Deficits Do Matter

"Reagan showed us deficits don't matter."
   - Dick Cheney

What Dick should have said was "Reagan showed us deficits don't matter, unless a democrat is in the White House."

During Dick's turn as Vice President, the republican controlled government cut taxes during war time (2 wars to be exact) and ran huge deficits during relatively good economic times.  Great fucking move guys.  They claim to be the party of 'fiscal responsibility'.  Really? On what planet.  Over the last 30 years, there have been 3 republican  presidents and one democrat.  Three ran deficits, one balanced the budget.  And that one wasn't a republican.

It was Bill 'Bubba' Clinton.  He raised taxes while presiding over the longest period of economic prosperity in modern times.  He left office with a projected surplus.  He did it while giving lie to the notion of supply side economics and the right's cult of "cut taxes no matter what" mantra.

The typical wingnut response is that the budget was only balanced due to a republican controlled Congress.  The easy retort to this is "Okay, then WHAT THE FUCK happened from 2001 - 2006 when the right controlled everything?"  And wait for the silence.  If there is anything to be learned from W's presidency (other than nearly everything he did was wrong) is that supply side economics DON'T WORK.

The hilarious thing is republicans aren't even really practicing supply side anymore. The Laffer curve claims that at any given time there is an optimal tax rate where government revenues are maximized.  Go too high or too low and the government loses money.  The right has perverted this into some Grover Norquist inspired nightmare where taxes are always too high and the optimal tax rate is apparently zero.

This was proven to be laughably false under George W. Bush.  He pushed through two massive and ill advised tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 with little if any effect on the economy.  Job growth petered along and economic growth was 1-2% per year.  Rather than stimulating the economy and filling the treasury's coffers, we began to hemorrhage money at a record pace.  Treasury bonds flew off the shelves and the administration had the cover of Afghanistan and Iraq to distract voters about the massively growing deficit.

Fast forward to 2008, the elections are looming and people are looking to be rid of Texas' favorite son. Then the great recession hits.  The GDP contracts by 6% in one quarter, job losses are nearly half a million per month.  The DOW goes into HOLY SHIT freefall from its lofty perch of nearly 14,000.  When the skid ends, the DOW sits around 7,000.  Lehman Brothers? Gone. Bear Stearns? Gone. Goldman Sachs? Hanging by a thread.  AIG? On life support.  The only thing missing was stock brokers jumping from their office window.  TARP is hastily assembled and pushed through.  It royally sucked that we were rewarding the scumbags who in large part created the shitstorm, but there was nothing else to do.  The investment and commercial and consumer credit markets would have to be rebuilt from scratch otherwise.

Now you ask: Ghost WTF with the history lesson?  We've been hearing this for 3 years now!

Obama got elected in the middle of a monstrous crisis.  His response was to call for economic stimulus in the form of public works project similar to FDR's plan in the Great Depression.  Like FDR, it created jobs.  Like FDR, conservatives hated it.  The stimulus has nearly run its course, jobs were created though not nearly enough.  But no one argues that no jobs were created. No the wingnuts scream and cry about what a spend thrift Obama is, during a massive recession no less.

Despite the fact that people were put back to work the right screams "FAILURE" or simply laughs whenever the stimulus is mentioned. A program designed to put Americans back to work and to try to mitigate the country's suffering and it's mocked and vilified by these so called "patriots."

This is largely the same group who didn't bat an eyelash about flushing nearly a trillion bucks down the toilet INVADING THE WRONG COUNTRY.  Not to mention all the American's and Iraqi civilians killed for no reason.

Running deficits to give more money to those who already have a ton of it or blow a country up looking at us cross eyed is cool. But don't you dare help my neighbor keep his house after he lost his job through no fault of his own.

Preemptive war on the credit card is fine.

Spend money to help your countrymen during an economic crisis? Oh you fucking socialist traitor.

Deficits do matter. Getting the country back on track and the economy moving matters. Helping the top 1% buy another yacht doesn't.