Originally Posted By: tdtz
It's also a good idea to have a budget and to require our government to operate with fiscal responsibility.

I agree, as a fiscal conservative, I love to discuss fiscal responsibility. Like any political independent, I appreciate that our system depends on two healthy parties, debating various issues and respecting the will of the public based on the outcome of elections. So let's examine the fiscal responsibility when each party won the national election and controlled the White House. The President never gets everything of course, but historically the losing party respectfully deferred to the victor to a large extent. Not so today, but extreme obstruction and record filibusters is another topic.

Notice the steep drop in top tax rate during the roaring 20's. There was a massive shift in wealth to the wealthiest and the end result was the Great Depression. Also notice that Reagan returned us to that general range for the top tax rate in the 1980s. What was the result? Quadrupling of 200 years of national debt.


Notice how the debt decreased under the Clinton administration. What happened? A fiscally responsible slight increase in the upper tax rate led to reducing deficits and even SURPLUSES. The tax increase was not easy. It took the Vice President (also President of the Senate) to cast the tie breaking vote to make this happen in 1993.
The evidence is clear and irrefutable, Republican "supply side" economic policies have resulted in fiscal irresponsibly and large budget deficits. As an added consequence, extremely low top tax rates dramatically shifted wealth to the top and eventually led to the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Republican obstructionism has resulted in government shutdowns in the 1990s, record filibusters, credit rating reductions due to failure to raise the debt ceiling, and now sequestration. Not to mention wasting time on repealing Obamacare 35 times - the definition of insanity - repeating the same thing hoping for a different outcome. Even Fox News is telling them it ain't gonna happen.

Ever since Reagan, each Republican president inherited declining budget deficits from a Democratic administration and then left office with increasing budget deficits. Each Democratic administration in the last 40 years has inherited rising deficits and reversed them. Even today, the deficits inherited by Obama have peaked and are on the way down. There is no question about which party is more fiscally responsible. It takes a lot of blind party loyalty to distort this clear picture.