WhatEVER Happened To All Those Extremely Concerned Republican Deficit Hawks? Crickets

[PoliTalker]

As President Trump's deficit in good times approaches the level of President Obama's deficit in a recession, people who are genuinely concerned should rightly be speaking out VERY loudly.

During President Obama's terms, we recovered from the Great Recession, an event which automatically forces the budget into large deficits. But his Republican opposition loudly and frequently carried on and on about the deficit. The country would go bankrupt and social order would unravel if the debt were allowed to rise too fast, they complained. Helping people in need was just too much spending. It was more important to keep the deficit low.

That was then.

This is now.

Now, the deficit is approaching a trillion dollars, but we are not hurting or trying to recover from anything. The economy is fine. So fine, in fact, that a lot of very rich people are getting very much richer, thanks to huge tax cuts for the rich, an unpopular act rushed through by Republicans after it looked like there was no major legislation President Trump could get passed, having just suffered a major defeat in their attempt to vote out ObamaCare.

Naturally, one would think that, with the deficit approaching A TRILLION DOLLARS more spending than revenue per year, all these Republican Deficit Hawks would be VERY CONCERNED. Speaking OUT. REPEATING their warnings LOUDLY.

Well, that would be giving them the benefit of the doubt, believing that they were actually concerned about the deficit back when they criticized President Obama for it. And they were wrong, btw. They said it would hurt the economy to add so much debt so quickly. Actually, the recovery took off, picked up steam, and never looked back. Apparently the Stimulus was the right thing to do. If anything, it should have been larger. That would have caused the recovery to be quicker and more robust.

But Republicans couldn't have that. No way they could watch as Democrats replaced them and quickly cleaned up the mess hatched under their care. So they came up with the phony complaints about the deficit.

And now we see just how phony those complaints were.

Because if they meant what they said back then, they would be complaining loudly now.

And what do we hear instead?

C*R*I*C*K*E*T*S !

cheap

cheap cheap

Federal Budget Deficit as of right now is: $909,554,500,000.00. (Click the link to see how much it has grown since this post.)

PoliTalker anti-troll thread thief disclaimer: If this thread is stolen, plagiarized, will the thief have the nerve to use the entire OP, word for word? Including this disclaimer? If you want my take on it, you'll have to post to this original PoliTalker thread. I refuse to be an enabler for online bullies, so I won't post to a stolen thread. I won't even read it. If you don't see me, PoliTalker, posting in this thread check the author. This might be a hijacked thread, not the original.

[Heff]

Whatever happened to the media shills saying the deficit wasn't a problem?

Trump Hates the Trade Deficit. Most Economists Don’t.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/u...sts-trump.html

[PoliTalker]

Wow.

In the time since I posted the OP, (about a half hour,) the Deficit has gone up $17 Million.

[Nordberg]

Cranking up the debt is the Republican plan. They want to make it big enough that they can justify ending all the social programs including food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid. This has been a long term plan that may be ready to be used now. Repubs slash taxes for the wealthy and jack up spending, especially military. This pattern was started by Reagan and has been percolating ever since. It is not an accident.
Trump is not a politician and he is not too bright. But he found out if he wanted to do anything he had to follow that plan. He did.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/u...cits-debt.html

[PoliTalker]

Hello Nordberg,

Cranking up the debt is the Republican plan. They want to make it big enough that they can justify ending all the social programs including food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid. This has been a long term plan that may be ready to be used now. Repubs slash taxes for the wealthy and jack up spending, especially military. This pattern was started by Reagan and has been percolating ever since. It is not an accident.
Trump is not a politician and he is not too bright. But he found out if he wanted to do anything he had to follow that plan. He did.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/u...cits-debt.html

Great link. Thanks for posting that:

"“I think it’s a little bit surprising and puzzling,” said Jason Furman, a former chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, noting that trillion-dollar budget deficits is uncharted territory during a period of full employment. “We’ve never had anything like that outside of a war or a recession.”"

...

"Mr. Strain, of the American Enterprise Institute, suggested that for deficit reduction to become a prevailing policy for Republicans, another Democratic president might be required."

Good idea. Let's see if we can arrange for that.

[PoliTalker]

What's the deficit today?

$935,779,500,000

How much bigger is it now than a while ago?

$935,779,500,000 - $909,554,500,000 = $26,225,000,000

Wow.

The deficit has gone up $26 Billion since I began this thread on 4-4-2019.

$26 Billion in 11 days.

It rises at over a billion a day.

We have to tax the rich more.

Remember. I'm just talking about the deficit here.

That's the difference between what we already owe and what we are adding onto the debt.

Can you say "insufficient revenue?"

This 'great economy' is a ticking time bomb.

It's gonna blow up!

[gfm7175]

What's the deficit today?

$935,779,500,000

How much bigger is it now than a while ago?

$935,779,500,000 - $909,554,500,000 = $26,225,000,000

Wow.

The deficit has gone up $26 Billion since I began this thread on 4-4-2019.

$26 Billion in 11 days.

It rises at over a billion a day.

We have to tax the rich more.

Remember. I'm just talking about the deficit here.

That's the difference between what we already owe and what we are adding onto the debt.

Can you say "insufficient revenue?"

This 'great economy' is a ticking time bomb.

It's gonna blow up!

What about cutting spending?

[archives]

As President Trump's deficit in good times approaches the level of President Obama's deficit in a recession, people who are genuinely concerned should rightly be speaking out VERY loudly.

During President Obama's terms, we recovered from the Great Recession, an event which automatically forces the budget into large deficits. But his Republican opposition loudly and frequently carried on and on about the deficit. The country would go bankrupt and social order would unravel if the debt were allowed to rise too fast, they complained. Helping people in need was just too much spending. It was more important to keep the deficit low.

That was then.

This is now.

Now, the deficit is approaching a trillion dollars, but we are not hurting or trying to recover from anything. The economy is fine. So fine, in fact, that a lot of very rich people are getting very much richer, thanks to huge tax cuts for the rich, an unpopular act rushed through by Republicans after it looked like there was no major legislation President Trump could get passed, having just suffered a major defeat in their attempt to vote out ObamaCare.

Naturally, one would think that, with the deficit approaching A TRILLION DOLLARS more spending than revenue per year, all these Republican Deficit Hawks would be VERY CONCERNED. Speaking OUT. REPEATING their warnings LOUDLY.

Well, that would be giving them the benefit of the doubt, believing that they were actually concerned about the deficit back when they criticized President Obama for it. And they were wrong, btw. They said it would hurt the economy to add so much debt so quickly. Actually, the recovery took off, picked up steam, and never looked back. Apparently the Stimulus was the right thing to do. If anything, it should have been larger. That would have caused the recovery to be quicker and more robust.

But Republicans couldn't have that. No way they could watch as Democrats replaced them and quickly cleaned up the mess hatched under their care. So they came up with the phony complaints about the deficit.

And now we see just how phony those complaints were.

Because if they meant what they said back then, they would be complaining loudly now.

And what do we hear instead?

C*R*I*C*K*E*T*S !

cheap

cheap cheap

Federal Budget Deficit as of right now is: $909,554,500,000.00. (Click the link to see how much it has grown since this post.)

PoliTalker anti-troll thread thief disclaimer: If this thread is stolen, plagiarized, will the thief have the nerve to use the entire OP, word for word? Including this disclaimer? If you want my take on it, you'll have to post to this original PoliTalker thread. I refuse to be an enabler for online bullies, so I won't post to a stolen thread. I won't even read it. If you don't see me, PoliTalker, posting in this thread check the author. This might be a hijacked thread, not the original.

The Republican Party has become a joke, not only deficits/debt but also family values, free trade, limited executive power, judicial restraint, and other supposed principles they told us for decades were the core principles of conservationism. Appears Republican values really depend upon who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave

And the biggest clowns are the GOP Senators who ever time Trump comes up with something outrageous they scream and yell that they are opposed to it but when the chips fall they are right on board with their yes votes

It is going to take the party years to re brand itself after Trump because right now they stand for nothing

[PoliTalker]

Hello archives,

The Republican Party has become a joke, not only deficits/debt but also family values, free trade, limited executive power, judicial restraint, and other supposed principles they told us for decades were the core principles of conservationism. Appears Republican values really depend upon who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave

And the biggest clowns are the GOP Senators who ever time Trump comes up with something outrageous they scream and yell that they are opposed to it but when the chips fall they are right on board with their yes votes

It is going to take the party years to re brand itself after Trump because right now they stand for nothing

The fixers for the super-rich. That's what the Republican party is now.

[PoliTalker]

Hello gfm7175,

What about cutting spending?

If we cut that much spending the economy would implode. Most of that spending gets used to pay people to do things. They would all get laid off, stop making mortgage payments, credit card payments, student loan payments, car payments, etc. And the government would have to pay their Unemployment Compensation. All those people who were making all those payments before their paychecks got eliminated also made a lot of payments to the IRS. With fewer people working, revenue would drop. This would force you to cut more government spending in a death spiral loop of a race to the bottom.

Please proceed with this idea of massive government spending cuts only if you want to implode the economy.

Fortunately, you will not find enough voting lawmakers ready to sign off on catastrophic spending cuts which would have their constituents very made at them for killing their businesses and jobs.

If you want to know what our economy would be like without massive government spending, just take a look at Puerto Rico. We used to have far more federal spending there, military bases and the associated spin-off economy. Nearly all of that got nixed, cut way back, and their economy imploded. They didn't have any voting representatives to stop it.