$102.8 billion deficit ... no not a year ... just July

Why do you hate freedom?

 

Just pay off our deficit with one of those no-interest until 2009 credit card offers. Then, when that deal runs out, transfer the credit to another card. That's what I do.

 

bravo Grimace!

 

Actually Bill Clinton did balance the budget. There was a surplus when GWB took over. Which he and the Republican Congress hurried to eliminate with the first stimulus package/tax refunds. Then when the rainy day came and they needed the money for the two wars, there wasn't any surplus to use.

 

So, they're borrowing liberally from your kids and grandkids.

As the bulletheaded douche would say:

"So?"

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/8/the_wrecking_crew_thomas_frank_on

A great interview on this subject.

 

I wish Howard Dean didn't come off as such a douche, because he's been making the point for years now that it's a joke to call the Republicans the party of fiscal responsibility. Why does anyone believe that bullshit?

 

Well, Clinton "balanced the budget" using some voodoo tricks like borrowing against the SS surplus, so he didn't really actually balance the budget the way you and I have to balance our checkbooks (money coming in has to equal or surpass money going out), but the basic point remains the same -- he came light-years closer to actually balancing the budget than any of the allegedly-fiscally-conservative Repubes ever have in the last 30 years, none of whom have come even remotely close to doing it -- in fact, after all the lip service they give to "responsible spending," they've blown the deficit out of the solar system.

 

Seems you have to have divided government in order to have fiscal responsibility.

Six of Clinton's eight years had a GOP Congress, with innumerable budget batttles and a government shutdown, hence an eventual "surplus" (which is misleading, that just meant we didn't spend as much as we took in in a given year, we still carried multi-trillion dollar debt).

When Reagan had a rubber-stamp Congress, spending went through the stratosphere. When Fredo got his rubber-stamp Congress for the middle four years of his administration, ditto.

Gridlock is good.

 

. . . and has been, for a long, long time.

 

I mean, I think it's obvious why.

Those Washington tools don't vote for what makes the most sense. They don't vote for what is fiscally responcible. Instead, they vote across party lines.

This is why someone like Lincoln Chafee gets kicked out of office. Chafee voted against republican initatives constantly and when re-election time came rolling around, the party pretty much played it like he didn't exist.

After all, if people used their brains to vote, well, most of these guys would be out of a job.