For eight years, Republicans told us that deficits and debt were too big a threat for more government spending. Even when the Recession was at its worst and businesses and people were losing money, the GOP balked at stimulus spending proposed by Obama and the Democrats. Now that they’re in power, deficits no longer matter and debt is barely an afterthought.
Last month, they passed a budget busting tax cut that will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt over the next decade and deficits, which have been in decline since Obama took office, are skyrocketing. Now, Trump has released a budget that would cause $1 trillion in deficit spending. The Republicans who lectured us about the evils of debt and deficits can no longer be found.
The increases in debt and deficits are driven by the loss of revenue from the Republican tax cut. The country will lose $3.7 trillion in revenue between 2018 and 2017. To make up for some of the loss, Trump’s budget proposes cutting Medicare by $550 billion. It also cuts the EPA budget by more than 33%, including programs designed to reduce climate change. To say Trump and Republicans want to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy through cuts to Medicare and at the expense of our environment is not hyperbole. It’s the Trump budget proposal.
Trump’s budget probably won’t pass because of the political implication of cuts to Medicare in an election year that’s already scaring Republicans. Instead, if a budget is passed at all, it will likely just increase our debt and deficit, because Republicans don’t really care. Eight years of fiscal sanctimony was all a charade.
So what does the modern Republican stand for? Well, they still stand for lower taxes and less regulation. That’s been consistent. They believe if the wealthy and big corporations are unimpeded, they’ll drive an economy that brings higher levels of income to everybody. It hasn’t worked yet, but they’ll keep trying it.
They believe in deficit spending and that debt doesn’t matter. Really, they’ve been consistent on those points, too, when they’ve been in power. Reagan created massive deficits and debt. George W. Bush did, too. The debt that arose over the last decade was due mainly to Bush enacting a huge tax cut at the same time he led us into two wars and implemented a prescription drug program with no way to pay for it. Debt was increasing steadily anyhow and then the economy crashed. Obama may not have reduced the debt, but he didn’t cause it. He did reduce deficit spending, though.
In possibly the biggest reversal, Republicans no longer stand for free market economics, at least not globally. They’ve been relatively silent as Trump imposed tariffs on goods from China and South Korea. They barely raised a peep as Trump torpedoed the Trans Pacific Partnership. Let’s see how they respond when he tries re-negotiate NAFTA.
They stand for less immigration, especially if those immigrants want low paying, low skilled jobs. In essence, the Republicans would import more educated workers while reducing the number educated Americans, giving immigrants more higher paying jobs while giving more native born Americans lower paying ones.
They still oppose a strong social safety net. They will likely try to cut Social Security and Medicare if they retain control of Congress after November. Trump has already proposed sharply reducing food stamps and the GOP still says repealing the Affordable Care Act is a top priority.
So, if you boil it down, the GOP wants more money to flow to the wealthy and businesses. They want less for the poor and lower middle class. They want fewer people coming to the country unless they’ve already got enough money pay for themselves. They want to protect traditional industries like gas and oil while restricting emerging industries like solar. And their willing to pay for their expenses with a credit card.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
The only time deficits matter to the Republican Party is when the Democrats are in power.
Sometimes you hear people part company with a joke: “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” It always raises the question: What would he do? I have no idea what Republicans wouldn’t do, because they don’t do what they say they will do, and they do things I can’t imagine them doing.
Republicans were once a party that cared about the United States, its people, and its future. The values that made the Republican Party a great party are part of the distant past, and many of the former party faithful are appalled by the transformation.
Prominent Republicans who held high offices in past Administrations, patriotic Americans who have devoted their lives to protecting our nation’s security and former members of Congress who were respected Republicans have voiced their disquiet at the daily undoing of our nation under these Republicans now in Washington. Former party faithful has given interviews, written books, and published articles, describing the dissolution of values and the disappearance of basic principles of human decency.
The Republican Party was once the party of the Emancipation Proclamation; today it is the party of David Duke, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. At the turn of the 20th Century, the Democratic Party was Southern, racist and retrograde. At the turn of the 21st Century, the Democratic Party had become the party of civil rights while the Republican Party has embraced racism as a core value.
Republicans, today, have found “some good people” among the Nazis who murdered a young woman in Charlottesville. Name one good Nazi. I dare you.
Republicans campaigned in 2016 using rallies resembling Nazi gatherings of the 1930s where the participants scapegoated foreigners, beat up blacks, decried non-Christians, and spewed hatred for minorities. Our Republican legislature in North Carolina passed racist legislation which has been struck down by the judiciary time and again on the grounds that our legislature uses racism with precision. Their solution? Get rid of the judiciary.
Republicans are the party of sexual sleaze while claiming to be the example of family values. There is nothing about the sexual exploits of the current party leaders that resemble traditional morality. Wife beaters, sexual predators, and child molesters in the public eye occupy the highest levels of government and the White House. Their perverted behavior has somehow passed moral muster with Evangelicals and the party zealots. The religious right cannot believe in the Christian faith and simultaneously condone the molestation of children, the beating of wives and the purchase of prostitutes by their leaders. The Republican Party is a moral swamp.
Trump, a sexual predator, utters vile misogynistic, despicable insults to and about women. The pattern is well-established; his conduct is unbecoming to anyone but is unacceptable for a leader of this country. That his party accepts his perversions, his criminality, sexual deviance and his disdain for women says much about how bereft of morality and decency the Republican Party of today is.
The Republican Party cannot defend the country from our enemies. Every investigative agency, foreign and domestic, agrees that our nation was attacked during the 2016 campaign. The intelligence points to a comprehensive invasion of our media by thousands of Russian hackers in St. Petersburg, working for Putin, who promoted the Trump campaign, used social media to increase domestic conflict and provided valuable support to undermine Trump’s opponent.
After World War II, our former ally, the Soviets, expanded beyond Russian borders gathering surrounding nations. An iron curtain fell over the countries they captured. Russian influence spread throughout the world and would have expanded further without efforts to contain Communism by the United States and our allies.
Communist leaders in Russia fought the free world for control. In that era, Republicans ran for office in every part of the U.S. opposing Russian domination of the world. They accused Democrats, falsely, of sympathy for or allegiance to Russia. They painted Democrats as reds or socialists or pinkos.
Today, this very day, Russian hackers are attacking our cyber systems. They have been doing so for years. Where is the counter-offensive? Where are the forces who oppose a hostile enemy? They aren’t in the Republican Party. This Republican Party is chock-full of Russian operatives, Russian collaborators, and Russian spies.
The White House is a beachhead for Vladimir Putin. If there were a Spy Hall of Fame, it would have a wax statue of Putin, because Putin turned an American president and got control of the American government. And no Republican will defend the country. Never mind that most Republicans will never wear the uniform. Republicans do not raise a finger to stop the attacks on our systems, our elections, and our institutions. Republicans are leaving this country defenseless – while spending trillions of dollars on the defense industry.
Republicans are the party of fiscal irresponsibility. When Ronald Reagan took office, he cut taxes and spent lavishly on national defense. He deployed Keynesian deficit spending and began a run on the treasury that continued through Bush I. The federal debt increased from approximately $1 trillion to $8.2 trillion. President Clinton created budget surpluses, the only time that was done since the 1960s. But George W. Bush cut taxes and spent lavishly on defense. Bush II continued piling debt throughout his two terms. He added another $5 trillion, leaving the country nearly bankrupt and the world economy in a deep recession.
Balancing budgets is a matter of spending no more than what is collected in tax revenue. Republicans NEVER do that. They always run up the debt. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and Trump have all followed the same formula. Cut taxes, increase spending. Republicans are good at controlling spending when they do not run the government. When Republicans get control of the government they burn through money and put the country on a dangerous path.
The Republican Party has some boilerplate which says what they pretend to believe, but when they are in
charge, they don’t do that stuff. They really don’t believe what they say they believe. They are an infection on the body politic.
That’s the view of the Republican Party from the far left. Here’s a view of the Republican Party from a moderate conservative.
We agree on two things–the GOP stands for lower taxes and less government regulation ( the current GOP Administration has implemented policies and legislation to realize both). After that, our perspectives are virtually opposite.
In our view, Republicans stand for:
More and better private sector jobs and a slow down in the GROWTH of the public sector;
Higher wages for American workers and higher incomes for the American middle class;
Economic policies that promote economic GROWTH over policies that rely on the redistribution of income and wealth;
An emphasis on market economics rather than centralized government economic planning and controls;
A modern American military that is second to none and the pursuit of policies designed to reduce terrorism;
Strong support of our international allies including and especially Israel;
A reduction in the GROWTH RATE of federal spending;
Merit based immigration to the U.S.and strict enforcement of our borders and our laws to prevent illegal immigration;
Reduction of the U.S. public debt (Our national debt increased more during the Obama Administration than in all previous U.S. Administrations combined);
FAIR trade with our international trading partners;
Work and/or educational requirements for most social welfare program recipients;
Consistent enforcement of federal laws;
Adherence to the principles of the Bill of Rights including the right to free speech, religion, privacy, the press, due process and to bear arms, etc.;
A reduction in the rapid future GROWTH of unsustainable federal entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security;
More emphasis on private medical providers to deliver health care and less control of health care policy by the federal government;
More parental choice on education opportunities and less federal involvement in state and local schools;
Appointment of federal judges who believe their job is to interpret our laws rather than making legal judgements based on their personal biases and preferences;
More reliance on the states to pass and administer laws and policies that are not the exclusive purview of the federal government;
Making America energy independent and a net exporter of energy to rest of the world;
Simplification of the federal tax code;
An emphasis on policies and cultural norms that promote the ability of individual Americans to achieve their full potential realizing that while all individuals should have an equal opportunity for prosperity and success, there will always be inequality among individuals’ achievements .
Once again you reply with the Republican line and no evidence that they are working on any of it.
“…no evidence that they working on any of it”? The tax code has been simplified to some extent, the Administration is allowing U.S.energy production to surge, conservative judges are being confirmed at a record rate, more parental choice is now the official policy of the U.S. Department of Education, international trade agreements are being re-neogiated to support American workers, GNP is increasing at a rate not seen in ten years, wages are increasing, job creation is surging, taxes have been cut for 90 percent of taxpayers, etc, etc.
No doubt liberals don’t support much of the Republican agenda, but to claim they’re not working on it is pure sophistry.
But Ebrun, you don’t live in the real world. Most of the claims you make are factually incorrect, if not outright lies. Just like the party you support, you prefer alternative facts.
So sad.
A.D, I get the impression that you believe only your opinions are legitimate and anyone who doesn’t share your ideology is a liar.
How arrogant.