OH GOD!!! NOT NUMBERS!!!

Sometimes I have to laugh at the Republican Presidential candidates, crawling all over each other, each claiming that he is the 'true conservative'. The funniest was at the recent debate at the Reagan Library, where the hallowed name of Ronald Reagan was invoked more times that that of God.

I really hate to toss numbers at you but, in order to understand exactly what these bozos want to do, you have to recognize the horrific impact that the NeoCons' economic policies have had on this once-great nation.

When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, the country was in the midst of a recession that predated even Jimmy Carter. For those with short memories, the long lines at American gas pumps had been only six years earlier, after OPEC stuffed a rag in the pipelines coming out of the Middle East in an attempt to manipulate the price of their black gold dramatically upward.

They succeeded, of course, and the increase in petroleum prices led to the increase in prices of - well, just about everything. This caused President Nixon to invoke his wage and price freeze of 1973, which temporarily staved off the flood. Then Jerry Ford tried to beat inflation with lapel pins, and wasn't that a great success? (Answer: No).

The response by the Fed whenever inflation raises its ugly head is to raise interest rates, in an attempt to slow down buying. Less demand, so the theory goes, leads to lower prices.

The Fed tried this strategy a number of times through the course of the 1970s, until home mortgage rates topped 19%.

Everyone claims that Carter was a lousy president, mostly because of interest rates, but in fact he inherited an unholy mess in 1977 when he was inaugurated. Because of general increases in the costs of just about everything, it shouldn't surprise you to discover that the Federal Budget Deficit had increased from the single-digit billions during the Nixon and Ford Administrations to double-digit billions by the time Reagan took office. Even so, the National Debt - that magic number that indicates the aggregate of what each and every one of us owes - was still a largely manageable amount.

Okay, here is where we get into numbers. I don't want your eyes to glaze over, so I will summarize for the attention-impaired. Budget deficits went up continuously through the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations. They stabilized and began to come down (eventually leading to a budget surplus!) in the Clinton42 Administration (see, I'm already thinking positively), and then skyrocketed during the disastrous administration of NeoCon puppet George W. Bush.

But read on, because the stuff between the numbers is important.

National Debt: 1980 - $914 billion
National Debt: 1988 - $2.6 trillion!

Increased by 287%

Deficits in years 1980-1988:
1980: $60 billion
1981: $79 billion
1982: $128 billion
1983: $208 billion
1984: $185 billion
1985: $212 billion
1986: $221 billion
1987: $150 billion
1988: $155 billion

Total budget deficits 1980-1988: $1.4 trillion dollars.

Reaganomics?

George H.W. Bush got it right when he called it –in 1980 – Voodoo Economics. To some extent, that might have been an insult – to voodoo.

What Reagan did was increase government spending to kick-start a moribund economy still reeling from the oil-crisis of the early 1970s. He also cut taxes, primarily to the rich and to large corporations, hoping to trigger a “trickle-down” economy. Even his own budget analyst, David Stockman, said in 1982 that the plan was doomed to failure.

While standards of living did increase somewhat during Reagan’s administration, it came at a tremendous cost, and launched China’s and Japan’s active engagement in propping up the American economy.

If Ronald Reagan proved anything, it’s that it’s easy to live like a king on an unlimited credit card – especially if you know that you, personally, will never have to pay the bill.

On the other hand, George H.W. didn’t do such a good job himself. As entrenched in the NeoCon movement as Reagan (Bush41 later became one of its linchpins with his membership in the military-industrial complex Carlyle Group), he continued the downward budget spiral spurred by his president.

National Debt in 1988 - $2.6 trillion dollars
National Debt in 1992 - $4 trillion dollars

Increased by 154%

Deficits in years 1989-1992
1989: $153 billion
1990: $221 billion
1991: $269 billion
1992: $290 billion

Total deficits in the Bush41 Administration: $933 billion dollars.

So, over the course of twelve short years, Reagan and Bush41 managed to take a $914 billion debt, and QUADRUPLE it, to over $4 trillion. This is the sort of economic dynamic that the NeoCons of the Republican party try to adopt. McCain, Romney, and Huckabee all claim to the mantle of Ronald Reagan and his NeoCon spawn – meaning that they endorse the very Voodoo Economics that George H.W. Bush decried in 1980, and adopted in 1989.

Then, of course, came Bill Clinton. His battle cry in the 1988 election was simple – “It’s the economy, stupid!”

And he walked the talk.

National Debt in 1993: $4.4 trillion dollars
National Debt in 2000: $5.7 trillion dollars

Total increase during the Clinton Administration: 129%.

This was the lowest increase in the National Debt, percentage wise, since the Eisenhower Administration.

During the last two years of the Clinton presidency, the United States actually paid down the National Debt by approximately $355 billion dollars. As a result, when Clinton left office in 2001, the debt was $2.4 trillion lower than had been predicted when he took office.

How did Clinton manage this? To understand, you have to look at the history of deficit spending in the Clinton Administration, compared to the two which preceded it.

Deficits in Years 1993-2000
1993: $255 billion
1994: $203 billion
1995: $164 billion
1996: $107 billion
1997: $22 billion
1998: $69 billion SURPLUS
1999: $126 billion SURPLUS
2000: $236 billion SURPLUS

Total Deficit In the Clinton Administration: $250 billion

When Bill Clinton left office, the United States enjoyed a surplus of almost a quarter of a trillion dollars. Over the course of his eight years in office, Clinton had increased revenue by a whopping $526 billion.

Then, he handed the Oval Office over to Bush43 and his band of loyalists to the Project for a New American Century, and the military-industrial complex Carlyle Group. NeoCons all, they still – for reasons that defy, well, reason – believed that you could deficit-spend yourself into prosperity. Slaves to the discredited “trickle-down” theory of economics (or, perhaps, simply the greedy tools of a psychopathic corporate desire for untold wealth at any cost), the Bush43 Juggernaut ignored the tremendous improvements in the Budget Deficit and the National Debt under Clinton, and instead embarked on an orgy of spending and revenue-reduction.

The first act of the Bush43 administration was to push through a tax-reduction act that served primarily the very rich and the corporations to whom Bush43 owed his presidency. Claiming that surpluses rightfully belonged to the people, Bush43 gave everyone in America $300, which he called a ‘rebate’. Of course, if you hadn’t paid taxes the previous year, you didn’t get squat. Meanwhile, corporations and the very rich received billions of dollars in tax reductions.

The too-obviously-predictable result?

National Debt in 2001: $5.75 trillion
National Debt in 2008: $9 trillion

Total Increase during the Bush43 Administration: 156% ($3.25 trillion)

Also predictable, despite Bush43’s irrational claims that you could reduce taxes and raise revenues (and reduce the National Debt), was the effect on deficit spending. Recall that, during the last year of the Clinton Administration, the United States enjoyed a budget SURPLUS of $236 billion.

Budget Deficits in Years 2001-2008:
2001: $128 billion SURPLUS (keep in mind that 2001 revenues reflected
earnings in 2000, and predated the Bush43 tax cuts).
2002: $158 billion (the first year after the Bush43 tax cuts)
2003: $378 billion
2004: $413 billion
2005: $318 billion
2006: $260 billion
2007: $162 billion
2008: $410 billion (projected)

Total Deficit in the George W. Bush Administration: $1.97 trillion.

Ladies and gents, no matter how you slice it, the Bush43 Administration has racked up deficits almost EIGHT TIMES LARGER than those accrued during the entire Clinton Administration.

He has almost doubled the National Debt, most of which is held by China and other foreign countries.

This is the type of Conservative Fiscal Policy that McCain, Romney, and Huckabee claim is “Reagan-like”, and desirable. Like Bush43, Bush41, and Ronald Reagan before them, these clowns all seem to believe that “trickle-down” voodoo economics actually works!

Well, it does – IF you are extremely wealthy, or are a military-industrialist like the Carlyle Group or Halliburton or Blackwater. Otherwise, all it does is rack up higher budget deficits and greater National Debt.

They get the steak, and all we get is the sizzle.

It is true, campers – you can live like a king on an unlimited credit card, and the knowledge that the bill will never come due at YOUR door only makes the spending that much easier.

The downside, though, is this: Someday the sheriff is going to nail an eviction notice on the White House's front door, telling us we have until noon to clear out, because the new owners have foreclosed on our staggering debt.

If that’s the future you want for your kids, then vote for any of these Republican NeoCon imbeciles in November.

If you want out of this mess, you know what to do.

By the way, in an interesting side note, the “trickle-down” theory espoused by Reagan and his minions was based in part on the theory of supply-side economics. This particular theory owed a great deal to another concept called the Laffer Curve, a complex statistical hypothesis that said there was an optimal tax rate which would produce the most revenue, and it fell somewhere between 0%, at which point no revenue would be collected, and 100%, at which point either it became a disincentive to work, or a motivation to cheat the tax collector.

The NeoCons bought wholeheartedly into the concept of supply-side economics, and pointed to the Laffer Curve as a primary dogma of their religion. Not surprisingly, they always maintain that the optimal tax rate is something lower than it is at the given moment. I tend to believe that Bill Clinton proved otherwise, but what are you gonna do with these NeoCon/PNAC/Carlyle Group types, right?

In any case, we probably never would have heard of supply-side economics, except for a meeting in 1974. At that meeting, Arthur Laffer (who derived the curve from work by Islamic theorist Ibn Khaldun and the more modern John Maynard Keynes) described his theoretical curve to an enthralled audience that included Wall Street Journal writer Jude Wanniski; Nixon White House Deputy Press Secretary Grace-Marie Arnett; and – wait for it, here’s the payoff – Dick Cheney.

This meeting is generally pointed to as the conceptual moment of supply-side economic theory, which has brought the United States to the very brink of bankruptcy, while engorging the offshore bank accounts of war criminals and corporate barons worldwide.

You know, what they say might be true.

The best trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.

But the old boy sure does seem to get around, doesn’t he?