PolitiDose in past commentary has unmasked the fiction and myth of the republican party in being conservatives. But the regular news media continues to push their conservative spin. Now comes a report on the internet by three Washington Post journalists that Trump is telling his cabinet to look for big spending cuts in his second term if he is reelected. Trump is no conservative but told the people he would end deficit spending, balance the federal budget and pay off the national debt.
But under Trump and the republican controlled congress federal spending is up, the national debt is increasing and deficit spending is increasing and just this last week the Trump administration said the deficit for the present fiscal year which ends 9/30/19 will be up again, this time over $1 trillion. The Washington Post story talks about how the republican conservatives (yes, can you believe that, conservatives ?) have had a hard time trying to balance spending cuts with increases in federal spending and that failure to cut social security, medicare and Medicaid attribute to a failure to balance the budget. And of course the writers throw in the cost of the Trump-GOP tax cuts that reduced federal revenue. Its like they, Trump and the republicans did not know that would happen.
The republican excuse that social security, medicare and Medicaid have to be cut to balance the federal budget and the news media's willingness to promote that fairy tale was proven wrong by the Clinton administration who raised taxes on those making over $200,000.00 a year, did not cut social security, medicare or Medicaid but still balanced four budgets and cut deficit spending every year his first four years in office. The Clinton administration also paid down over $300 billion in the national debt. All because Clinton had an economic and deficit reduction plan that worked because it addressed the problems.
The fiction and myth of republican conservatism and the willingness of some in the news media to promote those as conservatives is laughable. When were the republicans really conservatives? Was it recently? Was it not too long ago? Was it during the Reagan or Bush administrations? Lets try the following on for size.
No republican administration has balanced the federal budget since Eisenhower in 1960. That is over 50 years ago. (yeah you read that right)
No republican administration has left office with a smaller deficit than when he took office in the last 50+ years. But every democratic administration except the Carter administration did so.
The national debt had its greatest increase under the Reagan administration and the George W.Bush administration in the last 50+ years. The national debt stood at less than a trillion dollars when Reagan took office and when he left office it stood at $2.8 Trillion at the end of his last fiscal year or a 186% increase in the national debt on his watch. It increased another 105% at the end of George W. Bush's last fiscal year following Bill Clinton's administration.
If Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 had balanced the federal budget as Clinton did the national debt would not be a problem today. President Reagan called the democratic party the big spenders and the news media swallowed it. But at the end of Reagan's first four fiscal years, total federal spending increased 50% over the previous four years of Jimmy Carter. And as of this date no democratic administration has even come close to that huge increase in federal spending. In fact federal spending under Clinton and Obama came in at a much lower percentage increase. But the news media continues to push the republican agenda of democrats being the big spenders. The George W. Bush administration had the next largest increase in federal spending so the Reagan and Bush administrations had the largest increase in federal spending in the past 40 years.
The three greatest bank failures in U.S. history took place on the conservative republican watch of Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. And now Trump and the republicans in congress are on the same path as the republicans have been on for the past 50+ years. The only surprise is that some in the news media still think the republicans are conservative. But PolitiDose understood the truth long ago and so did its readership.
Could all of this be a coincidence? This writer happens to think not. There just is no such thing as a republican conservative in the White House or in the Congress. And you read it here again first in PolitiDose, your daily dose of political commentary.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
