Tax And Spend

[tongodeon]

I wanted to write a little more on the common belief that Democrats are irresponsible tax-raising spendthrift liberals and conservatives are fiscally responsible tax-cutting advocates of small government

Comments

[mmcirvin]

Let me anticipate the next objection for you: the party controlling Congress also matters. Republicans argue that the surplus under Clinton happened because Republicans controlled the House, and that deficits exploded under Reagan because Democrats in Congress wouldn't cut discretionary spending enough. I find the second claim particularly implausible, but I imagine it's worth chasing down.

[hwrnmnbsol]

In fact, I believe this is something that the GOP faithful would pounce on. As a backlash to the initial Clinton-era victories for Democrats, the Republican Revolt took control of Congress back mid-term. The surpluses you see were with a GOP-controlled congress. The Clinton-era deficits were during a Democrat-run congress.

Not that anything's that simple.

[tongodeon]

I'd say that was likely to be true if the Clinton outlays started declining in the spring of '95, but there are three years of decline (plus one under Bush) before the Republican House takeover.

Not to mention that it doesn't follow the later narrative. In 2001 they controlled everything except the senate, and in 2003 they got the Senate giving them complete control until 2007. What happened between 2003 and 2007? The surplus went away, the spending started back up, and tax cuts opened a huge deficit again.

Also, why do they get to be the ones that just make up random theories out of thin air and I'm the one who has to determine whether it actually jibes with the evidence?

[mmcirvin]

Isn't that how it works around here?