And Then There Was One

Earlier today (December 2, 2019) Montana Governor Steve Bullock suspended his campaign for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. He is the third of four current or former Democratic Governors (John Hickenlooper and Jay Inslee were the others) who tried to garner support for their presidential candidacies this 2020 election cycle. The fourth, former Massachusetts Governor and … Read more

UPDATED: Call the Republicans what they are on fiscal responsibility: Phonies

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama, the only two Presidents in the last 40 years to preside over falling budget deficits while growing the American Economy. Clinton left this country with a budget surplus.

The annual budget deficit for 2020 and beyond will, in all likelihood, surpass one trillion dollars.

This is while the country is not in a recession.

The reason for this increase in the deficit. It is largely due to the Trump Tax Cuts for the one percent that did not pay for themselves. Wasteful spending on defense, the trade wars that have not been easy to win, and no long term fiscal and investment strategy to move the country forward in a sustainable path are other causes for this ballooning deficit.

People familiar with the history and the recent political trajectory of the two major political parties over the last 40 years should not be surprised with Republican mismanagement, fueled by what Paul Krugman calls “Zombie” economic ideas, that has brought an over 22 fold increase in the national debt since 1981.

What should gall people more is the profound hypocrisy from Republicans when deficits occur on their watch.

When Ronald Reagan raised the national debt from one trillion which took 200 years to accrue to over four in eight years, where was the Republican outrage on deficits?

When first-term popular vote loser George W. Bush took an inherited surplus and blew it on two unpaid tax cuts, an unpaid war in Iraq and a partially unpaid Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, where was the Republican outrage on deficits?

When the current popular vote loser President and his allies passed the major tax cut without paying for it, that has led to trillion-dollar deficits for 2020, where has been the Republican outrage on deficits?

You can probably hear the crickets in the rooms where most of the right-wing pundits are working in silence.

Over the last 30 years, there have been two general reactions by Republicans when Presidents try to prudently manage the economy.

The first reaction on deficits is when they ridicule Presidents like George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama when they pass tax increases on the rich to bring deficits down, saying it is the wrong strategy to combat the national debt because it will bring down the economy. Here is a quick history lesson. Economic expansion occurred after Bush, Clinton, and Obama tax increases (the Reagan ones too but Republicans seem to have a memory lapse when it comes to that inconvenient truth.)

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Is Joe Biden Naive about Republicans?

All Americans should hope Joe Biden is right about his ability to forge consensus with Republicans and strike deals with them and his fellow Democrats if he becomes President in 2021. Democracy can not succeed when one of its main political parties has become backward and is the beacon of warring against good government. Unfortunately, … Read more

The Trump administration has a bigger turnover rate than McDonald’s

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, despite behaving like a sycophant to the unhinged whims of the KKK-endorsed candidate, resigned during the evening of April 7, 2019, rather than follow through with the reinstituting of family separation policies. She was this Administration’s second Homeland Security Secretary and this is just the third year of the Trump … Read more