While I continue to see worrisome polls and worsening prognostications for the November elections, I also see increasing hand-wringing among conservatives about the condition, even the sanity, of the movement. Whether it’s David Stockman in the New York Times or David Klinghoffer in the Los Angeles Times, old school conservatives are wary of the beast John McCain unleashed when he set the Alaskan Pit Bull loose on the country.
I’m all for a little introspection, and I desperately want the Republicans to find their way back to some kind of country club elitism combined with a belief in international institutions, a respect for science, and a concern for the public weal (see Jerry Ford or George Herbert Walker Bush). We can afford to let that kind of party run things every so often, unlike the lunatics that are opposing us this November. I’d like to think I have the luxury of opposing idiots in my own party from time to time, but not this year, and not any year soon to follow. As these semi-sane conservative folks are beginning to notice, their party is deluded and deranged, and not in condition to assume responsibility for anything.
The problems runs so deep, that even the several critiques I’ve cited (above) contain glaring delusional historical errors. For example, in attempting to take an Investors Business Daily opinion piece by Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins apart for its detachment from reality, Outside the Beltway makes the following assertion:
What Christian and Robbins don’t acknowledge, of course, is that what they’ve accused Obama of are things that could also be said about every President for the past 45 years or more. They’ve all accumulated unchecked Executive power. They’ve all increased the public debt at massive rates. They’ve all increased the role of government in the daily lives of the people.
Here’s some historical fact. In the Roosevelt/Truman term from 1945-1949, public debt dropped twenty-four percent. During Harry Truman’s full-term (which included most of the Korean War), public debt dropped twenty-two percent. During Dwight Eisenhower’s two terms, public debt dropped by 11% and 5%, respectively. During the Kennedy/Johnson term, public debt dropped eight percent, and it dropped 8% during LBJ’s full term (which included the beginning of the Vietnam War). During Nixon’s first term (which included the remainder of our major involvement in Vietnam), public debt dropped three percent. It wasn’t until the Nixon/Ford term from 1973-1977, that our debt rose, and it rose a meager 0.2 percent. Jimmy Carter dropped the public debt 3.3%, despite a very weak economy.
This was our history until Ronald Reagan came to power. During Reagan’s two terms our public debt increased eleven percent and nine percent, respectively. Under George H.W. Bush, our debt increased fifteen percent. This was rectified under Bill Clinton, whose two terms delivered a one percent and seven percent reduction in our public debt. And then came George W. Bush.
In Bush’s first term, our public debt increased seven percent. During his second term, our debt increased by a post-war record of twenty-percent.
For those of you reading along, the history is that no Democratic administration in the post-war era has ever completed a term in office with the public debt higher than when that term began. The same can be said for Dwight Eisenhower. However, public debt rose during every Republican term since Nixon’s first ended in 1973.
When Bill Clinton was getting ready to walk out the door of the White House, articles like this were common:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year’s record surplus of $122.7 billion.
“Eight years ago, our future was at risk,” Clinton said Wednesday morning. “Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion.”
Instead, the president explained, the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years — $223 billion this year alone.
This represents, Clinton said, “the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States.”
Executive power may have increased at a gradual and disturbing rate since its ebb in the aftermath of Watergate, but the public debt has more of a see-saw history. It goes up when the Republicans are in office and down when the Democrats are in office. That record is clear. And all talk of fiscal responsibility or conservatism by the Republican Party is nothing more than a cruel hoax on those supporters who actually believe it.
Now, we are not in a post-war era anymore. George W. Bush’s profligacy and inattention led to a Great Recession, and it isn’t possible for President Obama to extend the Democratic streak of lowering the public debt in his first term. His job is to rebuild the economy so that he can leave office in 2017 with a split record.
In any case, this lengthy aside on the history of the public debt is intended to demonstrate but one of many delusions that even concerned conservatives are still peddling to their readers. Until at least the semi-sane Republicans begin dealing with reality as it is, there’s no hope for a recovery from the heat-fever insanity that is the current Republican Party.
