1 Boring Old Man

I didn’t used to get up in the mornings and peruse the Historical Documents on the White House web site. This one was derived from the Federal Budget Report for 2007, and shows the Federal Deficit as a percentage of the  Gross Domestic Product [with the Administrations and Major Wars marked]. But things change, so that’s what I was doing this morning. Why was I looking [besides being an old retired guy who can do whatever he wants to do]?

Several things have nagged at me for a long time. First, back in the late 60’s, a very wise mentor had responded to my lamenting the probable election of Richard Nixon by saying something like, "Don’t worry. We have to build up our coffers with Republicans every once and a while so the Democrats will have something to spend." I guess that’s the way it had always been [fitting the Republican Campaign line about runaway spending and big government that’s still used]. What he had said was historically true, and I filed it under "wise things to say in political discussions."

The other thing that has whirled around was from back when I first heard about the "Neoconservatives." I read and read trying to figure out what that meant, but everything I read was opaque. What I knew was that they were "anti-Liberal" in a social sense; they were part of the "big business" tradition; they were pugalists, specifically in the Middle East; and they were big on Defense spending. I guess I also knew that the prominant ones either were in Government, or didn’t work and were supported by Right Wing Think Tanks where the hung out being Neoconservative together. What they said, though, is that their founders were originally F.D.R. Democrats who had had a change of heart and become "Neoconservative" Republicans. What did they learn from F.D.R.?

So, back to my graph. F.D.R.’s method was to plunge us into debt to solve problems – borrowing from the future to fix contemporary problems. He did it in the 1930’s to combat The Great Depression. The other thing he did was put regulatory restrictions on the American business community. Then he really did the deficit spending thing in the early 1940’s to win WWII. Both situations were cataclysmic and called for emergency measures for the country to survive. The up side was that we survived. What was the down side?

A huge National Debt to pay interest on and try to pay down. This is a graph from the last time I obsessed about this topic. Starting with Ford [Chief of Staff? Dick Cheney], the pattern [that wise thing about Democrats and Republicans, "… build up our coffers with Republicans every once and a while so the Democrats will have something to spend."] reversed – and it reversed big time, particularly with Reagan. So since Ford:

• Taxes are too high
• "Welfare" Programs don’t work
• The World is dangerous and we need a mammoth Military
• We are a "Free Market" Economy
• The Democrats are weak on Defense
• The Democrats are big spenders

• Cut Taxes
• Slash Social Programs
• Increase Military Spending [supporting the Military Indistrial Complex]
• Start Wars
• Undo government reulation of Corporations

• The National Debt soars
• Coprruption Soars
• The rich get richer;
• The poor get poorer