Just looking at the numbers, Ray...
Compare all the above administrations' tax income versus expenditures, to the others in the post WWII period.
Unfortunately, it just isn't that simple. For example, it was necessary, during the early years of the Reagan administration, to incur massive national defense expenditures to make up for the draconian cuts made during an incompetent Carter administration. Similarly, today vs. Clinton.
Furthermore, you give no account to the massive savings yielded by Reagan's ending the Cold War.
Also, implicit in your simple comparison is the notion that presidents control the purse strings, WHICH THEY DON'T.
In short, it isn't quite a factual presentation to charge Republican administrations with "fiscal irresponsibility", when in fact, it is necessary that they pick up the pieces from a failed liberal's administration, in every case in the last 50 years.
The last three liberal presidents (Clinton, Carter, & LBJ) each left fiscal (as well as foreign policy) disasters for the incoming Republican administrations. Kennedy was the last liberal to have any comprehension whatsover of fiscal responsibility.
One of the marvels of that farce known as governmental accounting is that it fails to address perhaps the MOST FUNDAMENTAL principle of accounting, that of MATCHING REVENUE AND EXPENSE. A true analysis of the facts would consume many, many volumes and be truly boring reading. |
