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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (190779)	6/17/2004 8:26:16 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578137

How come there wasn't fiscal discipline under other GOP congresses even when the president was GOP? 1 - Different congressional leadership and also some change in the rank and file. I'm not saying the the GOP in general or GOP congresses in general are good at controlling spending, merely that this specific congress was the first congress in a long time (and possibly the last in a long time considering the hit they took, see point 5) to make an energetic attempt to really reign in government spending. 2 - The GOP congress under Clinton was energized by opposition to Clinton. The current congress faces a president of its own party who wants to spend a lot of money. 3 - 9/11 + homeland security + war on terrorism + Iraq 4 - The current president and congress do not have the easy opportunity to save a lot of money by shrinking the military after the end of the cold war. 5 - The government shutdown debacle. The government didn't really shut down, there was no large scale negative direct effects, but people where upset about not getting a budget passed and they blamed the Republicans in congress far more then they blamed Clinton. The republicans took a big hit from this and it tore the heart out of the formerly energetic efforts by the Republican congress to make major cuts in spending. and possibly 6 - The nation has been very evenly divided and also increasingly partisan. Both parties (see Bush's spending ideas and Kerry's proposals) are trying to buy votes through government spending. In fact, the GOP does not have such a good record with fiscal prudence in the years since WW II. The GOP has very little control of congress since FDR was elected. Tim