the real question if we accept what you say:what is the Conservative movement today? Is there a 'conservative' party? If the two Bushes were not conservatives, then how effective is the movement in projecting its agenda? I don't think it is even unified in a definition of what it is.
If W is no conservative, he certainly sounded and walked like one at first. More importantly, what I would guess was about 85% of the rightish punditry, public intellectuals, politicians and their support staffs, entertainers (like Limbaugh and Colter), consultants and others supported him in most if not all of the things he did.
I think you regard yourself as a 'true' conservative, mainly on fiscal matters but also social matters. Where do folks like you fit in? Or can you make the argument that a McCain/Palin administration would actually be that rare beast, a Conservative enterprise?
I am genuinely puzzled by all this. It makes me doubt that any politically active people have anything in mind other than electoral victory. Or course you could flip the term to 'liberal' to make the same argument though I think it would be a noticably weaker argument.
Tom: I would think that when the good times roll, government gets profligate.
Or is that your point?
(btw:welcome to Sententiae)
When it comes to spending, neither party seems to feel constrained much by revenues any more. Both complain about deficit spending when it's politically expedient, and ignore it when it's not. Neither thinks deficits are a good thing, but neither thinks they're the worst thing.
It wasn't always that way. Before about 1980, Republicans thought deficits were the worst thing; now they think tax increases are. Democrats never thought deficits were the worst thing.
I tried to answer your questions to the best of my ability here.
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