Friday, January 29, 2010

Rachel Maddow Explodes the Republican Fiscal Conservative Myth

Political pundits often call the Republican party the fiscally responsible party. However, as this post will prove, that's a lie, a big fat one.

Question 1: Which modern President added $4.9 trillion to the national debt?
If you guessed Carter or Clinton, you'd be wrong.

Correct Answer: George W. Bush (Republican)

Question 2: Which modern President turned a deficit into a surplus? George H.W. Bush? Wrong. It was Democrat, Bill Clinton.

Question 3: Which modern President nearly tripled the national debt? Jimmy Carter? Nope. Ronald Reagan

In fact, President Carter increased the national debt by 42%

Ronald Reagan increased the national debt 189%

George H.W. Bush 55%

Bill Clinton 36%

George W. Bush 89%

So, the next time you hear pundits saying how Republicans are the party that does better handling the deficit and the nation's credit card, know that it's a lie, a big fat one.

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9 comments:

vomamike said...

What makes those stats so onerous, is I believe a deliberate attempt by the Republicans to bankrupt our country so that we cannot afford any of the social programs we want.

Jay-Ney said...

What is Obama's numbers? That is what will get those Republicans. They need the full picture. And show how little they gave to African-American communities.

Bruce Fealk said...

Jay-Nay, it's too soon to tell. Obama has only been in office for a year.

Jay-Ney said...

His numbers will be great. But the Republicans will lie about it.

Paul said...

"...so that we cannot afford any of the social programs we want."

You would be hard-pressed to find a more self absorbed statement. Do you have any interest in what some of us less enlightened rabble may want, or how the government spends "our" tax dollars?

Drew said...

Maddow knocks it out of the park AGAIN!

I'm going to copy and paste this everywhere I can if that's okay Bruce!

The only thing I don't understand is the last part though. Didn't President Clinton (my MAN!) leave us with a surplus? How did he add to the debt if he left us a surplus? I'm just worried that someone is going to point this out, how do I respond?

Bruce Fealk said...

Drew, feel free to post it everywhere you can find to put it.

Clinton did leave with a surplus, so I'm not sure what statement you're referring to that states otherwise.

Drew said...

Hey Bruce! I finally got my computer working correctly so hopefully I'll be able to write in a little more consistently. Problem seems to be that for some reason with the new year, my computer clock switched the year to 2110 instead of 2010, and all my security certificates were only good until 2038. Only! hah hah

Well the part I was referring to was in your actual blog article. It says: Question 3: Which modern President nearly tripled the national debt? Jimmy Carter? Nope. Ronald Reagan
In fact, President Carter increased the national debt by 42%
Ronald Reagan increased the national debt 189%
George H.W. Bush 55%
Bill Clinton 36%

So the part that I am a little confused about is with the surplus that President Clinton left, how could he have increased the debt, and it should be decreased the national debt. I don't get that. If you have some insight I would appreciate it.

Also, thank you for the links to the other blogs, I will add them to the ones I check. I didn't have any of them so that will be great.

Drew said...

Does anyone have an answer to my question? I was going to copy and paste this on the Bonsai blog but I think something is wrong with the numbers?