The President, his legislative allies and the vast majority of media outlets have been reduced to campaigning on the so-called failed policies of the Republicans this last decade. You, dear reader, apparently believe them when they say that only since George W. Bush was elected have we enacted policies harmful to the economy, your freedoms, and your families. After all, we elected the Democrats in a landslide in 2008.
This campaign theme is, perhaps, the greatest fabrication of facts in modern history. It is made more so because so much of the electorate swallowed the bait. In truth, Republicans in love with progressivism governed like ‘60s Democrats yet were successfully painted as the antithesis. They are to blame for all the deficits, the wars, the cracker babies, the Frank-Dodd-Schumer-Cuomo-Clinton economic meltdown, the death of the cassette tape, and Cousin Ryan’s diabetes. All evil, all the time. Really?
We bought it in 2008. Surprisingly, many Conservatives and Libertarians bought it, their guilt over the Republicans’ six year spending spree a nearly incurable infection of self loathing. Frankly, it is about time someone looked at the facts and called out the real causes of our current problems. Otherwise we will end up calculating our nation’s wealth with the Grecian Formula.
The sad truth is we are living through an ongoing economic and political sitcom called “That ‘70s Show.” Some facts:
Democrats have held majorities in the Senate 73% of the time since 1932. Democrats have held Majorities in the House 79% of the time since 1932. So, for 78 years Democrats have controlled the legislative, spending, and social agenda of the United States for about 75% of the time. It is “That ‘70’s Show.” When James Carville declared in 2009 that this was a new dawn and Democrats would hold a majority for the next forty years it must have been a joke. There was nothing new about it.
In fact, during the last 39 congressional sessions Democrats had a 60% or better majority in the senate chamber 12 times. In that period there has never been a Republican majority above 55%, and that figure occurred only once. In the house, of the eight sessions with a majority of Republicans, one was a majority of 58 seats. The other seven sessions averaged a majority of roughly twenty-three. Democrats, on the other hand, had one session with over 200 seats and about twelve sessions with at least one hundred seats.
In simple language, any Republican control was marginal at best, compared to the Democrats. Logically, it could be concluded that nearly every major social or spending initiative that is causing our difficulties today has roots in Democrat legislation. But, do not take my word for it. Maybe some facts will clear out the stink.
Today our unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid alone might be as high as seventy trillion dollars. This is because Social Security is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme dressed up as pay-as-you-go and Lyndon Johnson, as the voice of the Democrat, is on record as stating (and I paraphrase): “Never tell them how much Medicare will really cost or they will not vote for it.” These poorly designed programs were created by Democrats long before the year 2000 and are running up your tab every millisecond.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created in 1938 and 1970 respectively, and no matter what George Soros and Barney Frank say, were used as political tools and were integral to the creation of the U.S. property asset bubble. Somehow, problems created by entities functioning on policies established by the Democrats (and distorting the demand for housing) for the last seventy-two years were REALLY created during six years of Republican control of the legislative and executive branches? Huh?
Federal government annual spending increased by approximately $1.3 trillion from 2000 to 2008. This year’s Democrats would have you believe all that spending was for George Bush’s wars. Right? Of that $1.3 trillion more, about $1 trillion (or 76%) was for civilian or entitlement spending, not military or war spending. Part of that increase was to pay for significant increases in education funding (a dubious federal responsibility) and for the Medicare drug entitlement enacted under the Big Government Republican Majority.
Prior to 1932, average government spending in this country was around 13% of GDP. This includes all federal, state, and local spending. Today it is roughly 45% and has been for two years. You are asked to believe that all we have to do is spend more through the government by incurring more debt, all in the name of compassion. Yet, is the poverty rate going down? Is the unemployment rate growing or shrinking? Is GDP growing at a faster rate than ever? Are businesses investing more in the U.S.? Are we generating new innovations at a faster rate?
The answers to all those questions appear obvious. Our GDP is now growing at less than half the rate of the 1920s (prior to the New Deal), thereby robbing U.S. citizens of income and prosperity. For the last 30 years we have been growing slower than our growth rate in the early sixties (prior to the Great Society). Below is a chart illustrating our economic condition relative to the period just before the 1960s eruption of so-called progressive good intentions.
| 1966 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Government spending (Billion’s) | $216 | $5,297 | $6,456 |
| GDP | $789 | $14,441 | $14,240 |
| Government spending % of GDP | 27.4% | 36.7% | 45.3% |
| Unemployment rate | 3.9% | 7.2% | 9.6% |
| Poverty Rate | 14.7% | 13.2% | 14.5% |
| Generational Obligation (Billions) | $717.0 | $42,000.0 | $61,000.0 |
| Government Spending Definition | All Federal, State, and Local Spending | ||
| Generational Obligation | The deficit gap obligated to taxpayers for the trailing 80 years | ||
| Generational Obligation for 1966 is an estimate, as is the GDP for 2009. Generational obligations are estimates based on projections by the CBO. Other data is derived from the US census, From the CBO, and from the Executive office of the President of the United States, specifically the budget and its associated historical tables. The 2009 poverty rate is an estimate. | |||
I will not speak to all the possible conclusions of this chart, with one exception. The significant increase in government spending does not appear to positively impact poverty and appears to negatively correlate to unemployment.
Democrats want us to believe that nothing happened before the year 2000, and that if it did, none of it matters because we had an evil-palooza from 2000 to 2006. They want us to forget about “That ‘70s Show” during which they enacted virtually all the policies affecting us today. They want you to believe that they are just emerging from the wilderness, and somehow succeeded enough to convince you that after 78 years of more spending and government, all we need is more. The real fact is that, with the exception of a brief hiccup for a year or two in the eighties, the solution to every problem has been progressive intervention by government.
One can also suppose that even more harmful affects were ameliorated by the U.S. innovation engine in computing, engineering, and sciences because the U.S. was still the most stable, friendly place for innovators. But the best and the brightest now have other places to go. They know that the progressive ‘70s show needs to end or the U.S. will become Greece, a fiscal basket case. We can either sit here and listen to the Democrat establishment hum us a lullaby about how retreading bankrupt ideas from the ‘30s are really good for us. Or, we can turn off “That ‘70s Show” and end 78 years of nearly one party rule in our legislative and intellectual life.
