Barack Obama got swept into office on a wave of people seeking “hope” and demanding “change”.
Few could articulate the change they were hoping for – or, rather, there were tens of millions of different changes being hoped for – but by jinky, they were gonna get it.
It’s hardly arguable that most of the changes were bad; more Americans have healthcare than before, but they can afford it less.
And against that, the accusation is that the GOP did nothing – which is, of course, the impetus for much of Donald Trump’s popularity.
As Kevin Williamson points out, it’s not true – but you need to have an attention span to see it (emphasis added)
Having been elevated in the 2010 elections and fortified in subsequent elections, congressional Republicans have made a little bit of progress on the deficit, which was reduced from 8.7 percent of GDP in 2010 to 2.5 percent of GDP in 2015. In 2007, before the credit crisis and the subsequent recession, it had been about 1.1 percent of GDP — too high for the liking of many deficit hawks, but arguably manageable.
Arguably manageable – and at least moving in the right direction.
Another way to look at the spending problem is deficit compared to revenue, i.e., how much we’re borrowing to finance spending vs. how much we’re taking in. This gives you an idea of what the “stretch” is, what we’d need to cover in additional taxes or reduce through spending cuts to bring expenditures in line with income. In 2010, the deficit was 60 percent of revenue ($1.29 trillion deficit vs. $2.16 trillion revenue), whereas in 2015 the deficit was 13 percent of revenue ($439 billion deficit vs. $3.25 trillion revenue).
The moral of the story?
For those of you who habitually ask what it is that congressional Republicans have accomplished, that’s it: Despite having Barack Obama in the White House and a public that clamored for more benefits and lower taxes, the deficit has been reduced substantially in absolute terms, relative to GDP, relative to the federal budget, and relative to revenue, since the height of Democratic power under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate.
A triumvirate that, Williamson points out, Trump funded.
Could and should the GOP majorities have done more? Perhaps. Changing the course of government is slow, unless you control the entire shootin’ match (like Obama did from ’09 through ’10). That’s intentional; there was a time when conservatives, if nobody else, knew that government was supposed to be slow.
(Which is the biggest reason Obama’s overreaches on immigration, among other topics, are so very dangerous).
Losers’ tirade may have just cemented the nomination for sTrumpet. Instead of letting people sort stuff out for themselves, they just made sTrumpet into a victim. And society loooves victims. Funny how they went after sTrumpet harder then they ever did after 0bumbler. Goes to show where their priorities lie. Lying, bigoted, hypocritical lot.
The only reason we made (tiny) progress on the deficit (not the debt) is the sequester.
And the Republicans could not WAIT to get rid of it.
DMA, they WILL get rid of the sequester if they own all the branches of government. The idea of the sequester was to make something so “horrible” that budget negotiations would be a requirement. That we’ve had nothing but continuing resolutions since then should show you just how far Obama has gone in making his administration “post partisan”.
DMA, you are right on point.
“Reduced the deficit”.
We still increased the total amount of debt, we just went into debt slightly less than we used to. This is a winning strategy?
As someone born a year after the baby boom ended, I often feel I am trailing the circus parade, cleaning up after the elephants. By the time the world see the benefits of the Boomers dying off, I’ll be just about dead myself. From my experience, I wouldn’t encourage the youth of today to hold their breath waiting for any help from their elders.
The Boomers will have finished off what’s left of SSI by the time we get around to the front of the line. After taxes and upkeep, the properties we still own in Minnesota are close to becoming a yearly net loss. And worse, the value of one of them has still not recovered enough to save my equity, much less show a profit.
Thankfully, we’ve invested well over the years, and once we get rid of the MN money pits we should still have enough to buy some properties down here and make up some of the loss.
Obama has doubled the debt during his tenure; it now exceeds GDP, but the Youth of Today is feeling the Bern.
The youth of today can suk it.
[but the Youth of Today is feeling the Bern, who promises to add $18 Trillion in new spending]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/price-tag-of-bernie-sanders-proposals-18-trillion-1442271511
Eventually Sanders will look like what he is, an old man with 20th century ideas for the 21st century.
EI, 19th century ideas, not 20th century. Marx wrote the manifesto in 1848.
Communism; a beautiful idea if you ignore the fact that it gets human nature completely wrong. Just like British cars are beautiful until you consider that it’s awfully nice if they start.
Paul Wellstone would have been a Sanders supporter and possibly a running mate as well.