How do GOP economics operate: Lower taxes while you spend like crazy?

Question

Seems to contradict all the laws of economics but they all believe in the same principle and Americans keep voting em in. Reagan said "Greed is good" while running up a four trillion dollar deficit. He got elected twice. Now Bush is working on a two trillion dollar deficit. What part dont Americans understand? ITS THE ECONOMY, STOO-PID!

Answer 1

Republicans: Lower taxes, but spend the government's money on international interests i.e. military spending.  Rely completely on capitalism.  If you can't make it in the competitive world, oh well, too bad.  Guess you'll have to live in a smaller apartment and buy lots of hotdogs.

Democrats: Raise taxes, spend all the government's money on feeding the poor and giving them free housing and welfare. Don't want to learn a trade and earn a living?  No problem, Uncle Sam will give you food stamps and subsidized housing.  The rich will just have to pay that much more to enable the lazy to stay home and have lots of babies they can't afford.

Libertarians: The federal government has one major purpose: to oversee the United States' sovereignty by managing international trade and our military.  Federal government should be very very small and non-intrusive.

Answer 2

Bush Economics

Any economic policy fueled by feeding  the greed of the ultra rich is doomed.

1. 55 cents of every Bush tax cut dollars goes to less than 1% of the people  (the ultra rich making over 1.5 million dollars per year.)

2. Lil' Bush and Daddy Bush outspent all the other 41 Presidents COMBINED.

3. Bush is the only President dumb (or is it corrupt) enough to cut taxes to the ultra rich while we are engaged in a  war.

During WW2 the highest possible tax rate was 91%.

Set the tax rate for Bush's Billionaire buddies at 91% while we are at war and they would have us out of Iraq tomorrow.

4. Allen Greenspan, who worked as head of the Federal Reserve for Ford, Reagan, Bush H Clinton and Bush W.  says that even though he is a Repulican he gives the current Bush the lowest marks of any President he worked with in terms of his finical policy and fiscal responsibility.

5. Bush hold the all time record for the fewest vetoes of wasteful spending bills (NONE ... Not even one spending veto during his entire first term)

6. Bush says cutting Governemat regulations of businesses helps the economy. Just trust big busines to do the right thing. Like Enron, the Mortgagae buinesses cricis, the credit card unlimited interest rates

7. The number one reason for bankruptcy during the Bush tenure? Medical costs. How does bush address this medical bankruptcy problem? Bush makes it harder to file Bankruptcy.  

8. record inflation, record deficits and a devalued dollar.

Answer 3

DEM: Raise them and STILL spend wasteful like crazy!

Answer 4

War makes economics a little different.

Answer 5

Much of the "spending" part contributed to the Democrats regaining control of Congress.

So, no, you're wrong... while you want to lower taxes to spur economic growth, the "spend like crazy" part is not part of GOP principles.

Answer 6

Yeah, pretty much.  It's called the war on the middle class -- been working wonders since Reagan came into office with his 'voodoo economics' that strangely benefit only the wealthy, making them super wealthy -- everyone else has less time to pay attention to government and the corrupt that continue to benefit inside it.

But, yeah, supply side economics is the route they have taken, which outsources jobs, and funnels money into the hands of the few with deregulation and corporate monopolies in bed with the politicians they fund getting into office, then leaving to join back the corrupt world of lobbying.  It's how it works now.  The corporate mass media wage their little public relations war via infotainment, distraction and mass misinformation and obfuscation and what do we get?  The U.S. and a massive public apathetic and undereducated.

Change is coming though.  Just like it did in '32 after the depression and people just couldn't survive it anymore.

Answer 7

Actually planned deficits during periods of economic trouble are called Keynesian, after John Maynard Keynes.  If intelligently designed they do work.  Sweden actually takes in more interested revenue from it's reserves and investments then it pays in debts, they use these reserves during an economic slow down to build large infratructure projects.

The stimulus package is not a terrible idea, it will relieve somne of the suffering of american households and will likly increase demand to help bust you guys over the hump.  The problem is CORRUPTION.  For instance in new orleans the government ended up paying $175 per a square root of tarping, having already paid for the tarps and the guys who did the tarping(after sufficient sub-contracting of sub-contracts) got paid less then $4, as I already said: the Government provided the tarps to begin with.  Iraq was 're-constructed' in much the same way.

Also look at world war II, ( the US cheated in 39-41, taking British and Canadian paid contracts without going in to deficit itself), but we basically spent our way out of the dirty thirties.  Was there the money to pay for this?  No, but it worked.  Hitler(who I am in NO WAY endorsing) got Germany out of the depression sooner by spending on massive public work projects, like the auto-bahn, while the anglo countries still languished.  Did Germany have the money to pay for the autobahn?  No, but it worked.  Would it have worked if of every $175 dollars less then $4 went to those actually doing the work, and the materials were also provided from by the government?  Probably not as well.

Answer 8

What Jeremy P sed.

Except to elaborate somewhat on Naomi Kleins discussion of the Chicago School economic policies which define the Neo-Conservative logic of today.

The theory of "disaster capitalism" as Klein calls it -- a more apt term is Malthusian extremism -- not only depends upon disasters to shift profiteering into gear, this form of Imperialism precipitates or creates disasters. It is indeed Imperialism at work at its most desperate mode.

Milton Freidman, the main scholar of this Imperialist economic theory, also said that capital has limited life and use. Which is why the methods and uses for it by the neo-cons have become so subhuman.

Answer 9

The part nobody seems to get is the President doesn't write the budget or spend the money. Congress does and that includes both parties, that's why the spending NEVER stops. The Democrats have the House and the Senate and it went up, the only budget veto Bush threatened was because Congress wanted more spending. It's not a GOP thing, it's a politician thing.

They are like children playing off their divorced parents for goodies. We are the parents and we are so bitter that we don't talk to each other, instead we just keep pointing the finger back and forth. Congress knows they can continue to get away with it because most citizens don't bother to vote or even know who or what they are voting for.

Increased taxes never helps the economy or the deficit. It only rewards bad behavior from the Congress and tells them, "It's OK to spend even more". Would you give your kid more money because he spent more than he earned on junk when his insurance bill was due? No, but that is what we do with Congress.

Until we decide we've had enough of both parties then nothing will change. The only thing that changes is which column the debit goes in.