The truth about Reagan and Bush Republicans
Ilya Shambat
all the noise it is the message that tends to get lost. Others may
have more slyness, more aggressiveness, more experience, and more
skill as bullies. I have less of these things than Pat Robertson or
Rush Limbaugh. What I have on the matters discussed is the truth.
In 1980, before Ronald Reagan came to power, America's federal debt
was $1 trillion. At the end of his second administration, it was $3
trillion. His Republican successor George Bush Sr. added another $1.5
trillion to the debt.
In 1993, President Clinton passed the deficit reduction package, and
every consequent year the deficit declined until in 1999 and 2000
America ran a surplus. For this good act the Democrats were severely
punished and lost the control of Congress in 1994. Over the next eight
years, American economy added 23 million new jobs in the greatest
peacetime economic expansion in American history. The surplus in year
2000 stood at $236 billion.
When Bush Jr. took over American government - first by spreading lies
about his Republican opponent John McCain during the Republican
primary, then by using fraud and corruption in Florida to manufacture
a false electoral majority when in fact minority voted for him both in
Florida and in the rest of America - his first major act in power was
cutting the taxes on highest incomes. The results were immediate. The
budget recorded a tiny surplus in 2001 and, for the next seven years,
ran vast deficits. All in all, Bush administration added $5 trillion
to American debt. Meanwhile job growth stood at zero before collapsing
in 2008 in the worst economic crisis America has had since the Great
Depression.
The federal debt is therefore a creation of the Reagan and Bush
Republicans. It is not, as they like to claim, a result of "spending"
by "liberal government"; it is a direct result of choices made by
Reagan and Bush administrations. The only President who actually
successfully overhauled government to make it more efficient, more
competent and less wasteful was President Clinton. Under Bush Jr, the
annual government budget grew by over $1 trillion from $1.8 trillion
in 2000 to $2.9 trillion in 2008.
Of course the Republicans did not cut down the government spending -
neither Reagan with split Congress nor Bush with the fully Republican
Congress. What they did is replace tax-and-spend with far more
irresponsible borrow-and-spend and bequeathed to their children and
grandchildren a $10 trillion debt. All the public sentiment against
"spending" by "liberal" government is nothing more than a way to hide
tracks and misplace blame. The government existed with tax-and-spend;
it continues to exist with borrow-and-spend. Only now, the younger
generations are $10 trillion in the hole thanks to the borrow-and-
spend policies of Republican administrations.
To the people who want to do away with the government, is needed a
dose of reality. The biggest government bureaucracy of all is the
military, which vastly grew under Bush to cost $700 billion in 2008
and which is the most wasteful branch of the government, throwing away
perfectly good tools after a week in use, buying $600 toilets, and
spending billions of dollars on weapon systems that never get used.
Another wasteful government bureaucracy is the prisons, whose
population quadrupled since 1980 as people were being put away for
victimless crimes thanks to Reagan's War on Drugs and which population
remains vast as the Republican-initiated, Republican-maintained War on
Drugs keeps dragging on. These prisons have now become America's
fastest growth of recruitment into Islam, and at taxpayer expense is
being created a vast threat to internal security, as people who are
already dangerous, lawless and have a grudge against the system are
being turned into militant Islamists. In both cases, it has been the
policies of Reagan and Bush Republicans that saw the vast growth in
these bureaucracies even as they were promising to get the government
off people's backs.
Other areas of government spending that are not there as a result of
the Reagan and Bush policies - the roads and the Interstate that are
the backbone of America's commerce; the science that is at the root of
all products sold by American businesses; schools that make people
employable; and of course the Internet that has made possible vast
expansion of business and commerce as much as it makes possible for
anti-government groups to spread their propaganda - produce vast
benefits for American economy, and without them American people would
have very little of what they have now. So the problem is not with
"spending" and it is certainly not with "liberals". The problem is
with the borrow-and-spend Republicans who keep dangling before people
the promise of smaller government while dragging them deeper and
deeper into debt.
With government, as with all things, it's not the matter of pay or not
pay. It is the matter of pay now or pay later. It should be perhaps
not surprising that the people who expect an end of the world in our
lifetime would not care about the future; but this stance comes at a
vast price. And since these people claim to have family values as they
force this vast debt on their children; since they claim American
patriotism as they bankrupt their country and put it at mercy of such
creditors as People's Republic of China; and since they claim
responsibility as they act in such a grossly myopic manner; it is time
that these people be scrutinized not only to the extent to which they
fail to embody these virtues they claim to possess, but also as to
their extremely low levels of honesty and integrity and fitness to
rule America or to take credit therefor.
So that while the Clinton administration had been hounded, attacked
and falsely accused of all kinds of abuses, it was the only
administration in recent history that created a budget surplus and a
working government, and was the author of the biggest peaceful
prosperity in the history of the United States. As for Reagan and Bush
Republicans, their most obvious legacy to their children is a $10
trillion debt. And then the people who have done this claim moral
superiority of themselves and moral inferiority of the Democrats when
they are in fact the most deceitful political force in the United
States.
Not only have the Reagan and Bush Republicans bequeathed to their
children a $10 trillion debt, but they've bequeathed to them also a
ruined planet. Scientists knew what was happening as early as early
80s; the Reagan government would hear none of it, and Republican
conmen from Paul Wyerich to Pat Robertson to Rush Limbaugh claimed
that scientists were fools and sinners, so who cares what they think.
The stance of denial of global warming has prevented real solutions
from being put in place while the situation was still easily
correctable. Now, the solutions will be more difficult and more
expensive, and irreversible damage has been done already and is
becoming worse every year. And as Maldives and Kiribati are sinking
into the sea, oceans are turning to acid, Jakarta is being flooded,
and disastrous climate events are costing more and more lives,
remember that it has been the Reagan and Bush Republicans that have
given this to you. And know from this what is their character and what
is the validity of the lies that they want you to believe.
From perspective of sustainability and benefit toward the future, it
means nothing whether clean energy technologies are put into place by
government or by business, for as long as it's done. And from
perspective of sustainability and continuity, it means very little to
what extent the hole in the budget is fixed by cuts in spending or by
tax rises, likewise for as long as it's done. What is not acceptable
is that either problem is denied or is blamed on people who have had
nothing to do with it. And since this is the direction of Republican
approach to these matters, it is likewise rightful that they lose all
credibility and their power to make people believe destructive
fictions that keep these great wrongs going on.