I guess I’ve heard the Republican Talking Point that the Democrats were "tax and spend" so long myself that I questioned the results in my last post. So I did it again from scratch. The graph in the upper left is the raw data for income and expenses. The one in the upper right is the Gross Domestic Product. The lower left shows the income and expenses corrected for the GDP as a way of correcting for inflation. The deficit/surplus graph [lower right] came out just like last time. The Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush, and Bush/Cheney Administrations all three escalated spending and operated with large deficits. Both Carter and Clinton cut spending, and Clinton actually produced a surplus.
Why didn’t I know this? Why doesn’t everyone know this? How do the Republicans get away with saying it year after year? [Here’s where the numbers came from if you want to check my work.]:
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The National Accounts: The National Accounting is easily accessed on the Bureau of Economic Analysis web site.
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The Gross Domestic Product: The GDP is available in another section of the Bureau of Economic Analysis web site.
Unfortunately, this data doesn’t flesh out the "tax" part except grossly [like the gross Bush tax cut]. But my interest is definitely aroused. I expect there’s a taxation comparison coming soon to a blog near here.
I live in New Jersey and what you point out about Republican Presidents raising the debt and Democratic Presidents lowering the debt nationally holds true with the govenors of our state. It’s a vicious cycle that has to be exposed and Democrats have to shout the truth over and over from the rafters.You know the old saying robbing Peter to pay Paul is what Republicans are doing every chance they get. The media has to start reporting the truth not some sound byte and footage that sounds good and gets repeated on the network and you tube.
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