General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen did we start hearing about the deficit all the time? Did we hear about it in 2000-2008?
I don't remember that we did. I think all this whining about the deficit is a conspiracy to reduce programs that actually help the 99%.
Liberal In Texas
(13,576 posts)On December 6, 2002, the Bush Administration fired its top two economic advisers: Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey due to the continuing lagging economy (when Bush took office, unemployment was 4.2%. In Dec of 2002... more than a year after 9/11... the rate jumped from 5.7% to 6.0% in one month). In November of 2002, when O'Neill, a "deficit hawk", tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits... expected to top $500 billion that fiscal year alone... posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off, saying, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter."
http://crooksandliars.com/mugsy/ten-years-ago-today-bush-fires-economic-team
raccoon
(31,120 posts)SharonAnn
(13,778 posts)Of course, in 2001 the first think W did was grab all the money that he could and give it to his friends (personal, corporate, and military-industrial). From then on, we were in deficit "as far as the eye could see".
So, of course the GOP stopped talking about the deficit problem since they created it.
Moses2SandyKoufax
(1,290 posts)CK_John
(10,005 posts)kentuck
(111,110 posts)The Tea Baggers were ready to leave their Party if they did not get what they wanted. Republicans could not survive without them, ergo, we are where we are today. Republicans have been extorted by the Tea Partiers.
Wounded Bear
(58,709 posts)Tea Partiers got interested when the Republican elites got interested, right after President Obama was elected and looked like he might try to shift deficit spending away from shit they wanted to like wars and tax cuts for wealthy folks to shit like social programs and safety nets for working people and infrastructure.
The tail does not wag the dog.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)I think the Republican Party is taking all their positions from the Tea Party within them.
Wounded Bear
(58,709 posts)It may have some grass roots, but the big money brokers of the GOP have long been its operators. Do you really think that the GOP PTB give a flying fuck what a bunch of yahoos from outer Georgia think? The "grass roots" folks are taking their marching orders from others high up in the Repub food chain, fed to them by Fox and the other corporate owned media.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)City Lights
(25,171 posts)Unka Dick said so, and that was the end of it.
gulliver
(13,195 posts)Now the high deficits caused by the Republican economic disaster are being used by Republicans to attack Democrats. It is the height of chutzpah. If Republicans hadn't ruined the economy, we wouldn't have high deficits, and we would be able to afford more spending, not less. Unfortunately, the American people aren't using their brains or the Republicans would be a dead political party.
zbdent
(35,392 posts)And then, when the "economy started tanking" (ironically, after it was decided Bush43 was "pResident" , the tanking economy was the reason for the Bush tax cuts ... "so help me God" (Bush43, January 2000).
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)there's a Democrat in office.
OnlinePoker
(5,725 posts)I read Ravi Batra's book "The Great Depression of 1990" when in came out in the '80s and it slammed the deficit spending going on at the time and the resultant debt accumulation. I don't recall a depression in 1990, but I do know it was during the Reagan years that the number of people "no longer participating in the labor market" started an unending climb. If all the people no longer counted were added to the unemployment rolls, I'm pretty sure the unemployment rate would be approaching 20%.
Obama even campaigned on it. Lots of (D) did. Heck, lots of (R) did--it was probably the #1 complaint about * from those right of center.
We squandered the surplus. We had unaffordable wars. We had unsustainable deficits because we reduced taxes for the wealthy.
We had cries that * was responsible for record deficit after record deficit. He was responsible for a third of the debt. Then he was responsible for a half of the debt.
2006: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1608260 was a fairly common kind of thread every time there was a deficit update or budget discussion. And with every spending bill there was such a discussion.
2005: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3309755&mesg_id=3314277
2008: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3411978&mesg_id=3412579
It was a constant refrain here and in much of the MSM. You even participated in some of the discussions over the years. I know I did.