When a famous publisher once said "an ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition" he could have been referring to today's conservatives in the debate over deficits and the national debt.
During the past year, it seems every time I turn on a news channel or open a newspaper I'm subjected to a member of the hypocritical right expressing phony "outrage" over this issue. You know the drill. Obama is a Socialist. Democrats are mortgaging our children's future. The world as we know it is coming to an end.
Clearly, a history lesson is in order. I hate to be the one to confuse our Republican and Tea Bagger friends with the facts, but let's have at it.
At the end of World War II, and massive war spending, our national debt was 120 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. That figure was gradually whittled down to 30 percent by the end of the Carter administration.
Then came the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, trickle-down economics and massive tax cuts for the rich. Reagan's very own head of Office of Management and Budget called Republican trickle-down economics "a Trojan Horse to support the rich." The national debt quadrupled in a little over a decade and soared back to 70 percent of GDP by the time Republicans left office in 1993.
By the end of the Democratic Clinton administration the budget was balanced and the government predicted "surpluses as far as the eye can see." Its eye didn't see as far as George W. Bush, who, in his first year, announced his plan to "return the budget surpluses to the American people." Or at least a small percentage of wealthy taxpayers.
The same year we sent troops to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaida. Were taxes increased to pay for this war? Nope, we got the regressive Bush Tax Cut of 2001. Deficits soared and money spent on the conflict was counted "off the books."
In 2002, Republicans started beating the war drums again and a steady stream of disinformation flowed out of Washington. This led inexorably to our colossal blunder in Iraq in 2003. How was it paid for? The same way Afghanistan was paid for. Republicans put it on the credit card. Of course, costs again were "off the books." Oh, and that year brought another Republican tax cut for the wealthy, once again passed via the reconciliation process. Guess what happened to deficits and the national debt?
Also in 2003, Medicare Part D was passed. Or at least the Republican version, a big wet kiss to their pals in Big Pharma. To pay for it, Republicans said, "charge it."
Fast forward to 2010 with the same hypocritical suspects now opposing a health care bill in the name of their new-found fiscal conservatism. Yet according to the politically neutral Congressional Budget Office this bill will reduce deficits and the national debt.
Ever wonder who was named the top "Taxpayer Guardian" in the Senate by the non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense? Our very own Russ Feingold, a Democrat. Perhaps this current crop of right-wing "deficit hawks" could take a lesson in fiscal responsibility from the senator.
Dave Wille is chairman of the Democratic Party of Wood County.
Re: The National Debt
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