George H.W. Bush took the Presidential oath of office in January of 1989 after serving eight years as Reagan's Vice President. President Bush continued the Reagan policies of trickle down economics, a policy that Bush himself called Voodoo Economics in the 1980 republican Presidential campaign. Despite that pronouncement and the fact that Bush was part of the 8 year record deficit spending spree and debt under Reagan, Bush continued the deficit spending in his four years at the helm.
President Bush often used the bogus statement, read my lips, no new taxes, to play to the republican base but late in his administration he did raise some selected taxes and changed some policies but it was too late to save his Presidency for a second term. In playing to the republican base Bush failed to put the country's fiscal house first and when his last fiscal year budget ended on 9/30/93 his administration failed to balance one federal budget during his term and ended his four years in office with a total federal deficits of $1.035 trillion.
When Reagan's last fiscal year ended on 9/30/89 the national debt stood at $2.857 trillion. When Bush's last fiscal year ended on 9/30/93 the national debt stood at $4.411 trillion. An increase in the national debt of $1.544 trillion or 54%.
Total federal spending for Reagan's last 4 fiscal years totaled $4.203 trillion. Total federal spending for Bush's four years was $5.369 trillion. An increase of $1.166 trillion or 28%.
The real sad part of the 12 year legacy of Reagan-Bush is that the deficit numbers never trended downwards on a regular basis which means they never did pay attention to deficit spending and never had nor developed a economic plan to face the problem and reduce deficit spending. Reagan and Bush continued the political game of talking about reducing federal spending and balancing the federal budget and did nothing in that regard. President George Herbert Walker Bush committed the ultimate act of deceiving the people by embracing Voodoo Economics after denouncing same which continued the country on the road to fiscal instability and record debt. President Bush proved by his actions he was unfit to fiscally govern the country and its people.
Note 1: See my three part series titled: The U.S. Economy: Which Party Performs Best. dated 1/27/08
Note 2: All reference herein to deficit numbers, federal spending numbers and the national debt taken from the records of the CBO and Treasury Department.
