President Trump’s tax cuts have already delivered for me and the rest of the middle class. Still waiting for the $2500 Obama promised I’d get in ObamaCare savings
8
Kindly explain how the Democrat Party is so deeply in debt
2
No matter how many times left wing hacks say that "the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility", it will still be funny.
1
Obama added how many trillions? And what did we get to show for it besides transgender bathrooms and safe spaces for Snowflakes? Oh, and a disastrous 'healthcare' debacle forced down our throats that was nothing more than gigantic corrupt kickbacks to buddies? And an IRS department that was ordered to sic conservative organizations? Thanks for the laugh, Mr. Leonhardt.
5
The title of this piece is so abjectly false, I"m not sure whose image it more reliably calls up--George Orwell, or Joseph Goebbels.
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound...respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind". --George Orwell.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." --Joseph Goebbels.
It took only 8 years for the Obama Admin to double our national debt--from nearly 10 trillion to 20. Throughout that time, Democrats avoided discussing this generational theft--like the plague. During that time, the Paul Krugmans of the world, devoted endless columns to justifying why this disastrous accumulation was a nothing-burger. In fact, he had a special term for those who worried about it--they were labelled "Debt Scolds". But now we're to believe the Democrat Party, and this publication, have suddenly become fiscal conservatives? Hah!
It's not just the national debt that can be laid at the feet of Democrats. There's more--much more. Much is the result of the unholy alliance between liberals and public unions. Hardly any blue state or any large municipality has escaped this ruinous association. Illinois is so hopelessly broke, it's residents have no choice but to flee. CA, NJ, RI and NY face similar plights. A tiny population, bankrupts the larger citizenry, through outrageous labor contracts.
Even the 1.3 Omnibus bill--is bloated by Democrat demands.
10
"Potential" GDP? LOL
3
As the new saying* goes: "If you're not a Democrat when you're younger, you have no heart. If you're not a Democrat when you're older, you have no brain."
- - -
*The former saying had "Republican" in place of "Democrat" in the 2nd sentence—obviously making it grossly incorrect.
13
Leonhardt tries to define fiscal responsibility, but to only review the deficit vs. GDP is inadequate.
When congress allows workers to be thrown out like trash, sending their jobs out of America without retraining for another job, leaving them under or unemployed in perpetuity, that is the polar opposite of fiscal responsibility.
So is creating millions of jobs outside of America for products sold here.
Both parties are responsible.
Two things should happen.
1. Job retraining.
2. Discontinue sending out checks for doing nothing.
Who pays? The companies who fired or failed to employ them using the outsized profits they have been reaping by using cheap labor abroad.
The unemployed can't be ignored, to live under bridges for the rest of their lives.
Job retraining centers where they live and learn in a gun and drug free environment can easily be afforded from 2 sources.
1. corporate trillions, stolen by firing workers and abandoning them to federal programs, designed to fail.
2. Stop presidential wars and apply the trillions to sending the chronically unemployed back to work.
Fiscally irresponsible?
What's more fiscally irresponsible than a rising $20 trillion debt, falling life expectancy and leaving folks living under a bridge wallowing in their own excrement.
Neither party has been fiscally responsible, both just tossing out cash for votes.
9
Democrats are great Republicans bad. Maybe both parties have some warts or are the Republicans also responsible for Detroit, Baltimore, Illinois, Connecticut, etc. This type of opinion piece is why I recently cancelled my NYT' subscription. How about we have political system whereby the parties reward there own and media like NYT, Fox news and MSNBC serve us very poorly. The problems in this country are not exclusively the fault of one party.
3
It's the same in Australia. The centre-right Labor Party (the equiv. of Democrats) always does better financially, yet the common 'wisdom' is that the conservatives are the responsible ones. The conservatives just give our money to their friends.
32
The deficit created by this tax cut, which goes to the people and corporate interests who pay to play in politics, is there for a reason: "culling the herd." This was enunciated at a 2012-cycle fundraiser by Mitt Romney: "47%" of Americans are "takers," to somehow vanish at little or no cost.
Most voters correctly interpreted Romney's comments as promoting genocide by malign neglect on a massive scale--some 150 million fellow Americans should somehow disappear, without the expense of roundups, murder squads, building and staffing remote facilities, and transporting the victim groups there.
As the survivors of the Final Solution die off, and mandatory curricula which include World War II, the Holocaust, and Stalin's genocides (which dwarf Hitler's) seem to vanish from our schools, the likelihood of our repeating such an awful thing becomes greater.
"We can't afford it!" becomes the rationale to make the promise of our Constitution a nullity.
6
Liberals. How quaint. Like Charlie Brown hoping to kick the football..."we are nice people"
America is not all nice people. It is lots of racist white people who gamble and shoot guns. TV and media fantasy is that it isn't...where is the truth? Is it or isn't it a haven for rednecks and gambling? I have an opinion on which is the truth.
Fool them once. Shame on the Republicans. Fool them 7 times, shame on both the Democrats and the American voters.
8
Just another political ploy to handcuff liberal social spending.
1
A small deficit decline under Obama? The deficit was $1.4 trillion when he took office and ~$.5 trillion when he left.
Cutting the deficit by 2/3rds is not "small".
15
News flash: Opinions differ on shape of the earth. H/T Dr. Krugman
1
Your next assignment, Mr. Leonhardt, should be comparing investment performance during GOP and Democrat administrations.
Yes, profligacy inflates investments for a limited period until fiscal gravity reasserts itself, as has been seen many times over in past GOP administrations.
1
I ahve long held/observed that the GOP are the ones constantly breaking the piggy bank, while the Dems are the ones constantly putting it back together. yet the GOP seem to stick it to the Dems in their messaging by portraying the Dems as the reckless "tax and spend" party. I guess the GOP had it right...if you just remove the "tax" part of it and say the "spend" party, that would be the GOP.
the Dems (and the media in general) need to do a better job of pointing this out..
19
This has been the elephant (or donkey) in the room for years. Anyone who was alive and had functioning brain cells in the 90's knows very well that Bill Clinton was the last president to balance a budget, and the only one to do so since Eisenhower. But I just did a little research. The right wing Cato Institute published a piece in 1998 claiming that Clinton had NOT balanced the budget, and that surpluses were more dangerous than deficits anyway. This fraud on the GOP's part, this hypocrisy and trickery to justify huge continuing tax cuts for the wealthy has become a religion on the right. And we see that still, with trump suggesting that a SECOND round of even more profound and devastating tax cuts for the rich hare on their way.
20
Beautifully written column. This gets my nomination for the Pulitzer prize.
Your "few moments on the perception gap, because it highlights a problem that’s bigger than budget policy" is probably the most important insight of your 25 year long professional career.
It is my hope that the editors of the NYT's will do much more reporting on this "perception gap" issue and stir the hearts and minds of thoughtful people to explore this issue and try to discover solutions to the contributing causes of this harmful phenomena.
I urge more journalistic investigation of the "dark money", its history, how it is being used, and an assessment of the harm caused by this system.
I recently watched a replay of "Network" and the famous rants of a mad TV journalist, Howard Beale, which hit a homer, "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore".
During this period of the doubtful election outcome, doubtful because many have reported, but we are still waiting, for the official investigative report on how the last election outcome was influenced by Russia or citizens who were financed by the investment of Russia's very wealthy oligarchs, which introduced a new player in the "perception gap" problem.
Thanks again for your work.
6
If only this column were running somewhere other than the NYTimes with its heavily Democratic readership.
4
Truth is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable; that's it's job.
I have some optimism that the Nation might survive this bout of fascism because I see more and more real journalists backing off the false equivalence we have been living under for the last half century.
It seems reporters might be remembering that in a fascist state they are usually out of work... and in prison. Or worse.
Even some so called conservative pundits are backing away from the republican party by stopping their act of putting lipstick on this pig. Even some F(alse)ox people are pointing at Hannity as a joke.
The next step is for news people to stop calling republicans conservative; they are not conservative. They are radicals seeking to destroy democracy because the powers who fund the republican party would rather not be bothered with any noblesse oblige towards We the People.
Things like clean air and drinkable water are just bothers to their purfuit of more and more wealth and power.
If We the People get off our butts this year and show up to vote we can possibly put our Nation back on track towards the enormous potential of our economic and political systems.
5
Newsflash for David... Neither party is the party of fiscal responsibility. The GOP use to be that party of holding the line on the national debt but no more. The Dems are the spend and tax party and the GOP is now giving them a run for their money.
1
I first did this kind of analysis about fifteen years ago, and was so surprised at the results that I put them on the web, and have kept updating them ever since. See http://goliards.us/adelphi/deficits .
4
This is not news. We have all known this.
Since Reagan reduced taxes we have lost more income than we have coming in.
A family budget can't operate that way, and neither can a country. But families figure it out in less than 30 years. Eventually someone in the family puts their foot down and says "ENOUGH!". They get a second job to pay down the debt, or reduce spending.
Guess the adults in the room have to be the Democrats. Not popular to run on balancing the budget, making cuts or raising taxes, but they are, after all, the tax and spend party.
Suddenly those aren't bad words.
6
This seems to be a really silly claim. Shame on you, David Leonhardt, for stooping to partisan trickery.
The analysis focuses exclusively on one factor -- who holds the presidency, and ignores who controls Congress. Moreover, the Clinton era balanced budget push almost entirely drives the result, i.e., his claim that Ds are more fiscally responsible. In fact, as I recall, Clinton's budget success was a bipartisan effort, after Clinton did deal with Newt Gingrich. There would have been no balanced budget with Contract with America....
2
In my view, the big difference between GOP and Dem spending plans relates to who receives the initial benefit simply because every dollar a person of limited means receives will undoubtedly be spent for necessities such as food, housing and transportation, resulting in innumerable exchanges, each of which is likely to generate a taxable event which will, in turn, assist with lowering deficits.
On the other hand, as the recent tax bill amply demonstrates, windfalls for the wealthiest among us are far more likely to be spent either buying back stock or simply being squirreled away, instead of immediately making their way into the mainstream economy.
7
As I have said many times, the only thing worse than a tax and spend Democrat is a don't-tax and spend Republican.
6
Decades before my businessman father died in 1992, he told me the economy tended to be better with Democrats at helm. Specifically, he said, “Under Democratic Administrations, the economy usually makes slow but steady advances. When Republicans are in charge, that’s when you see the wild up and down swings.”
Hmmmmm . . .
3
It's the same over here in Britain. The conservatives inevitably cut spending on social programmes and taxes, inevitably leading to terrible, terrible services and need for investment when they leave, whilst simultaneously ballooning the deficit and selling the states assets. Whilst Labour, invest, improve services, tax and bring down the deficit slowly but steadily. They complain the Labour Party is the party of "tax and spend", but the Conservative Party is inevitably the party of "not taxing and spending" usually through short-term-ism, regarding privatisation (to donors and friends) and cutting services in areas that pop up elsewhere.
Still, the perception - especially through the media is that the Labour Party is not the party of fiscal responsibility. I think that the right are simply better at the PR. Probably because the right are generally in control of the media. Even whilst they complain of a left wing bias. Which is often just a bias toward truth that the right dislikes. Whilst there are biases on both sides. Telling the truth of a matter is not bias. Truth is truth. It's especially stark in your country.
2
It's all about ACTION, not labels. Isn't it amazing that now the Democrats are DOING what the Trumplicans preach as fiscal responsibility.
Trump and his minions have no credibility, at ANY level.
3
The column is absurd. No way are the Democrats running New York, Illinois, and California tight fisted conservatives. Income and sales tax rates are astronomical. State and local government spending as a percentage of corresponding GDP is off the chart. In Massachusetts everybody pays the same low tax rate. There are no deductions. Very few exceptions to the sales tax, too. Everyone pays. Everyone has a vested interest in where the money goes. It’s a tight ship. We don’t subscribe to the New York school. But we are Democrats.
2
Which states are almost bankrupt? Oh right, the ones that have been controlled by Democrats for the past 50+ years!
5
really? I hadn't known Kansas and Louisiana were Dem led states... ah, but their "low tax" regime will work out well for them. hey, given that it is easy to move in this country try, why not join them! I'm sure you'll love the perks of a crumbling infrastructure and declining government services! and your taxes will be low!
5
Of course. But try catching the Democrats making that argument! The argument to be presented is that the Trump tax-cuts are terrible for the economy. That corporations are making a killing on the backs of regular folks. That the wealthy are not paying their fair share. And all this is bad for the economy. Trumpy and the Republicans are primarily focused on pillaging and on plunder. It must be repeated that the economy is going to head in a downward spiral with this collection of pirates in the Republican party. President Clinton's slogan that 'it's the economy stupid' needs to be used over and over again. President Obama's work to strengthen the economy to this point needs to be stressed over and over again. However, it's likely that petty jealousies will prevent the Democrats from a unified front.
4
Republicans always reminded me of my former neighbor who while having a leaking roof took equity loan and bought BMW.
5
Add to this excellent analysis the myth about Republicans producing economic prosperity, at least as measured on Wall Street. Democratic administrations have presided over much larger improvements in stock prices than have Republicans, so it also puts to bed the idea that cutting taxes produces an economic bonanza. Under Democratic leadership we have generally better economic prosperity, better fiscal health for the U.S., and a cleaner and more just world to boot. I think the Republicans stay in power due to a better propaganda machine (lying is OK) and a too-deferential press.
5
I remember having a discussion with my late father about the upcoming presidential election in 2004. When he said he couldn't vote for a Democrat because he was afraid Democrats would increase the deficit, I told him that Bill Clinton had actually brought the deficit down, and that George W. Bush had greatly increased it. He looked at me as if I had told him the sky was green.
7
Yes, and it will be the Dems that cut the social safety net after GOP bankrupts the country
Remember the choices will always be to raise taxes or cut spending or raise deficits until that doesn't work anymore.
The party that votes to raise taxes will lose
1
David, thank you, finally. I have for several decades recognized the federal budget during Republican administrations for what it is - The Republican Wealth Pump. Budget cuts and deficits run by the Republican Party since Richard Nixon have been simply a way of transferring wealth to the already wealthy through the fiscal process. I recognized this decades ago and thought, giving Republicans more credit than they deserve, that the deficits were a way to limit ensuing Democratic administrations from pursuing their priorities by making them first address the red ink they inherit. I have since come to recognize it as a far more intentional and dishonest enterprise. The economy performs best the more widely incomes are distributed. ( I would like to see the Times do that study.) Moves to concentrate wealth and income should always be viewed skeptically.
6
Very insightful article Mr. Leonhardt.
It would be nice to see several other indicators alongside deficit data under each presidency. (I) Income Tax brackets and Net effective tax breaks to rich, middle and poor, (II) Overall budget for welfare programs (a favorite dog-whistle of republicans), and (III) Cost of typical Consumer Basket.
Would love to see your conservative colleagues in NYT come up with an objective, fact based rebuttal of this article, if they can come up with one.
2
I m a retired Economics teacher. I made this same point for literally decades. However, Mr. Leonhardt falls short in that he could extend this all the way back to Ike and reach the same results.
Perhaps some folks make this claim of being Republican due to fiscal conservatism in order to sound like serious, somber people-- looking at you Paul Ryan!! Perhaps they actually are just to embarrassed to say they support what the GOP really stands for.
8
The truth should never make you uncomfortable. Viet Nam. Iraq. Donald Trump. Three examples of the media's discomfort changing the course of our country. If the republic is to survive, the media has to step up. Or Trump will be happy to hand you to Sinclair.
2
Republicans have given up any pretense of reclaiming the basic business sense that once was the hallmark of their party. North Carolina voters seem to be okay with some of their more notable failures to apply business thinking to government.
Renewable energy. Businesses embrace competition that opens doors to innovation and better products and services. But given the chance to increase power company competition while creating jobs in the energy source of the future and helping rural counties find a profitable new use for open land, our legislature said no.
Tax cuts and tax shifts. Business accounting depends on actually balancing revenues and expenses. Not so for our governor and legislature. Budgeting is a shell game to them. Cuts to state taxes and programs simply shift the costs to property taxes and sales taxes with 80 percent of us paying more.
Medicaid: Business people understand that when uninsured patients are treated at a hospital, those charity costs are passed along and paid by the rest of us through our own, higher insurance premiums.
Local choice on annexation and zoning: Every CEO knows about growing a company: Targeted, orderly and fiscally sound growth keeps costs low and profits high. Likewise, our cities achieve cost-efficient growth through business-like and fair rules for annexation and zoning. Now, the governor and lawmakers have reduced local choice, setting in motion higher costs of growth, property tax increases and decreased property values..etc
2
That the Democrats have been the party of fiscal responsibility has been obvious at least since Reagan. What Mr. Leonhardt rightly points out is how the media has played along with the Ryan-Republican myth.
6
Please !!!
Liberal Democrats always want to tax the rich more & spend for social programs !
How can Democrats be fiscally responsible when they are have caused Illinois, NJ & CT to become bankrupt??
NY is hanging in do to the influx of RUssian & Chinese wealth & California appears ok because the public pension nightmare is glossed over!!
3
Taxing the rich at a reasonable progressive rate to pay for longterm investments in human capital is good for the economy and society, so "Hurray!" to your first point.
But as for the rest of your response, "how can Democrats be fiscally responsible when...", well I guess it's how the article that you may or may not have actually read clearly explained. The reason that you switched the discussion from national debt and deficit to state-level is that you have no argument to contradict the facts presented here. Nice try, though!
3
But people in the Blue States can read and write, and know that the Holocaust is real and Trump is not. They also did not saddle future generations of children with unplayable debt, subsidize the rich forever while defrauding the poor and middle class, persecute innocent DACA children and productive immigrants or build a useless monument to an idiot. They also don't permit macho slaughter of innocent people with military weapons. Want more?
4
I'm unclear as to what makes David Leonhardt uncomfortable. It's been obvious for many years now.
1
Please!! First of all, perhaps it is time to reread Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. Words matter. You refer to reducing deficits but what you actually mean (except for a couple of years in the 2nd Clinton administration) is reduce the growth in the deficit. The Press gets this wrong all the time. There is no deficit reduction, just a rising or lowering of the rate of increase in the deficit. But referring to it as a reduction can play with people’s heads and muddy thought (again, see Orwell). No one in DC actually intends to reduce the deficit - ever. And no one should be credulous enough to believe that choosing a Democrat over a Republican is going to solve anything. By the way, you might want to visit Illinois and see how well the Democrats deal with a deficit at the state level.
3
Don't confuse the yearly deficits/surplus with the long-term debt. The Clinton surplus was clearly not the first derivative.
Talk about getting it wrong! You should substitute the term "national debt" in virtually every instance where you use the word "deficit".
The deficit is the annual shortfall; the National Debt is the cumulative of all the deficits and (the few years of) surpluses like during part of the Clinton administration.
3
Thank you! The Marx Brothers quip is great, but how about something even more to the point? "Republicans as Budget-Busters: Stating the Obvious!"
The only thing keeping alive the laughable Republican claim of "budget hawks" is the equally laughable ineptitude of Democrats as they fail to call them on it. Republicans spend like drunken sailors (on the military on tax cuts and on their pet projects) while Democrats stumble like drunken copy editors bungling every chance to tell their story of responsible governance.
3
And Democrats can't explain it to people . You wonder why they can't talk about it which normal people can understand. They should fire Ivy leagues speaking coaches and speak their mind.
Rebuild America! for a change.
How 'bout that for fiscal responsibility?
Just say no to rebuilding the middle East,
to presidential wars, to corporate America hoarding trillions by firing US workers.
No, to a check in the mail for no work which has been a horrific failure for being fired.
Suddenly we have a federal surplus.
Build retraining bootcamps for the whole family, drug and gun free on the model of the US military.
Bulldoze ghettos and slums. People with jobs, medical and child care don't need them.
"Rebuild America" fits on a hat to.
A prostitute free candidate not bought and paid for by banksters could win on the hat alone.
1
I've been pointing this out for years. Thanks, NYT!
What is interesting about this is that the basic information has appeared many times over the last few years and been generally ignored. The deficit scolds and fiscal prudence hawks are out in full force when there is a Democrat in the White House. But when the tables are turned, not just now but over the decades, a different set of rules apply. But this is supported by the fantasy factory of the media that applies over and over the rule, I think first articulated by Goebbels and picked in in Huxley's 'Brave New World'... 10,000 repetitions of a lie make one truth. A pity that the 'Red' party appears intent on generating so much red on the balance sheet. A pity they have abdicated their responsibility to the the entire country.
2
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that NEITHER the Democrats nor Republicans are very good when it comes to being fiscally conservative. Yes, I said neither Party. Yes, tax cuts contribute to budget deficits, but so does government spending. I checked with the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) a few months ago BEFORE the Trump tax cuts were passed. Do you know that the projected budget deficit over the next 10 years if the tax cuts never existed would still be 6- 8 Trillion? So the conclusion I draw from this is government spending also has a little something to do with budget deficits. So what areas of spending do you "fiscal" Democrats wish to cut? And please just don't say the military. Even with no tax cuts and no increases in military spending we will still have huge budget deficits. The fact that Democrats are trying to pass themselves off as fiscal conservatives is almost laughable. So President Obama never ran up budget deficits? Please give me a break. By the way, he even had a Democrat Congress the first couple of years to implement his fiscally conservative policies. In guess you haven't already guessed it, I am politically an "Independent".
3
Yep. The Republicans get to spend recklessly. They get to give their Rich friends huge tax cuts. The Dems on the other hand never get to spend the money on what they want because they are always elected to put the economy back in good shape. Then when it's about time when the Dems get to spend the money on programs they want, the Reps convince everyone that they need to be put back into power to give all the money to the Rich folks once again. And around and around and around it goes. So the Republican always do what they want to do with the cash, but the Dems never do because they always have to clean up the mess. Now ask yourself does this happen by accident?
5
This article raises a critical issue which needs ongoing exploration in depth and width about all social issues, not just political party ones.The focused either/or misleading, journalistic style, can and does constrain and distort the perceivable and even measurable existing nuanced continua. Either/or all-too-easily results in myopic partial or more total answers, which when accepted constrain the need for additional questioning. Clarification. Needed dimensionalizing about... Continua, which semantically and perhaps even visually "suggest:" and in addition, and in addition, in their esence are a stimulus for the ongoing quest which is inherent in creating and asking relevant quesions about what is not yet known. Known but not adequately understood. Neither known nor understood. For example, what ever the selected "data" re Democratic and Republican policymakers, this is an identity label. It is not a controllable-accurate-prognosticating marker of an individual's behavior. Both party members, as well as Independents, have exhibited an ongoing lack of accountability in their harmful words and deeds as well as a lack of personal responsibility for saying and doing what is necessary for equitable well being for all of US. No party has the monopoly on its members being engaged more-time and energy- for party related support issues and less for the legislative work that they were elected for! No party is "clean" of enabling the daily violating of selected "the other!"
The column has hit on my pet peeve. Familiar storylines and stereotyped definitions are easy to roll out when time and space are limited but label the subject. The media narrative is immediately set often without any added context or meaning, For instance, conservatives throw around the term, liberal like nothing more need be said. Another is "Trump voters" and we all imagine some ubiquitous coal miner without a job.
Another similar problem with labelling is the adjectives used to describe Trump and his administration - unprecedented, outside the norm, never seen before, new way of doing things, non-traditional, change, etc. All words that can be seen as positive by his abide supporters but the stories they are being used in are about chaos and dysfunction, not effective management.
Another problem is a label easily gets set and, even when patently incorrect, continues to define. The most egregious is how easily Trump and his minions have set the agenda for how Trump is characterized - a great businessman, deal maker and, worst of all, Trump thinks...
2
Thank you for this well-written article. If I may, it's a good time to mention the Inspectors General (and how few there are, so many vacancies!) ...
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/14/602314694/the-governments-busy-watchdogs-...
This well worn story ignores the underlying GOP motive. Why the charade? Why constantly weaken federal government finances? How does this play into a grand strategy for securing political power? Since the days of Nixon and St Ronnie, the GOP has sought to convince white voters of the following lies: a) democratic led government works solely for the benefit of black and brown citizens, and for illegal immigrants; b) deficits are directly caused by support of those in (a); c) the "downtrodden" white race is most productive when unshackled from government support and regulations meant to protect those in (a); and d) government programs that clearly benefit whites, such as medicare and social security, are being weakened by diverting their hard-earned money to support those people (see a). The GOP has devolved into an extremist, whites only party - just look at their polling numbers. Leveraging and exacerbating racial resentments, Trump is merely carrying on a grand tradition - weakening our union, undermining America's future, and catering to his fellow robber barons.
3
What is missing is the theory of large versus small government. While the Democrats have done a better job at managing the deficit, they are also inclined to spend more. Excessive spending on the military, Democrats refuse to push back. Plenty of other ways to cut back on spending rather than seeking additional revenues (taxes) which burden the working class.
2
What might be more representative of each administrations effect on the deficit is to take into account the ocean liner effect - the economy does not stop on a dime and policies take time to have an impact. Perhaps more accurate to start measurement from one year in and end at the end of successors first year. Trained economists (Mr. Krugman for example) could verify theory, and if true, provide a more accurate time frame than a year.
"Sometimes, though, one party really is doing a better job than the other. To refuse to admit it is to miss the story."
Thanks for shining a spotlight on the truth!
As is often said, you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say. They are just numbers but it does take some intelligence to really dig down and find out what they mean. Each of the Democratic presidents in this analysis sadly neglected the portions of the government spending that had to be increased during the Republican presidents' terms of office. Reagan built up the DoD that Carter allowed to lapse and oversaw a huge buildup in computerization of the federal government. George W had to contend with the post 9-11 threat responses and tried to buoy up the Iraq regime so that the region would not totally collapse (which nearly happened anyway), and the worst situation was how President Obama gutted the military to the point that we are nearly 2nd class in the world. The DoD expenses must be kept up since that is actually the top priority of our federal government (in a vast number of peoples' opinion). If we cannot defend ourselves, we are done...and that does cost money. I do agree that lowering taxes was not a good idea at this time.
2
These facts---and they are facts---should be on the front page of every newspaper every day for the next year.
9
When we are looking at deficits, it is important to remember the federal budget goes from October 01 to September 30.
So the first year of a president is really the last budget of the previous budget.
In the case of W Bush, Clinton gave him a balanced budget, zero deficit.
W Bush signed his October 01, 2008 budget with a whopping $1.1 Trillion deficit.
But that was before the sub-prime meltdown. The actual number came in at $1.4 Trillion.
Obama got that down by almost 2/3 to $550 Billion.
And 20 Million people got healthcare.
11
There are two parts to this.
First of all, The Repubs have successfully branded the Dems as "Tax and Spend." However the Dems have utterly failed to brand the Repubs and "Spend, SPend, Spend." The Dems are the adults in the room and the Repubs the spoiled brats. The Dems pay for what they want. The Repubs want it all but don't want to pay for it. At their core the Repubs are the quintessential "welfare queens" the like to denigrate.
Second, the Repubs don't care about deficits because their ultimate goal is to push the debt so high that they can then argue the only way to cut it is to eliminate "entitlement" programs - Medicare and Social Security. They hate these programs so much that this has been their ONLY goal for 40 years.
Once again, if the republican VOTERS would just inform themselves of the FACTS - that is WHO REALLY SOLD THEM OUT - they would all vote Democrat.
Unless they really are utterly stupid. In which case there is no hope for them at all.
12
Republicans are also the party of "family values," right? That's why their president is a thrice-married adulterer who brags about getting away with sexual assault. Republicans have to believe all the lies they tell about themselves. It's all they've got.
10
Yes! And we're get handed a broom and dust pan in 2020. We should just say no thanks, you fix it.
1
This is a very good article..Period.
3
I had to chuckle when I saw the title. Obama racked up $9 trillion in new debt. How is that fiscally responsible?
3
Keep in mind that Obama was handed an economy virtually in flames. Trump was handed a very good economy. Trump and the GOP did not deliver a miracle on unemployment, that trend was already well on its way. Also keep in mind that the +$trillion deficits were brought down to under $.5 trillion and this in the face of high unemployment and low tax receipts. Trump by contrast is putting us back on +$trillion deficits even with low unemployment, strong economy and high tax receipts. I would have thought lower deficits would have been easy, but I guess not for the GOP.
14
When we are looking at deficits, it is important to remember the federal budget goes from October 01 to September 30.
So the first year of a president is really the last budget of the previous budget.
In the case of W Bush, Clinton gave him a balanced budget, zero deficit.
W Bush signed his October 01, 2008 budget with a whopping $1.1 Trillion deficit.
But that was before the sub-prime meltdown. The actual number came in at $1.4 Trillion.
Obama got that down by almost 2/3 to $550 Billion.
4
It must have taken a lot of effort and thought, but David Leonhardt is certainly on the right track for achieving Democratic losses in 2018 and 2020.
At exactly the time Republicans have proven willing to approve increases in domestic spending, Mr. Leonardt wants the Democrats to tout themselves as the austerity party, in favor of budget cuts and deficit reduction. Worked great for Hillary and the voters will love it!
In his reported 25 years of journalism, did this columnist ever consider that the received wisdom he -- with no economic training -- has taken in on budgets and sovereign currencies is all wrong, and that there's a reason Republicans can cut taxes without the country collapsing?
In the first chart, you use “potential” GDP. Why? What would be the difference if you used “actual” GDP? Why didn’t you use that?
Finally, truth from the NYT. We have in fact not had a fiscal conservative in the white house since Calvin Coolidge. The depression and subsequent recessions were prolonged by overspending republican and democrat progressives. Now we are in a mess like our progressive cities and states - but who bails out the entire U.S.?
The Dem approach to fiscal responsibility is two-faced. Some liberals mock the right who claim to care about our nation's finances yet passed a large tax cut. But you get the idea that they are not so much taking the "high ground" as suggesting that fiscal responsibility is irrelevant, the GOP are hypocrites and no one should criticize Dems when they return to party and spend wantonly.
But Leonhardt takes the opposite approach ... suggesting that Dems are responsible. And it's a lie. Obama was responsible for 5 of the 6 largest deficits in our nation's history. And deficits are just a one-year snapshot. He added $10 tn to the debt bringing our debt/GDP up to 105.6% when he left - not too far from Greece.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
Instead of recognizing this, Leonhardt uses charts showing Dems repeatedly cutting the deficit. But almost ALL of this is due to Bill Clinton. Remember him - "end of welfare as we know it", "three-strikes and you are out". Dems (including his wife) have disavowed nearly all of his policies. Obama could not have been more different. In just his first year, he increased spending from $3.1 tn to $3.7 tn - over 10x the average increase for the prior 20 years. And the only thing that slowed down his spending was the underappreciated Budget Control Act where Obama lost a stare-down with Boehner. Liberals don't care about deficits because they think the rich can either pay higher taxes now or pay off the debt later.
3
Well said Mr. Leonhardt! Republicans always love to paint themselves as the wise elders who are pragmatic about money and recognize its limits, while Democrats are the dumb kids who are willing to blow it all in an afternoon on candy and comic books. This is a complete falsehood. The fact is, Republicans are TERRIBLE with money. They always have been. Democrats are the true fiscal conservatives, not them. That's why the deficit goes down when a Democrat is in office, and it's why blue states are always subsidizing red states.
4
Let’s face it: We Dems are lousy communicators to the American public. I think you should tweet this column once every week until the election. I’d ask Larry Kudlow to interview you on his new show if I knew how to contact him. Sigh.
2
Why is this so hard? Bad enough right wing propaganda channels countering a non-extant liberal media, worse still so called journalists incapable of dealing with reality. Even after pointing this out the author ducks:
One party (REPUBLICAN David, REPUBLICAN) has now spent almost 40 years cutting taxes and expanding government programs without paying for them. The other party (DEMOCRATIC David, DEMOCRATIC) has raised taxes and usually been careful to pay for its new programs.
Both parties spend too much. We've had the best results with a Democratic President and a GOP Congress, and the worst results when one party holds both the White Hoiuse and Congress.
1
Obama added $9 trillion to the federal debt. Another obfuscation job by a lib writer. By the way, the Trump "adding to the federal debt" is a guess. So far this tax cuts are paying for themselves. Research it before you deny it.
When we are looking at deficits, it is important to remember the federal budget goes from October 01 to September 30.
So the first year of a president is really the last budget of the previous budget.
In the case of W Bush, Clinton gave him a balanced budget, zero deficit.
W Bush signed his October 01, 2008 budget with a whopping $1.1 Trillion deficit.
But that was before the sub-prime meltdown. The actual number came in at $1.4 Trillion.
Obama got that down by almost 2/3 to $550 Billion.
As for the Trump tax cuts, the projected 2018 deficit has been revised from $600 Billion before the tax cuts to almost $1 Trillion after the tax cuts.
Perhaps the writers of the NYT could refer to this column anytime they are tempted to refer to Paul Ryan (or other Republican) as a "deficit hawk" or feel compelled to call the Republican party as being "fiscally conservative." Or just read Paul Krugman.
1
Borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend. That's the Republican way. It's easy to see that borrowing money costs us more, sometimes a lot more, due to interest expense. It's not so easy to see why this simple fact is mentioned rarely, if ever.
3
I just read a paper about teachers describing the sorry state of education in the USA. Now I believe that those Republican politicians never learned mathematics at school and the Democratic politicians learned mathematics from their parent at home.
2
Bill Clinton had nothing to do with the budgets after 1994 when Newt took the House and Kasich ran the budget committee. Can the writer show us just 1 Clinton budget was passed after that?
The Democrats are the country’s problem solvers. They look at something like our health care system, and try to fix the holes. They don’t usually get it exactly right, so follow-up legislation is required as we gain experience. The Republicans use needed improvements simply to attack the Dems, while doing nothing to solve the issue. The GOP simply provides criticism, scams and spin to ensure they hold power. The “Party of No” cannot govern, even without their Trump personality cult.
The GOP must be held responsible in November.
4
Neither party has done much cutting of spending, it may not be possible. The difference is that the Democrats raise taxes commensurately while the Republicans do a combination of cutting taxes and increasing the deficit —-it’s not even a real tax cut because adding to the deficit is like running up the credit card debt and leaving it to our kids. This last round was the worst because all that debt went primarily to the benefit of the wealthy.
2
All true and politically meaningless. Conservatives are just as informed and just as sane as the rest of the population. Therefore, there is another priority for conservatives. That priority is a storyline that sounds less worse than the truth, and, ideally, relieves them of responsibility for their bad behavior. The bonus is that they get moderates to debate the storyline and not the truth.
The truth is so politically incorrect for conservatives that they will do anything to silence that truth. It is always racism, sexism and xenophobia.
The way you know this is to look at conservative states. Conservatives continue to vote to slaughter themselves economically constantly. There is nothing in conservative economic theory that requires this. It is the bribe they pay to their masters to be able to continue to be bigots who are immunized for their bad behavior. As they also immunize their masters for the masters' bad behavior.
Dick Cheney: “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” - as the GW Bush administration pushed for a 2nd round of tax cuts in 2003.
Nancy Pelosi (2004): "I think if seniors want to know why the pharmaceutical companies made out so well at their expense, all they have to do is look at this. This is an abuse of power. This is a conflict of interest."
W.J."Billy" Tauzin, Republican chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, was deeply involved with crafting Medicare law signed by GW Bush on 8 December 2003 law that (1) prohibited the government from negotiating lower drug prices and (2) bans the importation of identical, cheaper, drugs from Canada and elsewhere.
During 2003 Medicare debate, Thomas Scully hid the new estimate of cost being over $500 billion (Congress told $400 billion) and immediately left the GW Bush administration in January 2004.
Tauzin resigned from Congress in February 2004. In January 2005, the day after his term in Congress ended he began work as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tauzin
So, when Paul Ryan, Republican, talks about "reforming Medicare/Medicaid", remember history. When Paul Ryan, Republican talks about fiscal facts, remember Mnuchin rubber-stamping the HIGH assumed economy growth percentage (just before Tax Cut vote) and remember CBO revising cost from $1.5T to $1.8T (just a few months after passage).
2
I realize that using % of GDP is one way of looking at deficit. However, GWB handed Obama a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit and Obama handed Trump a $600 billion dollar deficit or around a 57% reduction despite the worst financial recession we've had. That was a great accomplishment considering the Republican's 8 year obstruction campaign. And now, Trump and Republicans have thrown away all the gains with their tax cuts and gutting of the PP&ACA.
3
NO.
Take Bill Clinton, for example, when he was President, created the BUBBLE, and the euphoria which led to the world financial economic crash.
I Ithink people are starting to realize that the Republican mantra of " no taxes ever!!!" Is no longer viable. Look at the mess Kansas made of their economy, and the teacher strikes in stingy red-states.
Agreed. And also not to forget that they are the party of high moral values: Pro refugees, pro life without guns, pro diversity, pro free-trade, pro healthcare, pro public welfare, and most importantly pro PEACE.
Fabulous and True. Would someone ease build a slide deck—pdf it— and make these points with sources available for argument against the other Ryan-esque “deficit hawks” so that we can point this out in clear, unambiguous terms?
1
At the current rate of job creation some 19 million jobs will be created between 2017 and 2024, vs. over 22 million at the “anemic” Obama rate, and almost 30 million at the Clinton administration rate.
At an average reduction in the deficit of between $10,000 and $15,000 per new job because of increased tax receipts from individuals and corporations, reduced unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc., and reduced interest payments on the national debt, the deficit could be eliminated by 2024.
Around this time next year we should be seeing the job-creation effects of the tax cuts (“trickle-down”), the rollback of environmental regulations, and tariffs and quotas n imports, if any.
By rescinding any of the recent tax cuts as they are shown to have had no positive effect on employment (i.e., no “trickle-down”) we could be in surplus territory in 2025, and could be starting to pay down the national debt.
Thank you for this! I'm so sick of both-sider-ism. It's why Hillary's emails were given equal, if not more, press than all of Trump's many many faults combined. Reporting on one party's faults isn't partisanship, it's truth.
And on November 7, republicans will undoubtedly stumble over their fiscal responsibility on their way out the door.
Does this analysis factor in the really good economic times under Clinton and the economic growth that started again in Obama's second term. The other problem is the convolution of are political system make the generalizations about the political parties almost silly.
If you are conservative these facts have no bearing on the "fact" that Democrats increase the debt and Republicans are fiscal hawks. I have made this point to numerous conservatives over the last 30 years and provided data. No effect. This has lead me to the hypothesis that conservatism is a medical disorder that destroys executive functioning areas of the brain associated with analytical thought.
2
Neither party is fiscally responsible. If either truly was responsible, we would not have a national debt exceeding $20 trillion. The democrats are somewhat less irresponsible.
One other thing: the stock market does better under Democratic administrations than Republican administrations. Don’t take my word for it. The conservative Wall Street Journal has produced charts on this.
"Party of fiscal responsibility?"
Isn't that another way of just saying that Democrats like to tax and spend?
Since the end of WWII, there have been very few years in which the federal government balanced its budget. Between the end of the war and the election of Reagan, the debt shrank as a percentage of GDP from about 120 to 30, not because we were paying it off, but because GDP was growing. Every balanced budget, I believe, has been followed by a recession. I'm not arguing the relationship is causal; it's likely a business cycle thing. The big exceptions were the three or so balanced budgets Clinton gave us and the meltdown of 2007-08 that occurred as the national debt was being doubled by GWB. Mr. Leonhardt, however, is trying too hard to be even handed. All of the national debt beyond maybe one trillion is Republican if you do the accounting right. They own the sucker.
Not to disparage accountants but the old saw is "figures lie and liars figure" meaning if you ask anyone who are spendthrifts most folks would say democrats and who are miserly tightwads it would be republicans. Apparently this might not be literally true but again perception is stronger than truth.
giving credit is an interesting phrase for a strategy that is a political loser and that injures the people who are most likely to vote Democratic - the below 50 thou a year crowd - while benefiting the people who are most likely to vote Republican - the above million crowd. It is bad for the country, but great for centrists who write for the NYT (which incidentally is run by the above million crowd). The turn to deficit reduction by Obama in 2010 was economically nuts (hence, the long, slow recovery) and politically suicide (hence, the GOP landslide - powered by the promise not to cut medicare and social security). The Dems who are proud of being Herbert Hoover's heirs are complicit with Trump in driving the country down.
I thought people would understand the difference, too. However, there are a lot of voices with a vested interest in misleading the American public. All you have to do is look at how California, which is very blue overall and very much in the black financially, is portrayed and ridiculed by conservatives, and how somewhere like Kansas or Oklahoma isn't.
Unfortunately, the promotion of scant familiarity with the truth sometimes works.
The GOP has gone off the reservation and diminished the fear of the deficit boogieman. It's important that we rehabilitate that so that the democrats and GOP can put on their good cop / bad cop show for us again. Where the democrats pretend to want to spend money on public services. And the republicans can pretend to be fiscally responsible stewards for the social good. As in, "we'd love to spend money on public services, but deficit. Besides, you don't deserve it anyways". Ah good times. That's why it's so important to get rid of Trump and re-establish the status quo we used to have.
However uncomfortable we may feel about hard facts, the truth will persevere, as per your thoughtful analysis. And Paul Ryan, the false prophet of the republican party has been able to cheat on us by an appearance of probity and reason; but none of that is true, as he behaved like a true con man, prejudiced to the extreme by thinking that helping the poor, those left behind by this capitalistic society, and of no fault of their own, was not appropriate, and against their benefit to seek a job and become self-sufficient. As they say, "theory went to swim, but because it lacked practice, it drowned". Ryan's deification is but a sample of republican hypocrisy, and their willingness to sacrifice the truth for partisan gain...for no good reason, given they have so little to offer when in power. And that is, painful as it may be to admit, the unvarnished truth. Did I mention Paul was called the 'altar boy', a Catholic in name, while blind to the needs of the least among us, and unwilling to lend a hand while in power to make a difference? Even the bishops lacerated his ego on that front. Good riddance. But I digress. The republican party, currently in limbo, has no equivalency with the democrats, the more responsible party. And to me, that is fascinating.
Deficit shoot up first time in Reagan's presidency and it happened just after the president was shot and the president became very popular. The Democratic Congress surrendered under Tip O'neil. G W Bush wasted more than trillions of dollars in Iraq War for nothing, gave billionaires big tax cut and drug coverage to elder people without funding. G W Bush brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Obama did very good job to bring back the economy from the gutter. Trump is lucky to have this sound economy and now he and the Republican Congress are messing it up. WSJ and FOX news will never give credit to the Democrats. The voters in South will never understand this. So cycle of Republican messing up and the Democrats fixing the economy is perpetual.
1
This fails to account for the fact that the main drivers of our debt - the whole we'll never get out of - are the social programs created by Democrats: social security, Medicaid and Medicare. Like or hate the programs they are gobbling up much of our revenue. This article conveniently ignores the fact that the states with the worst balance sheets are almost all run by progressives.
Back in 2000 when we had a SURPLUS the republicans argued that it would be irresponsible to save for a rainy day
As compelling as it is, your analysis is narrowly focused on the government's balance sheet. Even more important is the economic effects of the two parties on our citizenry. In my lifetime, R policies have consistently led to recessions, eventually. G.W. Bush gave me a tax cut of a few hundred or maybe a thousand dollars. In return, his recession cut the value of my home and retirement account by at least a third - a 300 to one ratio. Republicans shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the US Treasury.
Well said. However, it bears noting that one explanation for this strange reality is that the GOP is salted with many representatives and senators whose fall-back plan to kneecap social welfare programs involves running up so much federal debt that cuts will eventually be forced on the programs they don't like. These are the folk who aren't afraid of government shutdowns or bankrupting the US government. They want to blow things up. In that desire, with Trump, they clearly have an ally.
2
The two parties long ago reversed their reputations of which is the 'conservative' party and which is the 'tax and spend' party, labels which used to be the shorthand describing which was the responsible party and which was not. How many times do the Dems have to ride in to save the day before the public understands (while the Dems take the heat?)
The GOP has gotten very good at hiding it's spending in the extra interest payments we're paying on all the unfunded debt they're piling on.
5
In referring to the graph, one is struck by the precipitous rise in the deficit during the first two years of Obama's presidency when he had majorities in both houses of Congress. That's matched by the equally precipitous decline over the rest of his terms when Democrats lost control of the house. One may argue that Obama needed to increase the deficit to save us from the recession, but in fact GDP decreased 2% in 2008 and in 2009 was above pre-crash levels.
In fact, there were increases and declines in deficit relative to GDP under all presidents shown in the graph other than Clinton.
So Obama and Clinton were opposite ends of the fiscal responsibility spectrum, and I rate Leonhardt's argument inconclusive.
The dotted red line attributed to Trump is mere sophistry until the real figures come in, telling us if the tax cut works or not. The budget bill passed this year has a lot of Democrat input and wish lists that are a result of wanting to pass something to avoid a shutdown.
2
Any one remember David Stockman? He was Reagan's budget guru. His philosophy was starve the revenue side-tax cuts- in order to reduce social programs when the deficits went up. ( I think that is also the time when the republicans started to call social security and medicare "entitlements" in order to equate them to welfare programs.) Good ol Paul used the same philosophy --He did not wait more than a day or 2 before crying out the need to cut social programs because of his own deficit creating tax cuts...
1
I wish the media would stop using the term "fiscally conservative" to mean "fiscally responsible." This usage plays straight into Republican hands by suggesting some sort of correlation between fiscal responsibility and other kinds of "conservatism," when, as this piece shows, there is no such correlation, or even a negative correlation.
Instead, here's a suggestion. How about if we use "fiscal conservatism" to refer to economic policies actually espoused by conservatives, such as policies favoring the protection of acquired wealth? That's in contrast to "fiscal liberalism," which favors an equitable distribution of wealth.
2
I notice that there is always worry about how we will ever find the money to pay for education, SNAP, social security, Medicare and other social programs. There never seems to be worry about how we will pay for ballistic missile submarines, tanks, advanced fighter aircraft and other means of warfare.
5
We are avoiding that fact that the real problem is tax avoidance legal and illegal. The Republicans openly advocate and facilitate that more than the Democrats. Republicans always underfund the IRS enforcement division even though it more than pays for itself. That is all you need to know about Republicans. If we want state of the art infrastructure, universal healthcare, and great education system we need to start paying taxes. Now, the only people paying their fair share are the ones who have paychecks where the taxes are withheld.
4
Republicans are quite good at piercing their message into the heart of the country, so to speak.
National debt, they said was the biggest problem facing the country during the Obama administration. The nation got it.
Now they themselves created it by the huge tax-cuts for the rich, threatening the financial foundation of the nation. After the initial shock, people seem to like the tax-cuts as they see a few extra dollars in their paychecks. Now Republicans want to deplete entitlements and safety-nets to rectify the looming national debt!
What Democrats need to do is constantly push for a higher top rate of 50% on the superrich, say only on over the top 0.05% income households. They would still pay at the current rates on their initial 99.95% incomes. But this taxation would still bring tens of $billions annually.
To help the working poor, reduce the payroll tax to 1% on the first $10K & to 2% on the second $10%, but lift the cap but reduce it again to 1% beyond $150-200K income. If Democrats do this constantly as the Republicans did about debt during Obama presidency, the public would get it.
3
The president has much less control over the economy than does the Congress. I would like to see the same charts based on who was inn control of each chamber at the time, one might get a different picture.
1
The writer was just getting started under Clinton, so he probably missed your point.
Amen brother! I wish the public would come to recognize this. Too often through my life, I have heard people talk about Republicans as trying to reduce the "give-away programs," which to these individuals represents any social program other than Social Security and Medicare, the ones benefiting them. Unfortunately, thanks to the spendthrift Republicans, the biggest give-away program is on track to be the country's interest payments, which, in many cases, aren't even going to Americans.
1
The only problem with Leonhardt's observations is that deficits aren't always bad public policy and surpluses aren't always good public policy.
The federal gov't is a fiat currency monetary sovereign. It is responsible for creating money to provide adequate liquidity for our economy to efficiently function. Accordingly, it would be a economic disaster if we didn't have growing deficits. Every time we run surpluses, a recession follows. Growth requires deficits.
Of course it's possible to run too large a deficit and have too much money chasing too little goods and services. That's where inflation comes from. But absent inflation, deficits are good public policy that enable economic growth.
1
The public debt is now $21 trillion. Net interest on our debt is now $292 billion. Our deficit is $740 billion. When is enough, enough? Sooner or later the consequences of spending more than we are receiving is going to catch up with us.
1
The author is overlooking a 'minor' part of government which is the House of Representatives. Democrats had control of the House from 1955 until 1995, which included the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. Reagan couldn't have passed his tax and economic policies without the Democratic controlled House. Republicans controlled the House during three of four Congresses under Clinton.
Perhaps the author would like to reconsider some of his conclusions.
6
The Democrats are not only the party of fiscal responsibility; the economy performs much better in terms of GDP growth, stock market, and job creation. See The Economist "Timing is Everything" (August 2014).
It was Bill Clinton who balanced the budget 1998-2001, by raising taxes on the rich and cutting defense spending.
It was Barack Obama who kept spending flat from 2009-2014 at around $3.5 trillion (we actually spent slightly less in 2014 than 2009), amazing when you consider 5% annual spending increases were the norm prior to his Administration.
When you compare Presidential debt performance, compare it against the CBO 10-year baseline forecast made in the year they were inaugurated. Bush turned surpluses in debt, adding $5.5 trillion more in debt to his January 2001 baseline. Obama added $3.6 trillion in debt to his January 2009 baseline, mainly by extending the Bush tax cuts after their scheduled expiration in 2010.
So far, Trump has added between $1.6 trillion and $2.7 trillion to his June 2017 baseline (more if we use the January 2017 baseline), depending on whether his individual tax cuts are allowed to expire in 2025.
7
Fake news Dave!
The Fedral budget became balanced in 1998-2001 because of taxes paid on huge stock gains on Tech stocks.
Obama had no choice but to sign the budgets that Republicans sent to him!!
David your statistics are a bit skewed since your column overlooks the fact that Congress establishes the budget and at least since 1969 neither party in Congress has been particularly fond of debt reduction. The reason that the Democratic Presidents seem to be more debt conscious is because the GOP in Congress, especially during the Clinton & Obama Administrations, were able to bargain down the original deficits that occurred from a lack of spending discipline. The Republicans in Congress did not apply the same pressure to the Republican presidents Bush II and Trump to lower federal spending.
In short, the $21 trillion dollar debt and the current $768 deficit is the responsibility of all of us, Republican and Democrat. There is no credit for either party on this, only blame. And ultimately, the blame must fall on the American electorate which has favored more spending on programs and tax cuts for all of us (not just the rich) which have ballooned our debt. This debt will now be the responsibility of our children & grandchildren to pay. All of us are responsible for mortgaging their future!
3
Neither party is doing what needs to be done to get our debt under control. We need to set a goal, such as a 50% public debt to GDP ratio, and then figure what measures need to be taken to get us there. Both parties need to be willing to give (Republicans on significant tax increases and Democrats on significant spending cuts) in order to do what is necessary to get the job done and to put our nation's fiscal house in order. There is no free lunch. We need to grow up and live within our means as a nation. We have no future if we don't.
1
It's far too late for journalists to come out and say, "Hey, wait a minute. That thing that is so important to many voters - fiscal conservatism - well, we've been misleading you about that for about two generations now." Many state and national elections likely have been swayed in the GOP's favor because of this lapse in journalistic integrity. The general public, and especially Republican voters, think Republicans are the fiscally conservative ones, the exact opposite of the truth.
It is not the job of journalists to avoid being partisan if the facts lead to a partisan conclusion. Perhaps one of these days mainstream news sources will point out that job creation and GDP growth have each been FAR superior under Democratic administrations. Meanwhile, right-wing news sources will continue to deliberately mislead people into thinking Republicans are fiscally conservative and better for the economy.
11
Nowhere in this column is there any mention of the bipartisan profligacy of the permanent war/surveillance state. Congress traditionally has given the Pentagon and the "intelligence" community carte blanche to do their violent unaccountable things with only the slightest levels of token oversight.
Yes, Democrats are more "fiscally responsible" regarding taxes. But during the cycles that they're in power, they're very willing to wheel and deal with the GOP on cuts to the social safety net. It was only due to the recalcitrance of the Tea Party that President Obama was unable to achieve his own "Grand Bargain" with House Speaker John Boehner, after the so-called Cat Food Commission for Fiscal Responsibility had also failed to make "sensible" cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
The Democratic Party abandoned the poor and working class decades ago in the name of this "fiscal responsibility." And they wonder why millions of financially strapped people turned to the fake populism of Donald Trump in the last cycle.
Desperate people don't vote for wonks, pragmatists, fiscal hawks and a better life for themselves someday, but just not right now. If you don't believe me, look at what's happening to Gov. Cuomo in New York State. The Working Families Party abandoned him for the sole reason that he has stiffed working families in the interests of his oligarchic backers.
2
I guess it's really easy to be "fiscally responsible" when you constantly raise taxes as a de rigueur form of government. The question is "fiscally responsible" to whom, certainly not the taxpayers.
3
We all want infrastructure, help in national disasters, a strong military, a safety net for illness, old age, unemployment, great schools, etc. but we don’t want to pay for them. That’s what taxes are for, folks.
15
The ridicules claim of Leonhardt that Obama was a dupe or a coward for not attacking Syria after the most notorious jihadist false flag chemical attack of the Syrian Civil War is astounding. The Republicans forced Obama away from fighting the recession in 2008 with the interminable sequester torture and kept the country limping along for 8 years. With wages stagnant and wealth relentlessly concentrating at the top. Now the Rs have taken all the levers of power in Washington and passed a tax cut for the wealthy and left the country with over a trillion dollars of debt for the year. So much for supply side economics. But the Rs will claim that corporate profits are way up.
4
A smaller deficit is not either inherently good or bad for the USA, its desirability rests entirely on the state of the economy. So can we please move on from deficit size being the only metric for assessing comparative fiscal responsibility?
Why is it that we have to jettison consideration of who is responsible for budget deficits and who for reducing those deficits, when the data prove Republican claims (and journalists' timidity in the face of facts) to be false?
No way. Leonhardt has pointed out an issue that should form the core economic argument Democrats make this mid-term election year: We take better care of the average taxpayer. than Republicans do, and here are the facts. Drum it in. Even go on Fox TV to argue the point!
The GOP serves the wealthy.
Debt and deficits require treasury bonds. These are no risk investments backed up by M-16's.
Interest on the debt is a redistribution of wealth from the middle-class to the wealthy. It is now a greater proportion of the federal budget than true welfare.
Any Republican president believes they have a responsibility to keep the issuance of debt instruments strong.
3
Here's how it works:
1) Define Democrats as the "tax and spend" party, and proclaim that you, Republicans, are the party of "balanced budgets" and economic growth.
2)Declare without evidence that "tax cuts will pay for themselves with economic growth" - and every time you have the ability, enact more tax breaks (always carefully focusing the great majority of the reductions on the already very wealthy).
3)Blame the inevitable resulting deficit and debt increases on the Democrats in Congress's unwillingness to reduce spending as necessary (never from Defense, always from "welfare").
4) Repeat as opportunity presents itself.
Note that this breaks down this time, as Trump's "tax reform" comes at a time when Congress is also in Republican hands, so the ballooning deficits and debt must land on Republicans also. In this case, expect Trump to blame it all on Congress, since all he wanted was increased Defense spending, and his wall. "Everything else deficit-wise is Congress's fault..."
6
The Bizarro World explanation. It takes time for these effects to take place. So, the Clinton years were the beneficiaries of the "tough" decisions by his predecessor. In contrast, the Bush years were a recovery from the Clinton's invisible damage to the economy, which George W had to handle.
There's a kind of crazy logic to this, of course.
On the other hand, Robert Rubin, under Clinton, deregulated the banking industry giving us the 2008 meltdown.
1
IF the only thing your Party cares about is reducing the reach of Government. IF you cannot leverage a piecemeal reduction of government expenditures, especially entitlements. THEN a viable strategy may be to explode the deficit with a bipartisan budget monstrosity. THEN afterwards claim the moral/fiscal high ground by proposing to downsize all but the military and pushing a balanced budget amendment.
THAT'S what Paul Ryan was advocating before he saw the futility and the harm he had done and bailed leaving this mess to...the Democrats and a handful of Republicans to clean up.
6
I recall Reagan's campaign message: "Tax and spend, tax and spend, Democrats are all tax and spend." A great example of saturation advertising - If you say something often enough people will come to believe it. It's the same method by which GOP convinced many of their folks that Obama was Muslim or born in Kenya, or that there's no evidence against Trump, or that Republicans are stronger on military service despite Bush Jr and Trump's exemptions. Republicans have become particularly good at repeating false messages enough that they become believed.
Democrats are weak at countering these advertising campaigns. Factual assessments like this article and the CBO data behind it need to be used much more frequently, especially during campaigns.
Republicans are not more fiscally responsible (except to their wealthy benefactors).
12
I have said this before: Republicans have for decades tried to make a pejorative out of the statement of " The Democrats are the Tax and Spend Party".
Note the key word: Tax. An amazing concept of the citizens electing representatives who make the hard choices of asking the citizens to tax themselves to pay for those very things that the citizens ask for from their Government.
Yet the other party (Republicans) always seem to have the nation's credit card at the checkout counter.
12
Fiscal responsibility remains a concept tossed out the window when the popularity of either political party is served by such a gesture. My first memory was of Lyndon Johnson assuring us that we could have guns and butter without a tax increase and then adding a bid chunk of butter by using social security funds to fuel much of the Medicare and Medicaid program,
Back to the drawing board, Mr. Leonhardt! Before this information is to be believed by rational people who took Civics in high school and/or Economics in college, it needs to be redone.
Why? The chart shows the name of the President but fails to show which party had the majority in Congress.
Since a proposed budget comes from the President but the budget process by law requires that the proposed budget then goes to Congress, where both the House of Representatives and the Senate "analyze the President’s budget proposal and drafts a budget resolution setting overall spending levels. Then a conference committee of House and Senate members resolves differences between the two plans to create a final version that each chamber votes on.” https://www.usa.gov/budget
Get back with us with a chart that shows who controlled Congress - since that's where spending is determined.
3
But final credit goes to the president because he signs it or veto it.
7
What's the alternative when a president disagrees with the budget? Fail to sign it? Shut down the government?
As the law gives the final signature to the president, your 'final credit' makes sense.
But as the law gives the Congress the job of creating the actual budget, and the President must sign it or face dire consequences, final credit should rest with the Congress.
What would you sign if there was a gun held to your head? Hint: You might want to ask Bill Clinton.
That level of analysis isn't appropriate for an op-ed. But it is here: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20140913.
1
GOP plan: Start by cutting aid to higher education and weakening public schools with low funding, then manipulate the less educated population into voting for politicians who want people chop off their own feet so power brokers can have more boots for their mansions 10 walk-in closets. It's been working this way since the time of Reagan. The problem now is how to reach a population that has been convinced that trickle-down and the supposedly free-market actually work.
14
Do Trump supporters think T-Down and free markets work?
Perhaps the Democrats should be called the "Tax THEN Spend" party and the Republicans should be called the "Cut Taxes AND Spend" party.
19
Wow. Somebody, after 30 years actually said that in the NYT? After watching my own investments, earnings, national deficeits and everything else nose-dive every time conservatives were in power, only to see financial stability built back up in Democrat years, I applaud that the Times has finally caught on. It's a watershed moment.
22
"One party has now spent almost 40 years cutting taxes and expanding government programs without paying for them."
-------
You also forgot to mention "starting wars without paying for them."
34
Republicans, just to be clear.
Once again, if this is an evidence-based analysis, what is it doing on the Opinion page? Therein lies your problem, Mr. Leonhardt. Not only does the press have a problem declaring one party more successful than another, one party whines about being treated unfairly and the press bends over backward to be fair to that party. It's why the readership of the NYTimes is so sick to death of sympathetic profiles of Trump supporters or normalizing assessments of white nationalists. It isn't just a problem of the news pages either. Whoever edits the Opinion page has been allowing a lot of untruths in the service of Fair and Balanced that isn't really fair and balanced.
Most of us already figured out for ourselves the pattern of Democratic fiscal responsibility (please don't call it conservatism), so perhaps your issue here needs to be why journalists lack the courage to report the truth for fear of... loss of access? Or is it just the fear of being picked off if you stray from the herd?
18
Have you interviewed Jim Jordan, if not why not, isn't it the most important question to get him"this republican oracle" to refute this truth? Pursue him everyday with this fact-
2
Where did the phrase "who are you going to trust, me or your lying eyes?" originate?
Long before the great Richard Pryor, Chico Marx (playing the character Chicolini while impersonating Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) Chico Marx ) spoke the line in the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. The Marx Brothers. In the 1933 script, the line goes "Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" Duck Soup Script Same in the movie Duck Soup (1933)
1
Therefore, vote Democrat. Unless you like being in debt your entire life.
8
It is heartening to see Mr. Leonhardt begin to address a problem that has plagued the coverage of politics for as long as I can remember. In a recent New York Times op-ed article Paul Krugman spoke of "Ideological affirmative action," "motivated gullibility," and"bothsidesism." Each of these terms is a brilliant encapsulation of the failures of journalism that benefited the Republican party and made the Trump presidency possible.
6
Duh. Democrats always function as the Janitor, cleaning up the disaster left by the previous republican regime. See : Clinton, then Obama.
And the disaster left by Trump will be like a never ending Tsunami.
13
hmm.... perhaps you don't comprehend your own diagnosis....
"It does not fit preconceptions.". In science, this is called a model and the practice of science is to form specific hypothesis and test them. This process is a form of high level of critical thinking. (Notice, there is no role for testing how uncomfortable people are with the results).
The reason that you are uncomfortable NOW is because you have failed at exercising a minimal level of critical thinking... for what you note is almost 40 years!. Sadly, your standard practice was ... on the one hand.... and on the other hand. A terrific strategy for winning a popularity contest. God forbid that you build a factual supported analysis that makes people uncomfortable.
Notice how few people/comments are surprised by your new analysis of now the 4th repeat of this flim flam.
This form of journalism is a waste of ink, paper and now electrons/pixels.
1
Nice to see a journalist stop the false equivalence between the parties. Unfortunately there are many other times this doesn't happen.
The Republicans are that very adept child who consistently cries about unfair treatment in the press (playing the refs) and the Democrats, unfledgingly trying to be fair, always let them have the last word.
A recent case in point is this amazingly silly notion of the “deep state,” which is so far from reality that it pains me to see the Democrats letting them utter the term. It is ridiculous. Next time have them lay out for you what they mean by the “ deep state,” so we can laugh aloud.
It is amazing that the under represented had a champion named Obama, and Republicans have many convinced he’s for the big guy.
It’s amazing how stupid both sides think the American people are. Perhaps not?
4
I have wondered for a long time about why it has taken so long for this:
"People are catching on to the con."
There are many potential answers. One is that reporters who set the baseline of public understanding just don't get it and are, yes, afraid to report the straight out truth for fear of being accused of taking sides. Further, too much education can be a hinderance. Say waa? By staying in college to masters degrees and law degrees, reporters have submitted themselves to learn too much about too many old templates which they then apply incorrectly to new situations. Hey, they invested all that money and time in classes, they want to use it, right?
Everyone inside journalism knows it is governed by unwritten rules about not attacking people in power too hard or too directly (unless they invite it) and, even more importantly, it is governed by the herd instinct. "We" being a news organization in the know, or "I", an individual reporter who is well informed and up-to-date, MUST report something close to what others are saying. Besides, one news organization, even "the holy New York Times", can't have much influence unless it reflects what is being reported elsewhere.
For more than 40 yrs, the right attacked major media as biased against them. The charge sunk in in the form of caution and professionalism. Plus, the daily whirl of reporting mitigates against...please get this...the stated purpose of journalism, truth. Stories come and go, truth goes missing, buried.
5
Who cares? Can anyone tell me why we are supposed to care about the deficit, as such? Has the writer ever considered that question? Maybe if Obama had done more deficit spending through the Great Recession, Democrats wouldn't have lost every branch of government during and after his tenure.
This column is completely irrelevant.
You may have forgotten Obama tried to do more but was blocked by the Republican Congress who wanted to insure he was a one-term president, to the detriment of the recovery.
3
My rock-ribbed Republican father and I used to quarrel about this all the time back in the Reagan era. He would rail about "Tax-and-Spend-Democrats!" My comeback was that it was a more honest approach than the "Borrow-and- Spend-Republicans."
4
It's worth thinking about where your discomfort comes from. It's part of a 40+ year campaign by the right (and yes, it is the right) to shame members of the media from criticizing it.
From Sprio Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativity" to the poisonous vitriol that parades itself as "news" on Fox, the media has been kowtowed into mindless false equivalence in order to appear "unbiased."
So yes, you may feel "a little uncomfortable," but the fact that you do when telling the truth is not an accident.
5
Duh. Dems believe you actually have to pay
for things. Repubs run up huge debts and dem
presidents have to clean their messes up.
ThenREpubs attack for raising taxes to pay
the bills.
Supply side is a con. period the end
5
"The Democrats Are the Party of Fiscal Responsibility"
Duh!
1
The great myth promoted by the GOP coupled with a few other snazzy phrases--"bleeding heart liberals" is one--has only one aim: to sustain the upper upper class, old white men, and big business which has responsibility to their shareholders alone. We were making an amazing comeback from the the great recession under Obama. And now this mess...
4
And Democrats are party of morality, family values, racial and gender and religious equality, law and order, decency, environmental conservatism, american leadership, global alliances, patriots. Oh the swamp, it belongs to the GOP and its leader DT.
4
Democrats want to govern, Republicans want to rule.... it is that simple.
7
A society built on lies and misinformation is sure to crumble. America must educate itself! And VOTE!
2
But with lies from the left and lies from the right, it's tough to vote@
1
You present this as if it were some kind of deep insight. Uh, David, this trend, AS YOU POINT OUT, is forty years old. It predates your entire journalist career. And it took you more than two decades to figure it out?
I thought our media deserved at least the bare minimum credit of being able to see what was an inch in front of their face, but clearly not.
2
This column is much less an indictment of Republican fiscal policy than it is of a press that perpetuates myth more than it subjects itself to the discipline of objective reporting.
1
Give me 'tax and spend' over 'borrow and spend' every day.
5
Democratic spending is viewed by conservatives as irresponsible but not because of its affect on the deficit. Republicans feel that Democrats waste public money because we want to spend it on foolish things like aid to the poor, food stamps, preschool education, healthcare, help for drug addicts, single mothers, the elderly, the homeless, immigrants. Liberals want to subsidize higher education and scientific research. Conservatives hate seeing their money going to "those people" -- the poor, the do-gooders, the pointy-headed academics.
Making life better for wealthy people (lowering their taxes) and putting more money into the military are, to Republicans, the most sensible economic and budgetary goals.
As for us Democrats, forget it: we're impractical. We're all a bunch of foolish old hippies, naive millenials, and radical black activists. How could we possibly be good at running an economy?
4
Agree. The moniker “tax and spend liberals” has everything to do w Republicans despising what the spending is being used for. They seem fine with increasing the deficit for the military, an absurd Wall, privatizing government institutions (our military, prisons, maybe the VA) which gives our tax dollars to big businesses to make a profit off our backs, and of course providing substantial tax cuts to the wealthiest, all while dismantling or undercutting programs that serve the greater good and the greater need.
Give me a fiscal conservative/social liberal any day, over the Debt Loving/social conservatives who are currently running the show into the ground. You know, the ones like Trump or Pruitt who use our taxes like we’re their ATM.
"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" - Chicollini, 1933 (dressed as Rufus T Firefly)
"'As a political candidate, I'll go with what people feel,' rather than the actual facts." - Newt Gingrich, 2016 (dressed as paragon of GOP truthiness)
2
"Notice a Pattern?"
Yes. The US and all governments steal money from its citizens to enrich the already wealthy. That is the pattern. It's not a two party issue. It's a Constitutional issue, which by the way was created by rich white people.
2
David Leonhardt wrote, "The country’s political impressions are heavily influenced by people who are supposed to be neutral observers — reporters, television anchors, think-tank experts and the like. They’re not perfectly neutral, of course. They have their biases. But most aspire to partisan neutrality. It’s an honorable aspiration." A good example of that bias is right here at The New York Times, which in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/us/politics/nancy-pelosi-democrats-im...">February</a> and again in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/us/politics/nancy-pelosi-democrats-ca...">March</a> published articles proclaiming that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is "polarizing." No evidence was offered that Leader Pelosi is actually a polarizing figure or more polarizing than anyone else. The New York Times was simply repeating a GOP talking point as if it was actual news. In reality, President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are far more polarizing than Leader Pelosi, but shamefully, The New York Times undoubtedly strives for "partisan neutrality" but with in the case of Democratic Leader Pelosi, the Times failed twice this year to live up to that standard.
1
The continuing deference to GOP propaganda isn’t limited to analysts and pundits. The evening TV news and The NY Times devote space to presenting Paul Ryan’s baloney while factual reporting gets buried and scantily reported. It’s called “balance”, hah hah!
4
The evidence is clear: Democrats are lousy in the flim-flam game called American Democracy. Time and time again the Republicans convince voters with fake news. It's hard to decide: Shame on who?
2
Anyone who can add and subtract should know this by now. Too many journalists can't, but it's great to have a few who can, such as David Leonhardt and Paul Krugman.
Okay, David. So if that's obviously the truth, then what you are you doing about the fact that your colleagues in the news division aren't reporting stories stating that fact?
Don't you have an obligation to insist that your newspaper publish the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might make those reporters? Or their editors, for that matter? Or the owners of the Times?
3
David in this column you recognize what to many has been obvious for a long time. You recognize the positive effects of a Democratic administration and the failure of the MSM to report this honestly. Now I ask you to do one thing, recognize your duty and ability to report this loudly and repeatedly. To do less is to abdicate your duty as a member of the Fourth Estate!
2
No need to apologize and feel uncomfortable for doing a real Journalist job: reporting the facts supported by objective data using verifiable logic. We expect that, after all you do not work for FoxNews.
2
Democratic administrations consistently do better than Republicans, not just on the deficit, but on job growth, GDP growth. unemployment, and even the stock market. when they promote deficits, as Obama did in the fiscal crisis, (saving the auto industry) it was good economic policy, hindered by Republicans. Throw in Obamacare that has substantially bent the health care cost curve, stabilizing costs as a percentage of GDP,dramatically improving our long term budget outlook (Can you say entitlement reform? -Mission Accomplished while you weren't watching). And Democrats spend on a lot of worthwhile investments with long term benefits (education, infrastructure, health, safety...). It's not even close.
1
The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that our tax dollars pay for, has done research on the connection between tax cuts and GDP. It issued a report that Mitch McConnell tried to suppress that shows tax cuts do not help economic growth measured by an increase in GDP. They only add to income inequality.
Howard Dean is right. You cannot trust Republicans with your money.
2
An important item to see in this chart is Democrats taking advantage of booming economies to reduce deficits. You see Republican presidents increasing the deficits at the wrong time. As we see now, massive increase in the deficit when the economy is booming which means we will be in worse shape for the next recession.
2
Obamacare did not cut costs! While it is true that HHS continually denies payments and reduces the reimbursement for certain procedures annually, the net cost to the citizen increases, exponentially.
And it is disengenuous to imply Dems are fiscally conservative - just take a look at CA, IL, NY! What is true is this... politicians in DC, regardless of party, continue to expand the government (Obama added over 100 new depts/agencies, and Bush was a close second); as the government expands, so does the number of government employees and the cost of government. You'd think we'd be able to measure the cost benefit, but we cannot as there is none.
1
thank you searching for and shining light on the truth, as Mr. Pulitzer advised.
2
I agree but only up until a point. This interpretation avoids environmental factors. Externalities in the parlance of economists. Was Bill Clinton really a good budgetary steward? Or did Bill simply manage to ride the bull of economic and technological change intrinsic to the 1990s?
Critics will obviously argue Bill had less to do with the surplus than the legacy of Reagan's expansion. Supporters will argue H.W.'s bravery in the light of budgetary conservatism heeled the economy and set the stage for expansion. Both narratives are partially true but they are simply convenient narratives.
I tend to agree more with the latter story. George W's performance definitely lends more weight to the argument for Democratic responsibility. The budgetary crisis resulting from Bush II as 100 percent the result of policy. Trump, Ryan, McConnell, et al. only reinforce this supposition. This also makes the Obama recovery that much more remarkable.
Still, we risk ignoring accidental factors by focusing narrowly on fiscal policy. Separating partisan cause from accidental consequence is incredibly difficult. My favor still goes to Democrats but let's not over sell the narrative.
I just listened to Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, claiming that under Obama, GDP growth was only 1% or less, and blaming him for low wage growth. How can we motivate our leaders to work together to address our economic problems when one side is always spouting lies for political advantage?
5
While we are setting the record straight, how about discontinuing the practice of calling Social Security as an entitlement?
If you do not participate via the premium collected as a payroll tax, you do not qualify. If you do not earn enough points by participation you also do not qualify. Following the meme that Social Security is an entitlement makes it look like welfare- which it is not. It also is self funded and the benefits paid do not cause deficits.
13
Not questioning your data, and heartily endorse your sentiments - but, how much of the observed result is due to partisan effort vs. how much due to blind luck - being in office during an economic boom time?
Perhaps. But currently we are in a Relative up cycle and running up the deficit instead of putting money away for a rainy day.
2
All politicians like to spend. Financially supporting their constituents helps them get re-elected. Generally speaking, financial support by Democrats is via social welfare and via corporate welfare by Republicans. The later is documented by the recent large tax cuts for corporations, which by all estimates (including the Congressional Budget Office) will create bigger budget deficits and an even larger national debt.
5
If you plot the time series of annual deficits adjusted for inflation (real deficits) for the post WWII period, Ike - Trump to date, you'll readily see that the GOP is the party of deficits, period. Moreover, a simple calculation and graphing of average annual change in real deficits .. by party tenure .. reveals that the GOP has presided over virtually the entirety of deficit growth over that period.
And, people say the media has a "liberal bias?" Not on this point ...
11
It is commonplace to use terms such as "the economy" and "the nation or the country". We treat these words as existing realities. The simple fact is that such terminology represents its underlying basis, We The People. A country and its economy are nothing more than the sum of its citizens.
When we declare that the economy is weak this means that the position of its citizens is weakening. When the country goes to war, it's citizens, mostly young lives are put in harm's way. The US did not bomb Syria, certain of its citizens did.
Why state the obvious? I want to believe that if every decision citizens take, especially when viewing the success and failures of their country and those governing it is viewed through the prism of what is the impact to me, my family, my friends and the population as a whole, those elected to Congress in the 2018 elections will have the best interest of the country in heart and mind.
Neither Dems nor Republicans have expanded or contracted the deficit, indirectly the People have, either by being duped by disingenuous politicians, not scrutinizing their record or perhaps by simply not putting enough thought into their vote. The mess this country faces, was caused by the people and only the People can rectify it.
Here's to a voter turnout exceeding 70% in 2018. For me, the higher the turnout, the greater the probability the country and its citizens will get back on a proper footing.
4
Yes, Democrats have failed to communicate how much better they are at deficit reduction than Republicans. But the real challenge is explaining to voters why this matters and how they will benefit
11
Republicans, Mr. Leonhardt, have always been better at messaging. They know they can’t compete with truth so they employ fear—any of the hot-button issues—abortion; race; jobs—will suffice.
Democrats once owned the American narrative: F.D.R., J.F.K., even L.B.J. was capable of soaring in the rarified air of oratory on occasion. Recall Clinton and Obama’s rhetorical flourishes—especially the latter—but they all required that we all participate in the heavy lifting. Republicans want the heavy lifting done while they observe, grimaces on their wrinkled faces, from the frowning sidelines.
If you’ve followed national spending policy for even the briefest of times, it’s easy to see where the GOP wants to go. Theirs is a philosophy of government that holds that any staying hand upon free enterprise is very nearly blasphemy--like denying the crucified Christ—whom they summon to their threadbare arguments with the straightest of faces. They desire military spending through the roof—but not to protect the homeland—they wish military might to protect their assets. Nothing more.
So when Democratic presidents propose spending taxpayer money on the various facets of the common need—roads and ways; ports; public transportation; even recreational settings such as national parks and monuments, the GOP froths at the mouth, “creeping Socialism” they shrill, and get out the message that spending on these line items benefits “others.”
It’s all un-American, of course, but that’s the point.
18
Perception is a game that Republicans have mastered. They wrap themselves in American flags, they loudly claim strong Christian faith - implying their opponents may be something else - and they lie with polished ease.
As Trump has said, "you say it and they believe it."
What is most disturbing is professional journalists who fall for the Broadway Republican performance which rivals Fox for propaganda.
8
How many times will the voting public vote for the party that has given us mor recessions and depressions than any other. Voters keep believing you can turn copper into gold. The Republican Party is now right where the Whig Party was in 1830’s. What’s next? They morph into the Neo No Nothing’s?
4
The Republican Party has no real policy foundation other than to project and create an image of vast misrepresentation. As the article points out they gather people around the banner that spending is bad because you can’t spend what you don’t have. They constantly find reasons to build a military force by their aggravation of international geopolitical issues that have constantly led to war after war, big and small, long and short paying Government Contractors gigantic sums of money that create the highest profit margins on earth, those contractors reward the Republicans by financing their election campaigns. Through this rat wheel of corruption Republicans build the illusion of being a political party that is best on defense and security. In other words they light fires and put them out. In recent years, the past 5 decades they no longer win wars even against small tin pot dictators. The second area of hypocrisy is the constant need to pay back their richest donors by lowering their contribution to the country that made them irresponsibly rich through tax reduction and favorable inclination toward the wishes of these mega rich by enacting laws and rules of the road that increase their wealth by even higher profit margins, Tell me what else do they do ?
5
During the 15-month period from January 2017 to March 2018 2 million 800,000 jobs were created, an average of less than 200,000 jobs per month. That is over 500,000 fewer than the 3 million 300,000 jobs that were created during the similar period from January 2015 to March 2016, without rolling back any environmental regulations.
Also, it is 1 million 500,000 fewer jobs than the 4 million 300,000 jobs that would have been created in 15 months at the average rate of job creation of the Clinton administration, 100,000 jobs per month higher than that of the current administration.
At the current rate of job creation some 19 million jobs will be created between 2017 and 2020. At the rate of job creation during the Clinton administration some 30 million jobs would be created between 2017 and 2020. At an average reduction in the deficit of between $10,000 and $15,000 per new job because of increased tax receipts from individuals and corporations, reduced unemployment benefits, and reduced interest payments on the national debt, the deficit could be eliminated by 2020.
By rescinding some of the recent tax cuts that are shown to have no positive effect on employment (i.e., no “trickle-down”) we could be in surplus territory, and could be starting to pay down the national debt.
2
The perception gap is caused by outright lies by Republican politicians and their rhetoric eagerly repeated by the media.
4
Both parties and their respective presidents have continued to call the appropriations for the 17 year old Iraq/Afghanistan war 'emergency' expenditures and exclude them from the regular budget and the reported budget deficit. Shame, shame on all of them.
7
An interesting article, and probably true. But I would like to see statistics on the deficit based on who controlled congress, not the presidency. Can you give this to us, Mr. Leonhardt?
5
"The country’s political impressions are heavily influenced by people who are supposed to be neutral observers — reporters, television anchors, think-tank experts and the like."
Journalists like to think of themselves as neutral observers. But the real world intrudes on their fantasy. The real world includes Sinclair and Fox. Their journalists do not share your pretense of neutrality. They are propaganda outlets for the Republican Party, the party that killed the FCC fairness doctrine.
5
While the writer has a valid point, both parties are fiscally irresponsible about running the government without paying for it. Both need to tackle putting social security and Medicare on a firmer financial footing. While the Republicans may be the bigger hypocrites on this issue, if the Democrats believe in government, then they should pay for it and not try to obscure the real costs.
1
Where do we think voters get the idea that the Democrats are tax-and-spend but Republicans are fiscal conservatives? What makes them believe that the Democrats want illegal immigrants to steal their jobs, while the Republicans quietly ship their jobs overseas? Why do they think that bleeding-heart Democrats want to make them pay taxes to support "welfare queens," while behind the scenes the Republican donors slyly stuff what should have been their fair contribution to the running of the country into their bloated offshore bank accounts?
Four words: Fox "News," false equivalency
We must restore the Fairness Doctrine.
10
Yes, Dems have been the party of fiscal responsibility, within the boundaries of what is politically possible. We will need more revenue to meet long-term health care needs and calling for the tax increases that will require is not politically possible. And in fairness to Dems, few media sources would dream of giving them the justified credit Leonhardt does: instead, the media mostly resorts to the "pox on both their houses" false equivalence that has given a sick Republican Party cover for years now.
4
Marketing is the art of creating a belief unrestrained by reality. Republicans have mastered it, and Democrats are still talking about fairness.
3
It makes sense in that the agenda of the GOP is to reduce government by starving revenue so social welfare programs are underfunded, thus leaving it to Democrats, when they finally have the majority to balance the budget, and then blowing a hole in the budget when the GOP are back in office.
1
“Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”
When St. Reagan said that "government is not the solution, it is the problem," many Americans swooned. Even now right wing pundits, including the more moderate David Brooks, speak fondly of St. Reagan.
When GWB unashamedly stood atop an aircraft carrier and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," the GOP roared.
When Trump repeated multiple times "The Mexicans are going to pay for this wall," his supporters roared. This became such a standard cliche that he switched to asking the people the question "Who's going to pay for the wall?" to which his base roared "Mexico."
What is common to all these examples? They speak to the gullibility of a swath of Americans who will believe anything said by a Republican in spite of their senses telling them that something is awry and incorrect.
Clearly the Marx brothers knew Americans' illiteracy and/or gullibility long before these politicians began to exploit that.
5
It is ridiculous to claim Democrats are the party of fiscal discipline. Yes, taxes perhaps can be raised on certain segments, but there is not enough money in the 1% to pay for the programs the democrats favor, and for the government jobs and pensions they want to provide.
The Republican machine has great skill in propaganda. They create sound bites and apparently press a button to start their talking heads spewing those sound bites non-stop, until the public start thinking that, since they’ve heard it so often and for so long, it must be true.
The idea that the Republican Party is the party of “conservatives” is one of these ideas. They put a spin on it, making it appear to mean “fiscally conservative” but the only conservation that is happening is the conservation of political power being held in white men’s hands. For them, conservation means “no change” so that they can maintain their positions of power.
1
The Democrats are indeed the party of fiscal responsibility.
What is the GOP? The party of machine gun rights? The "starve the beast" party?
1
What does this say about our country when almost half the population do not pay federal income taxes ?
To the right it means "they are all the takers"
In reality it means in many cases that they don't make enough on 2 or 3 jobs to reach the federal tax threshold.
Were there no rich people left after the New Deal ?
Nonsense, the rich were never really hurt when many have enough to last several lifetimes.
Today we have become so much worse. Twenty percent or more of our citizens live below the poverty level. Sad and disgraceful. The war on poverty has become the war on the poverty stricken.
4
Nearly 10 trillion dollars added to the national debt during the Obama Presidency. Is this your definition of a deficit hawk? Not to mention a severely weakened military, which makes us significantly more at risk until it is rebuilt.
1
I can't believe we're still hearing this same old Fox News chestnut.
Most of the deficit created under Obama were incurred in the first few months of his administration in attempting to prevent a total meltdown of the financial system initiated by the Bush administration in 2008. Even larger deficit spending would have been appropriate for this purpose - but then the Republican deficit hawks started screeching about the deficit and generally obstructing most of what the Dems wanted to do to rebuild the economy. Remember the Sequester?
3
Did the USA get attacked during the 8 years obama was president? If not, why do you claim his efforts to control military spending (in reality, just baby steps) left us in danger of attack? What risk justifies the current regime's build up of an already expensive war machine?
Yes, and why don't Democrats tout this more?
Normal, moderate, non-partisan voters admire fiscal responsibility. It's as if Democrats buy into the lies from the other side.
4
It was very telling about Trump and Republicans in general when he continually portrayed the tax-cuts as something to help workers, pipe fitters, teachers and so forth, then when he (thought) he was alone with a massively rich constituency at Mar-a-Lago, said (and I quote) "You all just got a whole lot richer." referring to the tax cuts.
Yep, Republicans are about as serious about budgets as they are fund raising disclosure and the rule of law. What they are serious about is making life worse for the poor, doing everything they can to disenfranchise those who politically disagree with their perspective, and ensuring court appointments that will stand behind laws that keep their oligarchy in place.
Fortunately or unfortunately, when they chained themselves to Donald Trump, they put in motion a chain of events that will lead to more financial justice, sunlight and disclosure, and fewer court appointments. In fact, I hope we see some of Trump's to be recalled.
When all is said and done and the Republicans realize they've elected a criminal and charlatan, it will break the party in half.
Then, the Democrats will come in and do what they can to clean up the mess... just like they have.
2
Please, stop, your killing me. Let's ignore your illogical assumption that presidents, rather than legislators, make our budgets. Too obvious.
Instead, let's recall that our deficits are going to surge because of out-of-control spending on two programs: Medicare and social security. Democrats, including your hero Obama, have explicitly resisted any serious discussion of reforming these programs. Obama explicitly attacked Paul Ryan, the only serious member of Congress to make this his issue. Now he's gone. As is our future. So please stop. Democrats could care less about deficits.
1
@ MFW Please, stop. Both Medicare and SS need to be taxing upper income wages. Stopping taxes at lower levels makes these programs for wage earners look as if they are not "paid for". This, of course, neglects the entire non-wage component of wealth that many (not nearly enough) retirees have access to after retirement. Medicare is an efficient system to deliver health care to a segment of the population which uses it; Medicare needs to be expanded to age 55 or lower. Social Security needs to be a program which an provide actual living costs to retirees to keep them--especially women-- from years in poverty. It is a benefit which contributes to a healthy economy including consumer spending and employment.
2
I am in favor of getting more money in the private sector. Tax cuts do that, but in a very inefficient manner.
First of all, they have to be for those who need money and will spend it, and not to for those who do not need the money and will use most of it for financial speculation. The Republican bill does just the opposite.
Then think about this. Suppose we cut poor Joe's taxes $1,000. That gets $1,000 into the private sector because Joe will spend it, and it will go to help producing jobs for others. But suppose we pay Joe, $1,000 to cut the White House lawn. We still get the $1,000 into the economy, but we ALSO get the lawn cut.
That is why federal spending is a better way to get money into the private sector than tax cuts.
Now what would this do? Today although businesses and banks are awash with cash, businesses are not borrowing to expand because people do not have enough money to buy what they would produce. We have just have 2 studies that showed if the typical American family had a real emergency and had to come up with some money, they couldn't do it. One said the half the people couldn't come up with $400 & the other that 2/3rds couldn't find $1,000.
The FED cannot get the money to where is is needed, to where it would be useful, to where it would have high velocity. Since the crisis, the velocity of money has been plunging. https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2016/04/a-plodding-dollar-the-recent-dec...
2
The claim that Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility is absurd. Nor can the Republicans make this claim. The Democrats can claim more benefits, greater taxes and the Republicans can claim lower taxes, warmongering, more spending. However to claim the crown of Fiscal Responsibility is like comparing too falling down drunks on who gets the “Good driving” award.
2
The Dems are the party of fiscal responsibility? This has been obvious since the 1990s, when Bill Clinton helped produce our country’s first (and last) budget surplus since 1969.
3
The media had, as Franken pointed out, a lazy bias. It is much easier to just repeat memes that have generally been accepted.
4
Doing a thought experiment on what would be recent political history if Hillary Clinton was/is president would be useful for formulating what should be done within the next couple of years—and what appeal can best be used for the non-local dimensions of upcoming elections.
It’s easy to shun replaying why Clinton lost, but recent news is increasingly highlighting how the ascension of Trump was not the will of The People, such that The People chose a Democratic presidency that We are not getting, as the political situation gets worse at home, and American leadership is being set back decades.
There was a will of The People in the U.S. in 2016 that deserves to not be filed away in handwringing about how differently times might be now, if only a few little factors in the last days of the campaigns had not happened (such as a massive Wikileaks e-mail dump exactly as the slimeball’s Access Hollywood tapes were in the headlines).
We have a truly democratic president sitting on the sidelines, as we suffer a buffoon.
2
I stopped supporting Republicans on fiscal issues in the wake of Bush's absurd tax cuts, some 15 years ago.
It's nice that a reporter here or there is now recognizing Republicans' real fiscal position (as opposed to their stated position of fiscal prudence) but really, it's taken this long?
3
One party has now spent almost 40 years cutting taxes and expanding government programs without paying for them. The other party has raised taxes and usually been careful to pay for its new programs.
------------------
If you consider what people see on the local levels of government, the headline does not hold. Democrats are not viewed, nor are they, the party of fiscal responsibility. Not locally, and the view carries over to the Washington raise-the-taxes polices of the Democratic party.
1
In distinguishing Democrats from Republicans, deficits are beside the point. What matters most is the shear hatred the Republican party has espoused since the late 19th century.
1
The Democrats are the Party of adults. Yes, true fiscal responsibility lies within the Democratic Party because when they're in power they know how to restrain their impulses. Republicans talk a good game but when in power they're all over the place. Paying themselves in tax breaks, spending like drunken sailors, running up the national credit card, striking out at the poor, hugging their guns, asking no one to restrain them through deregulation. They're the adolescent Party. The teenagers who want the keys to the car but wait for the adults to fix it when they smash the car up after a night of drunken partying. This has been going on since the Reagan years and continues on now. Trump is just the latest iteration of the lack of impulse control that lies within the Party. The biggest difference is that he lets it all hang out through his tweets. Mind you, he'll crash the economy and the country once again and then the country will elect Democrats to come fix it just like last time.
4
I remember as an example the very first Republican legislation after the 2016 election, literally in the post midnight hours of the first day, was an attempt to hamstring the Congressional Ethics committee. Although abandoned later, it was a perfect expression of the Republican Id.
David, the rank and file who support the GOP understand that the lies serve a higher purpose, the creation of a gated community and slush fund for right-thinking white Christian Americans. Once that is assumed, every move fits: Tax cuts provide cover to reduce social services that benefit you know who. Local control of schools allows separate but (un)equal education. Beefing up an already bloated military provides a jobs program for those willing to swear an oath.
Oh, and as John Oliver recently reported, your tax dollars also support fake clinics that claim to offer a full range of medical services to pregnant women but actually don't: What else could they possibly be, you might ask if you have managed to ignore the connection between the GOP and fundamentalism.
Tax theft to fund military "procurement": According to Military.com in 2014: "The new defense spending bill includes $120 million for tanks that the Army has repeatedly said it doesn't want.
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said that Congress said that 'This provision keeps the production lines open in Lima, Ohio, ....'
"The General Dynamics Land Systems plant in Lima ... is in the district of Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
"The tank debate between the Army and Congress goes back to 2012 when Odierno testified that '[T]hese are additional tanks that we don't need.'"
It's a nice racket when one can distribute tax dollars among friends and then, when the tax payments run dry, max out the original American Express credit card.
3
"The only thing worse than a 'Tax and Spend' Democrat is a 'Spend but Don't Tax" Republican."
2
Thank you, David Leonhardt! It is about bloody time that this was said out loud...in fact screamed out loud. The trend goes much further back than the late '70s and it is true in my country, Canada, as well.
It is time for Democrats (Liberals) to state these FACTS clearly.
The lies of the 'right' must be drowned out and corrected...'tax and spend' is only appropriate when speaking of the 'right' which (over) spends and then forces the 'left' to tax when the mess lands back in their laps.
The media has been extremely culpable in repeating the lies and trying to show a balance when there isn't one. Trump was elected by this exact media malpractice and still deserves to be addressed by the lack of balance it has earned and continues to earn.
3
Taking the Clinton years out of the equation, not really seeing major differences between the two parties
1
I favor the party that cuts or eliminates federal govt programs and reduces taxes. And by "cut" I mean an actual reduction in spending, not a slowing of the rate of growth.
Oh wait, there is no such animal.
Republicans talk about this but behave differently. Libertarians also talk about this fiscal platform but are never elected to anything.
Fiscal conservatives are kind of politically homeless right now.
1
"In fact, the Democrats’ biggest recent deficit sins have come when they are in the minority, and have enough power only to make an already expensive Republican bill more so. The budget Trump signed last month is the latest example."
That's hogwash, what were they supposed to do?
3
The repubs have cut spending to the bone and we get teachers' strikes in deeply red states. See a pattern here...the birds are coming home to roost. This tax cut will be the last for a very, very long time.
2
Republicans accuse Democrats of “tax and spend” economics. Republicans are the party of “borrow and spend” which increases the deficit for which they blame the Democrats.
This has been the pattern for decades but voters don’t seem to catch on.
As Mark Twain said, “It’s harder to convince a man he’s been fooled than it is to fool him in the first place.”
Seems to apply to journalists and pundits as well.
2
"But should Mr. Trump move to hobble or kill the investigation, he would darken rather than dispel the cloud of suspicion around him."
I have been saying for several months, that only Mueller can clear Trump. To whatever extent Trump can be "cleared." For many Americans, the collusion allegations are the least of out worries. Trump has convicted himself out of his own mouth (and fingers) of his unfitness for office, whether or no specific actions rise to a "high crime or misdemeanor."
1
Running your household finances like a Republican administration would be devastating. Bankruptcy! It's not just for Trump businesses.
2
Some of us figured this out a dozen years ago and switched parties. I was a good Republican for over 30 years. I sincerely apologize for my grave error of supporting them in the past.
4
"You know Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
When Dick Cheney interrupted Treasury Secretary O'Neill with his famous dictum, he wasn't advancing the case for Modern Monetary Theory. The GOP's fiscal profligacy has nothing to do with economics, and everything to do with politics. Republicans will continue to ignore the deficit until voters punish them for it.
1
Agreed. The old labels are dead.
Rebranding the Dems as the party of fiscal responsibility is correct.
2
This narrative fits my preconception having lived through twelve presidencies.I know for certain that first on the agenda of a Republican president is a tax cut to" juice" the economy.With a propped up economy they can then increase defense spending.The Democratic regime that follows has no leeway to spend more money so they devise bills with spending and some offsets.Some Democrats increase taxes as Mr.Clinton did and the economy roars ahead.I am so glad that you produced the statistics to debunk the myth that Republicans are fiscally responsible.The rest of the story of irresponsible spending is that our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay higher taxes and have social programs cut. It is a shameful legacy- why can't we realize that our behavior has consequences?
3
Democrats have Been forced to clean up the mess for Republicans and this time will be no different. I pray that it is not another worldwide financial meltdown again but I'm not so sure.
2
This is not a surprise to anyone paying attention. But, you had to be paying attention. You would not learn a basic, provable truth from the media. Rather the media with its focus on the "entertainment" value of news abdicated its responsibility to provide the "knowledge". Grifters like Newt flourished tossing out catnip descriptors like "pathetic" and "death tax" to a news corps too willing to report on drama than facts.
3
The easier statement is that the GOP lies to get into power, and lies to stay in power.
It is so difficult to cut expenses. That is why I favor automatic spending cut across the board whenever budget spending exceeds the total revenue. Paul Ryan suggested that entitlement is the budget breaker that deficit is rising regardless. However, I think only coward who would use entitlement as an excuse. With the control in the House, Senate and the White House, I find Republican simply has no excuse not to balance the budget. Thus, I will not vote for Republican candidates in the next election.
3
It’s about time somebody brought up the issue. Partly the silence has been prompted by the fear, especially by newspapers, of being branded “liberal” by reactionaries, who claim to be “conservative” (hint: they’re nothing of the sort). Representatives of journalism, across the spectrum, are essentially conservative, in at least the good sense of that term, including The Times. The sophistry that The Times represents “the liberal press” is nonsense. The country needs to reclaim the meaning of basic terms of public discourse like “liberal” and “conservative” (as well as “progressive” and its variants). The reactionaries have ruled the airwaves for too long and the place to being reclaiming is print media. Sinclair Broadcast Group sure ain’t gonna help the situation.
2
Anyone who reads NYTimes columnist, economics Ph.D. and Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman knows this already. I hope all of the NYTimes reporters and columnists specializing in s/he said "journalism" learn a lasting lesson from this data.
3
Sir - the US government is never fiscally irresponsible - after all, it simply creates money every time it wants to buy something or hire someone.
The taxes you pay to the governement are paid with currency that the government created in the past, out of thin air. The government has no need of your tax payments to fund anything.
When you watch your favorite sports team, have you ever wondered where the officials find the points for the scoreboard? Of course not - and the federal government is the same way: it creates the points, so it can never run out.
Please stop referring to the US government as revenue constrained; this is simply false.
1
Based on the comments I see it is important to point out that the federal govt has been collecting record tax revenue and STILL is running a massive deficit.
Due to the record tax receipts, we should conclude that this is not a crisis of insufficient taxation. It is a SPENDING crisis.
The federal govt fiscal picture reminds me of celebrities like Johnny Depp or MC Hammer who find themselves swimming in red ink in spite of an impressive amount of revenue.
1
It's a bit simplistic to say that one party pushed the deficit up or down without know what was happening in the wider world. Wars are expensive, the expansion of public programs can often cost more/less than anticipated. That said, both Bush and Trump are guilty of doling out tax cuts that do little but line the pockets of the wealthy.
2
You are correct, although it was Lyndon Baines Johnson who got the deficit/debt ball rolling, to which add the advent of COLAs (supported by both Richard Nixon and the Democratic Congress) a few years later.
There is a GOP hidden agenda: to end big government by bankrupting it. Since it's politically unpalatable to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Defense (the three big drivers of deficits), GOP leaders have decided that running up the national debt is the only way to curb spending. This amounts to destroying the village in order to "save" it, but that's the reality.
t
8
The last balanced budget before Clinton's three was the one LBJ passed on to Nixon.
1
@rawebb1: Actually the fiscal 1969 budget was about $8 billion (about 5%) in the red. As I recall Nixon's first budget was balanced. Johnson actually had a surplus in fiscal 1966, but that was because they were cooking the books about the cost of Vietnam. In 1967-68 the fiscal chickens came home to roost, as even liberals (see for example Halberstam in "The Best and the Brightest") have admitted. Granted, this was small potatoes compared to the deficits of the 1970s, '80s, and 2000s. But LBJ planted the first seeds of fiscal disaster.
These days it's nobody's job to state objective facts. Instead we have duelling misrepresentations/cherry-picking of stats/talking past one another. And the public really doesn't seem to want, or demand, anything else. I'm trying to understand why the % of people who view Trump "favorably" can fluctuate 7 or 8 points depending on the news of the day, or the week. You'd think by this time folks would have figured out that particular opinion, one way or the other. Another example: I would have thought that after Iraq no Republican could ever get elected president in this country for the next 30 years. I really just don't get it. Whatever it is, it's so fundamental that the country is doomed if we can't figure it out.
5
Apparently, being pro-birth, pro-gun and anti-“them” (black, immigrant, lgbt, poor, chronically ill, non-Christian) trumps fleecing the Treasury for the rich, war mongering, environmental destruction, and prudent protections for consumers, workers and women.
The chart may be accurate but interpretation is an interesting game. How about: when GOP is in power Dems don't care if the deficit rises as long as social welfare gets some of the increase - ie the latest budget. But when Dems are in power the GOP screams bloody you know what when any increase in the deficit begins, and extract more military spending (at a minimum) if they can't get outright cuts to programs. The Dems go along, because they can get a very few things done themselves along the way. This is just as good an explanation
1
So does this mean that the Dems will be presenting proposals for entitlement reform? Cuz that's the only way we can become fiscally responsible.
1
Don’t forget the social good the non tax-cut debt has purchased.
After WWII, we expanded access to healthcare and college with liberal programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the GI Bill. Would we really have been better off with sick, impoverished, uneducated parents, but less debt?
10
Supposing that the projected deficits under Trump do occur then over 90% of the time since the Truman administration the US. has run a budget deficit. Rather than calling Democrats the party of fiscal responsibility, one should say they are not quite as bad as the Republicans on the federal deficit.
Also even with the automatic stabilizers excluded the deficit will increase during recessions due to decreased tax revenues. All else equal we should see an increase in deficits during those times as can be seen in early part of the G.W. Bush administration and the "Great Recession" under Bush and Obama.
The GOP will not be able to claim themselves as a party of "fiscal responsibility" anytime into the near future after their recent tax cut debacle. But claiming that the Democrats are a party of fiscal responsibility is laughable at best. Most Democrats, if given the chance, will tax and spend us into oblivion.
1
And Trump's contribution to our childrens' debt in perpetuity (~2%) is the barest shadow of what's in store over the next few years. He's just getting started impoverishing the country as he enriches himself.
6
In terms of deficits, Obama had by far and away the largest increase, with Bush the second next. Approximately half of the accumulated deficits were rung up by these two. Your charts tend to disguise this. As to what the two parties actually do, there is no doubt that Republicans talk a good game on deficits, but, when in power, tax cutting is the real priority. Democrats are willing to live with higher taxes, but, they have been unwilling to broach the entitlement topic. In the long run, there will be a painful reckoning, regardless who is in power.
2
Obama's increase were automatic increases in things like unemployment insurance payments due to the recession. Look at the graph. As soon as the recession was over the deficit went down, down, down under Obama. So much so that ultimately Obama ended up with a net decrease in deficit. So, no. "Regardless of who is in power" is plainly incorrect.
15
George W. Bush 8 Year Job Creation Numbers
-500,000 (that's a negative 500,000 jobs)
Obama 8 year Job Creation Numbers
13 million jobs (that's millions)
The economy Trump inherited was humming along, with Obama's initiatives the locomotive responsible for the Market and Job Numbers Trump is taking credit for. I just wish the Democrats would get that information out there.
9
Sorry, but approximately 30% of the deficits were during the Obama years. They did not decrease. That is my complaint about the graphs. There were good reasons for this, but it is true, over 6 trillion in deficits.
When the GOP blows the dog whistle of "tax and spend liberals," their base dutifully responds in Pavlovian fashion and votes for Republicans. "Spend and charge conservatives" lacks the impact. It conveys someone else will pay at some later date. There is no sense of urgency or personal responsibility established. Of course we all pay, especially our children, but that's an issue for "some other time."
It is all in the marketing.
5
Nice to see this in print, but you could go further and note that Republican economic policies don’t work. Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves or create jobs. Deregulation doesn’t make the economy stronger. Free market capitalism can’t solve all our problems.
And let’s not forget the Biggest Lie - that government is the problem, not the solution - unless you qualify that by noting Republican government is the problem.
All three branches of the Federal government are under GOP control, and a number of the states. If you want to see where and why America is in trouble, start there.
20
Commenter et.al.nyc explains the fake meme of the tax cut in nitty-gritty terms. The Democrats must hammer home the point that the "tax cuts" are a myth when they don't even cover inflation. We get $1.90 extra a month to spend as we choose--wheee!--after the increase in health insurance premiums has been extracted from our annuity. The paltry cuts most of us get are swallowed by the rising costs of necessities, while those whose cuts are in the thousands can spend theirs on luxuries. Folks who think they've won the tax lottery with a few extra bucks haven't subtracted the increase in the cost of living from their "windfall."
4
Yes, the Democrats are the party of Fiscal Responsibility and the Republicans are not. But the Republicans take full ownership of that notion while the Democrats just sit on their hands and hope 'common sense' will prevail, that the masses will 'get it' that what the Republicans are doing is throwing out their 'spin'. But that's not the way it typically plays out.
Instead the Republicans, with their affective history of getting out in front of issues, define the events in question, and typically paint the Democrats as the party at fault, thus, with themselves as the party that will rectify things.
Case in point, the George W. Bush Administration bringing us economically to our knees as a result of their eight year debacle, with the Obama Administration righting our ship then handing off the fiscal baton to Trump who has taken full responsibility for our 'economic recovery'-the stellar performance of the stock market, improving 'job numbers', etc., etc., all the while as the Democrats sit idly by without running around with their hair on fire, reminding our incurious public of how that scenario really played out.
Much of what we elect them for is to get the message out, about everything. But they've become too complacent at this endeavor. They need to get a 'War Room' together to figure this thing out and get some figures to represent us who are 'top heavy' with "charisma', who can rally us to where we are viewed as the Party who is Responsible at every turn.
4
California is another example of this pattern. In the past 30 years or so Republicans drove up the State deficit by huge numbers. Jerry Brown, supported by a supermajority in the State legislature and by voter initiatives, has raised taxes and implemented a fiscally conservative budget. His only foray into high spending has been the bullet train through the central valley, an effort to - gasp - bring the State into the 21st century, replace a decaying highway system and support the important agricultural community. Not surprisingly, the Republicans oppose it.
21
Since Jimmy Carter, I calculated that the deficit increased by twice as much on a percentage basis when a Republican was president as it did when a Democrat was president. In addition the S&P 500 rose twice as much on a percentage basis when a Democrat was president as it did when a Republican was president. So Republican presidents are worse on both debt and stock market growth than Democratic presidents, which is certainly not the conventional wisdom.
15
Democrats basic belief is that government should be managed reasonably well and benefit the broad majority of the people. Yes, they frequently fall short and manage to give the impression they care only about various minority groups and have no interest in the overriding issue of working and middle class jobs. Republicans are masters at exploiting cultural issues while enacting policies that favor the rich and transferring economic risk to their working and middle class voters. It is interesting that Republican voters support Social Security and Medicare but clearly believe those benefits have been “earned” by White middle and working class workers not all those Brown, black and Hispanic “takers”.
18
For years, when I have had reason to explain why I vote Democrat, I have explained that it is in part because I lean fiscally conservative. Due to the very powerful conventional wisdom that this column describes, I find that my answer, even when coupled with the very support that Leonhardt provides, often meets some level of incomprehension combined with pity for my confusion and ignorance.
Facts and reality should have been sufficient to discredit the false equivalence narrative, as well as the GOP as party of fiscal conservatism, family values, judicial restraint and law and order narratives, long ago. That they persist at all into the Trump era should be an embarrassment to mainstream journalists and pundits. My modest proposal to my fellow media consumers is to avoid media outlets that continue to promote them.
28
This author is missing the point. Republicans believe in small government and low taxes, so we cut taxes and attempt to force responsible entitlement spending cuts on Democrats. This is exceedingly difficult but eventually we will succeed, but it could take an entitlement funding crisis to get there. Democrats raise taxes and give away most of it as free stuff. That’s easy. Long term budget balancing will require significant entitlement cuts, and the Republicans are the only party even trying.
Oh, and before you respond with that “I paid in 40 years” jibber jabber or “dedicated tax” half truths, know that the average American takes far, far more, especially from Medicare than he or she ever contributes.
4
I believe that you are proving the point of the article. Republicans say that they are for these things (small government, low taxes), but their actions prove otherwise.
And I'm pretty sure that Social Security is not "jibber-jabber" to the 67 million Americans who rely on it.
14
'Republicans believe in small government and low taxes ..." is a test of credulity and a cover for robbing the government of the necessary revenue to protect and advance the common good. As for Democrats giving away tax revenue the latest tax cuts by the GOP are the latest case of giving a free ride to the very few at the expense of every one and everything -- clean air, clean water, healthy food, economic fairness, long term environmental factors.
24
What a system! A CEO can make 400 times the median wage and we don't bat an eye but if a truck retires on Social Security we say he is a taker.
1
To me the budget problems are fairly obvious. If you don't have enough money to pay your bills and you need to continue to borrow money at a high interest rate, you don't cut back your hours at work. The same thing with government spending... if you don't have enough to pay the bills, stop giving tax cuts, especially to those who don't need help. When the economy is going strong, like it has for Obama's two terms, you do not squander that good economic roll to pay off your supporters like the republican party just did. The result of unnecessary tax cuts is always cuts to programs that help people, increased fees for services that everybody uses and of course increasing our national debt. When will America learn that republicans are NOT fiscally conservative, only socially conservative where they take away your choices in life.
201
What evidence is there for the economy "going strong" under Obama?
2
But it's even worse when one considers the huge environmental and financial costs the GOP consistently and destructively "externalizes" to the taxpayers through deregulation. And they're at it again, gunning for CFPB for all they're worth, not to mention Pruitt's EPA. Really, like their current "president", the GOP is truly expert in only one thing - bankruptcy. Only they do the entire country instead of their own companies.
37
Comparing the end deficit-to-gdp vs the starting deficit-to-gdp is not a great measure of fiscal responsibility. More important is how much the debt was increased. Second graphic - seems disingenuous to show since 1977 when the prior data point runs counter to your view.
2
Yeah, like in WWII?
Thank you for laying this out. Is there an additional pattern that is not stated? It seems to me that Republican spending habits increasing the deficit also wind up hurting the next President. So if voters catch on and bring in a fiscally conservative Democrat, the first term is hampered by the need to bring the deficit under control, which they do. Works out fairly well for the Republican party until one of their own gets elected at the wrong time... G.H.W. Bush had to control the deficit and was voted out after one term. I'd like to see reporting that explores this pattern.
15
David - glad you are on board with this - better late than never. All you have to do is perform an internet search on five words: "Economic performance Democratic Republican administrations" then sit back and read at your leisure.
I thought growing up that the GOP was the party of economic responsibility. When I started doing research in 2003 on the economic history of this country - especially the last 100+ years - I found out I was sorely wrong. It's nice that Op-Ed folks like you and especially Paul Krugman are showing that the GOP emperors are not wearing any economic "clothing" but when are the front page reporters and news anchors going to blow the lid off of Trickle Down Economics? When are they going to hold the GOP to account on the ease of stock buybacks (the history on this is telling - go back to the Reagan administration)? We are seeing a scant little of this with the "retirement" of Paul Ryan but it is not enough. Absolutely I can point to Democrats as enablers especially when all they can put out is their tepid, milquetoast "A Better Deal" but the Fourth Estate bears a significant part of the responsibility as well. "Fair and balanced" is all fine, well and good - but you have to have something to balance first.
25
Yes, the facts have shown for a long time Democrats are the fiscally responsible party. But facts have not counted in American political discourse for almost half a century, and much of the problem is due to the magnitude of the right wing media megaphone. The decline in educational Achievement in America has made its people easy prey to "alternate facts" and an alternate reality, and it's going to take more than one column in a newspaper labeled "socialist" to bring about any real change.
51
The overwhelming majority of federal spending goes toward welfare and entitlements. That means the overwhelming majority of federal debt can be traced to...welfare and entitlements. And that welfare and those entitlements are overwhelmingly the product of the left, not the right.
Oh, sure, Democrats are more than happy to pass a tax hike...but that isn't fiscal responsibility, its moral hazard, encouraging even more votes and policies for redistribution of wealth.
If you want fiscal responsibility, the only way to get it is by ending the expectation that the state will guarantee you everything from housing to high speed internet. You'll never get that from Democrats.
1
health care (not health insurance) should be a fundamental right for ALL Americans a living wage is not an entitlement it is a moral obligation
49
Isn't our largest government expense defense? Medicare and Social Security should not be counted in this "debt" as both programs are paid for by taxes paid by the end users. Welfare and entitlements? Really?
17
What was was not addressed in this piece is how the GOP spreads misinformation regarding budgets and expenditures.
If you seriously think that the majority of our debt is the result of welfare and entitlements, then casting Democrats as the deficit bogeymen is apparently very easy
9
The facts of the matter is that Republicans are by far the best political propagandists. They've been so successful that the narrative Leonhardt describes has been indelibly imprinted on the brains of the vast majority of Americans.
The other false narrative pushed by the GOP for decades is that it is the Party with a prudent foreign policy. Right.
If there is a silver lining to Trump's hegemony, it is that both of these narratives are finally being exposed for the chimeras they've always been.
110
I really appreciate this column not only for debunking the myth that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and that Democrats are fiscally reckless, but also putting the blame squarely on the mainstream media for this dangerous misperception. They have been supporting this "fake news" storyline for decades.
For example when Clinton was President the media obsessed over the debt, constantly decrying the coming doom and reporting on the debt clock.
Then Clinton and the Democrats passed a significant tax increase. The Republicans were shouting from the rooftops that this would crash our economy. Instead we had robust growth, record numbers of people moving out of poverty, and a significant budget surplus that was rapidly paying down our debt.
Instead of spreading this great news, the preciously debt obsessed media went silent. Then Bush ran on tax cuts, saying that the surplus proved that taxes were too high. After all it was our money. Not once did I hear anyone in the media say that it was also our debt. In contrast Gore advocated continuing to use the surplus to pay down the debt so that the coming, temporary (!) SS shortfall from the retirement of the baby boomers would be easy to meet. The media responded by making fun of Gore for saying "lawk box" and being a boring policy wonk. In contrast they fawned over Bush as a regular guy who would be more fun to have a beer with.
The media's main goal should be to inform the public, not play faux balance games.
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And of course, with remarkable and effective circularity, those Republican budget policies have relentlessly immiserated the very people who now back you know who.
This persistent narrative, which I have found frustrating for years, persuaded these same people that both parties were to blame for their state of affairs.
We can add to this delusion the similar delusions that tax cuts, however unfairly proportioned, always lead to economic growth, and that tax increases, however targeted, must always and inevitably lead to economic stagnation. Or that government regulation is, by definition, always bad.
My fantasy is that the next President, if there is one (only half kidding), will be a result of the pendulum swinging back to the exact opposite kind of person, so we have a sober and careful Girl Scout who puts everything back together.
25
I got a ten dollar increase in my paycheck. I spent it at the gas pump because gas prices had gone up. It was gone after only a few gallons. Next paycheck, I'll spend it at the food store because food prices are going up. It not enough to pay the heating bill which has gone up because of crazy, crazy weather. I hoped to use it at the movies but a movie ticket is more than ten dollars. In the rich part of town, my neighbors are using their $80,000 tax cut to redo their bathrooms with marble tile. A friends thirty year old son, a college grad, didn't get a tax refund at all. He works for a job without any benefits as a "gig" worker, week after week and is even invited to the Christmas Party, but his accountant tells him he is not eligible for anything in the new law. His mother helps him pay the rent with her refund. We look with frustration at the Democrats, men and women of character, People who Do the Right Thing but are Too Weak in the Fight. If they are to ever really stand up to the tyranny and lies that come from people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell they have to win the small fights as much as the big ones. This includes things like local problems (crumbling subways, choking traffic, teachers pay). They need to confront media propaganda and the problems of social media. Show us how much you care now, as the 2018 election approaches. We are frustrated and tired to too little, too late. There is no fiscal responsibility if you are not in the game.
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Where is the Democratic leadership? They need an advertising blitz ignoring trump and the republicans and bringing this message to American people. They need an organized focus presentation. They need to flip any interview about trump/republicans and the destruction of what has made America great into a discussion of innovation, entrepreneurship, redeveloping respect, kindness, all ideas that will galvanize new voters. We can do this. The Democratic leadership needs to get in board and lead the way.
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I agree. I've felt this way for years. We need to get with it.
9
Sure but all that costs money to "...fight the power, fight the power that be!". When was the last time you donated?
2
Call it Fiscal Responsibility or just call it smart spending. The Democrats know that 1. you need to spend money to make money and 2. some spending pays you back (roads, schools, libraries, other social goods, and infrastructure). The Republicans don't seem to get this.
83
They ALWAYS were. There are two sides to the ledger. Democrats know that we need tax revenue. The most productive nation creates wealth for all its citizens. FDR took on the greedy rich. Gladly. What you value is where all the difference lies in any budget.
24
Paul Ryan’s republican tax cut dream is a nightmare. It is reckless to an extreme and that was the point of it. It was done to limit any kind of progressive spending and even ruin SSI. The Democrats will evetually clean it up, but it will be on the backs of the middle class. I see the outlines of the ‘new’ bipartisan republican politician being floated in the NYTimes. What this means politically is this extreme tax cut move to the right will only be partially moved back left and thus another victory for republicans.
I’m not interested in bipartisanship if it means business as usual. I am not interested in Democratic fiscal responsibility, if we don’t get Medicare for all or it results in decreased SSI payments. Democrats should not shaft Americans to restore economic order.
21
Thank you for this column, but on the subject of Democrats and fiscal responsibility you could go much farther.
Obama attempted to include the Medicare option when formulating the ACA and certainly there are a lot more Democrats willing to accept the evidence that Medicare is much more efficient than our insurance based health care.
If our medical care costs were in line with other wealthy nations it would conserve over a trillion dollars annually. Only Democrats are calling for universal medicare.
The vast majority of discretionary spending in the federal budget goes to the military- its budget has doubled since the mid-90's but the new Republican tax bill moves still more billions to it and Trump boasts about this.
Republicans are generally much more forceful in promoting being tough on crime and increasing incarceration rates. We now imprison our citizens at 5X the rate of other wealthy nations at a cost of almost 30 grand annually for each prisoner.
Before the privatization of our prisons our incarceration rate was near the norm. Republicans always support privatization- even when data clearly shows the government can do the job more efficiently.
Democrats tend to advocate letting the private sector do what it does best but are not ideologically welded to removing the Federal government from doing what it does best.
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alan haigh: that is laughably untrue. Obama talked about a PUBLIC option (not necessarily Medicare) when he was running, but once in office....unsurprisingly, he dropped it like a hot potato. Pelosi, too. Hillary said clearly in her platform "NO public option" AND she said that "single payer was OFF THE TABLE". Her policy platform was to strengthen and enforce Obamacare -- draconian fines and punishment for lousy worthless "fake insurance" with high deductibles. So much for "affordable care". The reality, sir, is the Democrats have also betrayed us. They did nothing to help us, wasted a ton of money and ENTRENCHED the "fee for service" Big Insurance model of health "care".
This is all part of the larger false narrative that Republicans are practical, reasonable, and willing to accept certain harsh truths about the world, while Democrats are just naive, idealistic dreamers. Everyone knows the term "bleeding heart liberal," but few know it dates back to the New Deal, when the impractical, weepy acts of compassion being criticized were federal minimum wage and workplace safety laws.
The facts cited here demonstrate once again that liberal policy is not only practical, but remarkably effective. Democrats are the party of responsibility, full stop. It's responsible to increase taxes on occasion so public institutions have the funds to operate. It's responsible to ensure that disabled, elderly, and impoverished citizens have food and shelter. It's responsible to assume the honor system is not enough to regulate the ethical behavior of corporations and financial institutions.
I truly hope articles like this one help shed some light on the matter. It's a long time coming.
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I wish it was an article, but it's classified as opinion. Opinion writers have been saying this stuff forever. But folks at this newspaper are afraid of being called biased, even though they have the facts on their side, so they keep important news like this on the Opinion page. Are they afraid of a tweet? Of Rupert Murdoch? Sarah Huckabee Sanders? They're still acting like Paul Ryan has some credibility despite not being able to document it.
The NEWS is: Republicans lie, cheat and steal to get what they want, and it's doubtful they think what they want is really good for people. It's just good for their bank accounts. This can be documented.
4
That's a good point, and I think it's an offshoot of the same issue. Liberals, be they elected officials, pundits, or journalists, inexplicably take the bait and end up lost in the weeds whenever Republicans lob any accusation their way. Not only does that make them surrender control of any given story, it keeps them far too distracted to challenge or regain control of the larger narrative.
No one likes to hear it, but I maintain that Lyndon B. Johnson was the last Democrat with a spine. He ran a campaign so intense and unflinching, a single TV ad became an iconic, infamous part of history by doing nothing more than explicitly depicting the collective fear that loomed over everyone during the cold war – and it aired only once, and only in certain parts of the country. It won him an election because it aimed to do more than merely inspire, or gesture vaguely at the facts and assume they were self-evident.
Frankly, "girl with a flower" realism has never been more needed, or more relevant, than it is today. But liberal institutions would be lead the charge in framing it as shocking, distasteful, and unnecessary. Snake eats tail.
1
The collusion between the press and the politicians that reinforces the conventional "wisdom" that red is responsible and blue parties with the budget is grounded in inertia and the reality that news media have to make money. It takes a little extra time and effort to chart out the truth, but it also needs a willingness to admit the truth. The sad reality is that obscuring the truth makes more money and will be with us for a long time to come.
4
Persistent deficits are generally bad until they aren't, e.g. during macro-economic crises when properly executed deficit spending can actually be good. However, what's is equally important is whether the economy overall creates new wealth (i.e. GDP growth) and that as a result the deficit ratio (ratio of debt to total wealth does not deteriorate.
However, what seems at least as important or even more important is how this extra wealth is being (re-)distributed. And the biggest issue here is in my view that it goes over-proportionately to the top 5 or 1 or 0.1%. If you did the same exercise you would find that the debt ratio for the bottom 95 or so % has consistently gone up over the past 30 years, and especially so during Republican presidencies. In other words, the majority of Americans has become relatively (and many even absolutely) poorer because of Republican policies and that is the real issue.
33
This narrative is also inextricably linked to the Right's persistent (and rather annoying, to some of us) harping about, "small government." One thing the Right has been much better at that the Left is "staying on message." Words matter, and they use the same words, over and over again, as tools of propaganda, mostly: "Small government," "States' rights," "Entitlements" (rather than insurance), "Death taxes" (rather than anti-dynastic wealth propagation), etc.
The Left needs to develop consistent messaging to counter the "small government" trope, in particular, which is part and parcel to this column about who's fiscally responsible and who's not. The issue isn't small vs. large government, the issue is WHO does the government work for; the 99% or the 1%. Republican policies favor the 1% while Democrat policies favor the 99%. It's even possible we could have "limited government"--a Libertarian ideal--yet still have that government working for the 99%. What a concept.
22
Its kinda funny, because Republican voters should realize, when working properly WE, the citizens thru our reps, are the government. It seems to be those on the right who are elected want small government to be lazy and not have to do much work, and to reduce the voice and power of the people but welcome special interest and Big Business influence thru the VIP enterence.
Good to know and share, with elections coming in the fall. Balance in all things.
People relate to the truth, and the bitter truth is that the average American is worried and struggling to reach and/or hold onto the 'Dream'. This economy does not help the common.
We've been too long in the sway of the rich, and thus the rich are winning. The idea of We the People is just a saying; actually, the top 1%, 5%, 10% are doing all the celebrating of the 'freedoms' of America.
We've been sold 'freedom' at the expense of 'equality'. We can buy elections now, because that's our freedom at work. We can pay no taxes, because, with the right tax lawyers and write-offs and havens, that's freedom. We can cut taxes for the rich and take benefits from the poor because that is a form of freedom, as well.
You say 'responsibility'. That's a word we don't 'do' very well, whether talking about the care of this world and it's ecological needs, or in regards to our fellow citizens, particularly if they are in need.
Democrats are more responsible to compassion & equality & community.
The Republicans have decided to follow lucre & Trump and all things benefiting the money-changers & their employers. The working-class Republicans can try and hid behind the flag or guns or abortion laws, but the big picture Republican policy is money. The billionaires and their right-wing media (truly fake), with the help of Russians & other nefarious characters, got Trump elected. Our bad.
Now, our job to lead.
13
Speaking of freedom...
When Republican oligarchs and libertarians use that phrase, they aren't talking about _our_ freedom, but their 'freedom' to exploit workers and pilfer state funds without repercussions.
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Not to mention plundering our natural resources, denying scientific fact, befouling the environment, and setting a terrible example for the world of what "we the people" are all about.
We just figured this out? First thing I told my sons when Republicans came to power was cool, don't agree with the policy and will rail against it, but I bet I am the first one to recalculate and find out my weekly savings. They were like and thanks for the warmer weather as well.
1
Of course Mr. Leonhardt is right on the major points. What I'd like to see is the dollars for defense spending broken out as a separate line item. It's deeply disturbing (well, to me, anyway) when the political spectrum ranges from far right (massive increases in defense spending--Example "A" being Bret Stephens' recent admission that if it were up to him he'd double defense spending) to merely slightly right (many if not most Democrats say we should keep it at current levels or slightly above--that was before the recent huge increase Congress passed, though).
Nobody, including me, is arguing in favor of unilateral disarmament. But when the US spends as much on defense as the next eight or so countries combined world wide, one has to wonder: What's more important, guns and nukes or infrastructure, eduction, job-creation programs, and health care? Isn't national defense also about having a vibrant, well-educated, healthy work force and efficient infrastructure that makes all businesses more productive? And to those who say that defense spending also creates jobs, my reply would be, "Yes, but far fewer than spending the same amount of money on non-defense spending." The stats are clear on that.
Mr. Leonhardt, in a follow-up column perhaps you could focus on this aspect and educate all of us?
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What the warhawks and military nuts dont realize too,is that we could cut our defense spending over half the amount and be fine. There are plenty of articles that state where that money goes (spoiler alert if you read them, greedy CEOs and big business have their hands in the military too), thats why you have generals, like Mattis, stating our military is lagging and losing its edge and why, despite massive spending, we arent this hyper advanced military thats 10-15 years ahead of everyone else.
18
The differential is actually bigger than you realize. The U.S. spends 47% of all the defense spending in the world. In fact, just increasing it by 10% (over and above any increase for inflation obviously) would in the end provide sufficient defense spending to take on the entire planet all by ourselves. I would have to ask anyone who wants to increase defense spending by so much "Who do you intend us to fight?" Make them answer that question first. That $82 extra billion Trump wanted and got? That amounted to a 9.8% increase after adjusting for inflation. Just who does Trump and Republicans expect us to be fighting?
27
The Founders of our country were more honest about it : they called it the "War Department" not the "Defense Department", a name invented in the late 1940's not long before President Eisenhower warned us about the "military industrial complex". It's about money, big money, as usual.
14
The Repubs argue that cutting taxes increases tax revenue. This fantasy has not proven true yet but may sometime in the future. Maybe if they would cut taxes on the average person, such as Obama did cutting the payroll tax, the average person would spend the money saved and actually increase the real economy as opposed to the Wall Street economy.
12
Sure thing. "This fantasy has not proven true yet but may sometime in the future." Use you noggin please. A tax cut for the rich goes right into buying savings and investments---always has and always will. These tax cuts have NEVER EVER helped "grow" the economy---and yet you are advocating it be tried yet one more time? Are you crazy?
One of the worst and most self-destructive things Obama did was a cut in pay roll taxes -- at a time when we desperately need to shore up and FUND Medicare and SS if you truly want them in the future. The cuts didn't make anyone financially secure and most people did not notice them -- all they see is the final amount on their pay check -- but now the SS Trust Fund, already shrinking, got a huge gouge taken out of it. And no plans, anywhere, ever to replace the lost revenues.
Our false story that we worship a market economy and the history of debt are related. Our economy has always depended on businesses and governments externalizing a portion of their overhead to internalize the immediate benefits- we have always benefitted today by not paying the total cost of our goods and services.
Slavery, pollution, to not putting a tax on fuel to pay (directly) the costs of the pentagon to assure its delivery from the middle east for 75 years, to selling bonds to pay for govt services that do not produce long term benefits. . . . .none of it reflects a legitimate market.
6
Externalization, the dirty little secret of capitalism. Privatize all the profit while socializing the costs as much as possible, especially the environmental damage.
1
What sort of issues and arguments will sway the views of a swing voter in a swing state? That's who decides a presidential election and those are the people that need to be reached.
In 2020, and to a lesser extent in 2018, the main financial issue is going to be the "Republican tax break", which is a big lie. But how to communicate that it is a lie?
States will have to raise taxes in order to compensate for the lost Federal income. John Doe's Federal taxes may fall a few dollars but state and local taxes will rise to compensate.
In the last few days there have been several articles about traditionally Right leaning states who are raising taxes for just this reason.
This kind of immediate reality may help voters to see how fiscally irresponsible some GOP policies are.
15
Dick Cheney famously declared "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." We've got a generation of Americans who grew up with that mantra. The boomer generation was always more conservative than their predecessors and strongly supported cuts to the government by any means necessary.
Even Clinton was Republican-lite and while he raised taxes, he only did so slightly. Clinton like his Republican predecessors cut spending by making changes to the social safety net and cutting back on the military complex. His success was largely due to the internet boom which led to a thriving economy and helped lower the deficit.
We know that the country does better when Democrats are in charge but how do we convince the voters. If you look at the happiest countries they pay higher individual taxes than we do to enjoy universal daycare, elder care, healthcare, higher education and trade education. American voters will tell you that they want these things but if you mention the need to raise taxes to pay for such services they will vote Republican in the next election. The GOP only gets away with their no taxes mentality because that's what the voters want.
What we need is for journalists to start educating readers on this reality. The problem is that Fox news and the Wall Street journal are where GOP voters get their information and they're certainly not going to encourage their voters to support Democrats. The campaign donors just don't want to pay higher taxes nor do voters.
8
Ami: if you can sell Americans on much higher taxes and Swedish style socialism....go for it. Even Hillary said "we're not Denmark!" But you have every right to go ahead and try. I think the opposition to most such socialism in the US, is that we have had 50+ years experience of LBJ's Great Society and only watched as it made everything much worse -- destroyed stable black families -- promoted generational welfare dependence -- and most of all, people saw their tax dollars going to give benefits to OTHER PEOPLE. None of the programs LBJ pushed through benefited the middle or working class -- we "make too much money" -- and paying for stuff you don't get to enjoy makes people very angry. The Swedes and Danes put through social programs that EVERYONE gets to use, not just the poor.
I have been saying for decades what you are now saying. I blame the media in large part for not reporting facts. The Republicans cut taxes and spend. The Democrats raise taxes and pay for new spending. The medicare expansion under Bush should have made it perfectly clear to everyone that the Republicans are only deficit hawks when Dems are in control
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This fact has been obvious for quite a while. The places where Democrats want to "spend" more, things like infrastructure and education, could better be viewed as investments that would yield returns in future years. Contrast this with Republicans who tend to cut spending for education while increasing military spending and merely giving lip service to infrastructure spending. The contrast is stark. Republicans are clearly be fiscally irresponsible party and under Trump their irresponsibility has risen to dangerous levels.
340
It is important to understand the priorities of each party. There is lots of talk of “exploding the deficit” when either party has the majority. Unfortunately, there isn’t as much meaningful discussion about how the parties choose to spend tax dollars. Eliminating inheritance taxes, (just one example of helping Republican’s favored constituency) and cutting taxes, which benefits mostly the rich, versus raising taxes to pay for education, healthcare and infrastructure, which benefits the entire population now and in the future, should paint a clear picture of which party is looking out for the majority of us.
18
Marinda - spoken like a true city-dweller who has no concept of what people who live in the bread-basket of America have to live with. If your family owns a large farm that perhaps has been in the family for generations, that the patriarch dies, that land is worth millions but those who inherit the farm have very little cash to enable them to pay any inheritance taxes...so they must sell the farm to pay the tax. That is why inheritance taxes should go away or be sky high. In most situations this is considered double taxation. But Roth IRAs were set up to encourage people to save for their retirement, not so the fed could grab that money later...they will do that with the traditional IRAs you set up.
I have read a lot - more than I care to admit - over the past 12-18 months (newspapers, Twitter, etc), re: the crazy situation that is our country. One of the explanations that stood out is that this is exactly the GOP’s plan. They are playing the “long game” - they are the heros when they cut taxes (people seem to get excited over this, even if their benefit is the $1.50 Paul Ryan so generously referred to). And then Democrats are the “bad cops” who clean up the mess. Mr. Leonhardt lays it out there for everyone to see. That is their plan. And it is working. And unless we vote them out and keep control, things will continue in this general direction, thereby worsening income disparity and making us all worse off in the long run.
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I couldn't agree more. The republicans have a donor base with the means and the commitment to fund this long campaign to transfer value from the public to the private purse. As he begins his long good-bye media tour, soon-to-be-ex Congressman Ryan continues to blame so-called "entitlements" for deficits, despite the recent passage of his own budget-busting tax bill. I imagine that after he retires he'll be spearheading some well-funded Republican PAC or foundation designed and dedicated to the looting of the Social Security system.
14
I agree with much of this column, but I think there’s a slightly more complicated answer to why this happens. The media both-siderism and totally willingness to repeat Republican talking points is a big factor in selling these outcomes to the public. The Republicans aren’t really a party of “fiscal responsibility” and neither are the Democrats. The Republicans work for the economic elite to the detriment of everyone else. Of course the media says they just have a different economic philosophy, since that’s what they’ve been told by politicians and think tanks.
The reality is that when there’s a Democratic President, they do everything they can to hold the line and restrict spending on Dem priorities. Then when they get their guy in, the lid comes off and the Democrats say “well now we can use our own spending as a negotiating tool.” So the parties work hand in hand to explode the deficit.
6
Don't you read Paul Krugman? Didn't you take introductory economics in college? Fiscal responsibility isn't about who has the smallest deficit or largest surplus but about who has a budget appropriate to the economic situation at hand. In times of recession we need deficits; prosperity is the time to reduce deficits or even run a surplus. Democrats are the fiscally responsible party because they are much more likely to follow that rule. The last surpluses were under Clinton when the country was prosperous; Bush then destroyed them with his tax cuts for the wealthy. Obama ran large deficits in his early years (although probably not large enough), but reduced them as prosperity returned. Trump (really Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell) then created more massive tax cuts for the wealthy, with the result that we will have deficits that have no economic purpose. You are right that the Democrats have shown themselves to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but your simple-minded focus on deficits rather than the role of the federal budget in the economy as a whole shows that you do not understand why.
161
This is pure Keynesian macro policy. Excluding Clinton, not much evidence Democrats follow this policy. Republicans definitely do not.
1
You're being a little harsh, don't you think? The article accomplished what it set out to do, which was to make a very simple point which, somehow, a great many voters seem completely unaware of.
18
Give me a break, in that for the last 60 years, Congress decided to borrow for almost every piece of legislation that they passed that needed funding, and in that way, each war, how long, each entitlement, all tax deductions and credits(74.000) pages of them, all of the subsidies, all the money that states received, everything, wouldn't be questioned. If taxpayers had been taxed for all of it, they would of paid attention, and decided what was important, and how much should be spent for it. Congress is little different than the ignorance of those who ran most of the cities, counties, and too many states, in how they handled their finances, built on borrowing, pyramid schemes(pensions that were promised so much that the long range payout has left fewer government workers as the money has run dry), higher property taxes that have become a burden on working class people, and those in the middle, who don't have the income to absorb the decisions that were made 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago.
5
Some people still say "would of", despite all their claims of book-learnin' (sigh) ... well, they don't usually understand politics or economics.
2
@MaryKay
Nothing that you've said negates the basic facts of this article.
1
This column offers a brilliant analysis and should be necessary reading for everyone. It puts final numbers on the two parties' different policies.
The Democrats should openly proclaim themselves the party of fiscal responsibility, a duty to our children and grandchildren.
The Democrats should cease supporting the mindless, wasteful increases in ruinous military spending and become the champions of infrastructure spending. To ease the transition, veterans can be given hiring preference for infrastructure projects.
101
Never happen. Too logical.
1
1. We need money to conduct commerce.
2, As the economy grows we need more money.
3. Money can come to the private sector from 2 places--the federal government or from a favorable trade balance.
4. Money comes from the federal government in 2 ways--spending (fiscal) or from the FED to the banks (monetary).
5, The FED has sent a lot of money to the banks with little effect. The money has sat in the vaults of the banks or been lent to the Rich who use it to speculate. This money has low velocity--it doesn't change hands in domestic commerce frequently.
6. Net federal spending is measured by the federal deficit, i.e. the deficit measures the net flow of money to people, businesses (not banks) and state & local govs.
7. Thus in order to get the new money the private sector needs, the federal deficit must be larger than the trade deficit. We have a large trade deficit. We need a large deficit.
8. If the above is correct, periods of negative deficits, surpluses, which pay down the federal debt should lead to a bad economy. They have. There have been 6 such periods of longer than 3 years in US history, They have ALL ended in a real gut wrenching depression. In fact this accounts for all of our depressions.
9. On the other hand, in 1946 we had the largest debt ratio in our history. The public debt ratio was 47% larger than today. We had deficits for 21 of the next 27 years. We increased the debt 75%.
And we had Great Prosperity.
11
Len, doesn't money also come from private bank lending?
Len,
That is all true, but the kind of spending matters doesn’t it? The recent tax cut is a kind of negative spending in that it is targeted to the wealthy, who put it off shore or buy back stock( does that increase the likelihood of an ecoonomic crash?) and buy politicians. As you also pointed out, monetary stimulis is limited if money given by the fed sits in banks. These actions may be continuing a low interest environment, but it seems like nothing gets done in the public sector( infrastructure).
3
(8): The above us not even close to correct. Sorry, but some of that book-learnin' might pay off here.
Compared to Republicans, Democrats have long been the party of fiscal conservatism. Since Trump has led the party, the difference between the two parties has widened on this subject. Republicans in Congress have solidly embraced more and more enormous deficits, and will surely enact even bigger ones if they hold onto control of Congress.
Unfortunately this is a very low bar. Compared to Bluebeard, President Trump is both relatively handsome and relatively respectful of women.
21
As a former mainstream newspaper journalist, I think your diagnosis of why news reporters and pundits don't point out this obvious pattern is solid. It's hard to break away from stereotyped story lines, aka "conventional wisdom," however wrong and out-of-date they have become because that might seem like taking sides, being taken in or using your own judgment. Doing that generally makes editors or readers uncomfortable. There is safety in the herd and, in practice, most career journalists and the news organizations they work for are risk adverse. They don't see challenging stereotypes or shifting paradigms as their job. So thanks for this brave column.
153
Fair enough but, from all evidence, this approach has not preserved the credibility of the press and so our system, which relies on freedom of the press to report the real and the truth, is suffering a double whammy.
6
If your passion is for cutting taxes, it's hard to be fiscally responsible. Most people don't like paying taxes and it's been a winning political strategy to advocate for lower taxes.
It's also consistent with the expressed desire to make government smaller, but that has proven to be difficult and not so popular. If Democrats tax and spend, it can be said that Republicans borrow and spend.
31
Unfortunately, you are correct. Both parties spend money like there will be no consequence in the future.
2
I believe what Betsy S said was one party spends like there is a tomorrow and the other spends like there's no tomorrow. And that's what the article said. And, it might be said, one spends hoping to actually fix some of the problems that lead to so much unnecessary spending. Kinda like preventive medicine. If you spend now to help people get tested, you save on expensive bad outcomes later. That's one of the reasons Obamacare works. Could be better, but it's been shown to be a deficit reducer. I'd call that news, but this newspaper calls it Opinion. But it seems to be a fact.
1
@Betsy S and Wolverine 7
But you have both forgotten that President Clinton left office with a budget surplus.
6
It has long mystified me why people aren't cognizant of the pattern Mr Leonhardt describes here. The GOP blows up the deficit, and the Dems come in and clean up their damage. The only problem is that as the numbers get bigger--as the GOP gets more greedy cutting taxes without paying for it--it will be more and more difficult for the Dems to clean it up. And we will all pay the price.
448
Thats why it is so important to take the House and the White House in the next two elections. If we limit the time the anarchist GOP has to attack the Government we will be able to fill in more of these craters left by the mad bombers.
23
The 1% won't pay the price, not in the short term at least. They're the constituency the Republicans really serve, and thanks to current campaign financing regulations, the Democrats have to as well.
7
The interesting thing about LMG’s point is that it was also made by none other than Grover Norquist. He admitted that it was necessary to elect Democrats from time to time so they could fix the messes created by the GOP and set the stage for next round of GOP control and even more messes. I never quite understand if his ultimate goal was for the GOP to create such a monstrous mess that nobody could fix it and the nation just crashed altogether. I think that’s what he meant by drowning government in the bathtub - no taxes, no government and no America, just a few very wealthy family fiefdoms.
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Fiscal "conservatism" has nothing to do with the deficit. It's all about taxes, particularly taxes on corporations and large businesses and taxes on inheritance for our nation's wealthiest citizens. The deficit is only an issue when there is some threat of it being curtailed via tax increases. Conservatism does not entail any sort of drive or desire to "balance the books". Republicans deserve some credit for the deficit reduction that took place during Obama's presidency, and Democrats deserve some blame for our currently ballooning deficit. The budget belongs to Congress, not the President. But "conservatism" in the modern era simply means using deficit spending to expand and subsidize the government's instruments of violence (the military and police) rather than infrastructure and social engineering. Because Democrats and Republicans now have roughly equal representation in the Senate, both sides must be appeased. Unsurprisingly, this can only happen at great cost.
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Well sure enough someone woke up. Democrats expand economies to include most every strata of the electorate. Whereas Republicans limit any expansion of the economy. Especially now with impending limits on immigration . If America were to seriously compete in the world markets as a manufacturer, we could not do it because a lack of incoming labor through immigration. Just look at American history. We grew & economically strengthened our country through immigrant labor. In fact ,immigrant labor filled the jobs we native born Americans refused to do. It is reflected in our history for close to 400 years. It is reflected how slavery took hold ,when labor was in such short supply in the economies of many colonies. In our 242 year history as a nation, only under a Democratic President did we ever have a balanced budget for two years. Never have we had a balanced budget under a Republican. The modern day Bigly Lie, aside from Trump, is the idea that Republicans are fiscal conservatives.
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Absolutely False:
The federal government has balanced the budget, eliminated deficits for more than three years, and paid down the debt more than 10% in just six periods since 1776, bringing in enough revenue to cover all of its spending during 1817-21, 1823-36, 1852-57, 1867-73, 1880-93, and 1920-30. The debt was paid down 29%. 100%, 59%, 27%, 57%, and 38% respectively. A depression began in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929.
So we have had a balanced budget for more then 2 years and paid down the debt 10% or more SIX times, each one ending in a terrible depression.
The brief and small balanced budgets under Clinton, only paid down the debt 9%, but they contributed to the flow of money OUT of the private sector from 1996 to 2008 (except for brief period in 2003) which contributed to a huge explosion of PRIVATE debt which in turn led to the financial crisis of 2008
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The explosion in private debt was mostly caused by an astonishing 40% of homes purchased in that time period that were not being used as primary residences.
Interesting column. I might add that Republicans also don't believe in big government outside of a free-for-all military budgets. Since Ronald Reagan, the GOP have built their political philosophy on the premise that Government is bad, unregulated business is good. In short, the GOP does not govern. The Democrats get into power and they try to govern.
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Sadly, both parties suffer from a lack of fiscal responsibility. Whomever is in power simply takes the blame. Unfortunately, it is easy to buy today and, maybe, pay tomorrow. It is no different than a spendthrift with a credit card, except the spendthrift cannot borrow I definitively or print money.
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Except that Leonhardt's column just demonstrated that there's a marked difference between the two parties - Democrats tend to shrink the deficit, while Republicans tend to expand it.
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The difference between the two parties is that Democrats make sure there is revenue to pay for their spending; the GOP not only spends more, but cuts its sources of revenue.
It's as if the GOP thinks you can buy a really expensive car on credit and then ask your boss to cut your pay. Doesn't work.
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David Stockman did say that the Republicans
caused the U.S. Financial Collapse 2007-2008.
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Thanks for joining Paul Krugman in pointing out the obvious, which I would like to restate more bluntly as follows: Democrats are more fiscally responsible, Republican talk is just talk, and 95% of "neutral" "pundits" (supposedly, meaning a thinking person) are blinded to the facts by their devotion to simple inherited stereotypes and are thereby helping to undermine our country.
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During the 15-month period from January 2017 to March 2018 2 million 800,000 jobs were created, an average of less than 200,000 jobs per month. That is over 500,000 fewer than the 3 million 300,000 jobs that were created during the similar period from January 2015 to March 2016, without rolling back any environmental regulations.
Also, it is 1 million 500,000 fewer jobs than the 4 million 300,000 jobs that would have been created in 15 months at the average rate of job creation of the Clinton administration, 100,000 jobs per month higher than that of the current administration.
At the current rate of job creation some 19 million jobs will be created between 2017 and 2020. At the rate of job creation during the Clinton administration some 30 million jobs would be created between 2017 and 2020. At an average reduction in the deficit of between $10,000 and $15,000 per new job because of increased tax receipts from individuals and corporations, reduced unemployment benefits, and reduced interest payments on the national debt, the deficit could be eliminated by 2020.
By rescinding some of the recent tax cuts that are shown to have no positive effect on employment (i.e., no “trickle-down”) we could be in surplus territory, and could be starting to pay down the national debt.
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Capital B. Capital S.
The amount of waste, fraud, corruption, and outright theft in just public education is rampant and ridiculous.
Dems want more money to feed the beast.
No way.
Which is why Dems continue to lose.
If they'd only act to stop it, they'd win.
It's hardly rocket science.
Sad what that says about the intellect of Democrats that they can't even figure out that voters continue to vote against waste and fraud.
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@Honeybee (showing your sting): Have you any evidence of that claim? Any dollar numbers? Any actual incidents? Anything? No, you don't, because whatever waste, fraud, corruption, and theft there is in public education (and there is some) is dwarfed by the waste, fraud, corruption and theft in the Defense budget and that is dwarfed by the amount in the private sector (Trump's and Florida governor Rick Scott's business careers being good examples).
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But this is the GOP plan. They cut taxes. The Democrats raise taxes. The voters know that, and only that, because the deficit does not have a direct effect on them. And when Clinton produced a surplus, Bush Jr. simply gave it away (that was pre 9/11).
And the end result the Republicans seek is to create such a large structural deficit (i.e., debt service) that no tax increase would be enough to prevent cuts to social security and other safety net programs.
So the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Trump deficits are a manifestation of a sinister plan.
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That's a popular lefty Democratic meme, but in reality....Republicans have done very little to cut SS. The only time they effectively did so (and I see nobody on the left trying to correct this!!!) is when they raised the age for full SS to 67 -- an age beyond the ability of most seniors to keep working (either they have poor health OR can't find jobs at that old). It was done when these very seniors (ME!!!) were only in our mid to late 20s, so we did not fully realize what a disaster this would be -- a 20-30% cut in our benefits for LIFE. We have paid in, but can't take out what our fellow baby boomers can -- people just 5 years older than we are.
But beyond that....there has not been another direct change to SS since Reagan. The most was a PROPOSAL to offer a voucher OPTION for Medicare -- and it got totally shot down.
The right has no more political power to take away SS or Medicare than the left. It was OBAMA who called to raise the age for SS to 70!! Medicare too! Imagine having wait until 70 for Medicare, when you've lost your job or health insurance!
You describe well what you get when you put tax cuts and wars on a credit card to be paid by future generations.
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