Applesauce
Pat Cunningham offers an unabashedly liberal perspective on national politics. A note of caution: The language gets a litttle salty on some of the sites to which this blog links. So, don’t say you weren’t warned. By the way, this blog’s name is inspired by the Will Rogers quote, “All politics is applesauce.” |
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August 8th, 2008 at 08:55am Pat Cunningham
Cartoon by Steve Greenberg of the Venutura County (Calif.) Star.
Entry Filed under: George H.W. Bush, fiscal conservatism, Bill Clinton, John McCain, President Bush, Ronald Reagan
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5 Comments Add your own
1. Orlando Clay | August 8th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Yep, if there’s one lone thing that Bush does indeed deserve kudos for, it’s for completely destroying once and for all the popular conservative myth that the American economy always fares better under a Republican administration. Even Rush “The $400M Propaganda Man” Limbaugh has stopped trying to perpetuate this fallacy.
2. Mike Carroll | August 8th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Clever cartoon Pat. Now, lets take another look by inserting the party who controlled congress during those administrations.
Reagan=Democrats
Bush 1=Democrats
Clinton=Republicans
Bush 2=mixture
Slightly different picture don’t you think. BTW, this by no means excuses Bush 2’s failure to rein in the excesses of the Republicans when they controlled congress and fed at the trough like their brethren across the aisle.
3. Pat Cunningham | August 8th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Coupla things, Mike: 1) Republicans controlled the Senate for six of Reagan’s eight years; and 2) The Clinton tax policy, which gave the financial markets confidence that he was serious about balancing the budget and therefore goosed the economy, passed the Senate without a single Republican vote. The cartoon above addresses only federal fiscal stats. It ignores the fact, as I’ve argued here on several occasions, that the U.S. economy generally performs better under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.
4. Pat Cunningham | August 8th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
One other thought: The Republicans have always been big on cutting taxes, but not so big on cutting spending. Cutting taxes requires no politcal courage, but cutting spending does. Hence, the Republicans have become the party of borrow-and-spend, which is worse than tax-and-spend because it passes the bills to future generations.
5. Mike Carroll | August 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Pat-a couple of rejoinders. If I recall, Clintons tax policy included a tax increase and hence no support from Republicans.As we have argued before, I think history demonstrates that cutting taxes spurs growth and raises revenue but that is a debate that will continue no doubt.
Here is a confession. Within reason, I don’t worry about the deficit as long as it is a small percentage of the GDP.
Practically all Americans practice deficit spending. I certainly don’t know anyone who purchased their home and cars with cash. A certain deficit is acceptable.
I do worry about debt and promised liabilities.
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