And so it was that on Thursday the White House once again defended its rather nutty demand that Congress grant to Barry "Almighty" unilateral authority to raise the debt ceiling at will, unless two-thirds of Congress votes to prevent it. Now I'm quite sure knowing our "Lord and Savior Barack Obama" the way that I think I do, he most certainly would have been in favor of granting such authority to, say, George Bush? And White House Spokesmoron Jay Carney even went so far as to call the Republican move in 2011 to demand cuts before raising the debt ceiling "unconscionable." House Speaker John Boehner has argued that Barry’s proposal for a $1.6 trillion tax hike, $50 billion in new stimulus spending and unilateral control of the debt ceiling was "unserious." Boehner countered with an offer of $800 billion in new taxes by limiting deductions. The bottom line here is that neither of these supposed plans does squat to fix the problem that's badly in need of being resolved,
And again with the never-ending references being made to "BJ" Clinton, Carney said "In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president, Washington was able to erase deficits for the first time in decades and create surpluses for the first time in decades. Did Congress then flirt with default when the debt ceiling was raised? The answer is no." He went on with this drivel, "Did Congress under George W. Bush flirt with default? No. Because our economy would slow down, and job creation would slow down, because one party insisted on demands that it insisted on being met. It happened once, and it happened last year when Speaker Boehner was speaker of the House." Carney continued, "The American economy cannot afford the consequences of that political gamesmanship. It is unconscionable to imagine." Actually, if we're being honest, what the American economy cannot afford is a continuing of the same level of out of control spending that we've had for the last four years.
Never when these clowns talk about the good old tax days of "Slick Willie" do they ever mention the level of spending from back then. Liberals constantly demand a return to the "BJ" Clinton-era top income tax rate, but never to the Clinton-era levels of spending. The fact is that it was spending restraint, not higher taxes, that accounted for the late-1990s budget surpluses. In the year 2000, the federal government spent $1.77 Trillion and received $1.88 Trillion in revenues. Compare that to 2011, when the federal government spent $3.63 Trillion and received $2.31 Trillion. Does any reasonable person actually believe that government was too small in 2000, or twice as effective in 2011 after spending approximately doubled? Now you would think the answer to both questions, again assuming we're dealing with reasonable people, would be no. Additionally, federal spending under 'Slick Willie' and the Republican Congress fell to 18.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000, versus approximately 25% of GDP under Barry.
Moreover, for all of liberals’ demonization of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, federal revenues actually reached their all-time high in 2007. Now don't you think that if tax cuts were really the problem, that that would have been the case? Indeed, the 2007 deficit (the last year in which Republicans controlled Congress and the White House) was a miniscule $161 Billion. That was already several years after the Bush tax cuts, as well as the year in which war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan peaked. So try as they might, liberals can’t scapegoat tax cuts or the "unfunded" Iraq and Afghan wars for today’s deficits and debt. And the so-called "Clinton surpluses" didn’t arrive until 1998, four years after Newt Gingrich and the Republicans captured Congress for the first time in four decades, and six years after 'BJ' Clinton was elected. Given the fact that Congress controls the budget under our Constitution, it is therefore disingenuous for old 'Slick Willie' and his apologists to claim sole credit.
Furthermore, the celebrated 1990s stock market boom effectively began almost precisely when Republicans claimed Congress in 1994, at which point the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood under 4,000. Six short years later, the Dow had ascended past 10,000. So once again due to the short term memory possessed by a majority of Americans, Democrats once more enjoy the luxury of being able to rewrite history. They are also able to then rely on their many compatriots in the state-controlled media to pump out manner of fictional accounts of what supposedly transpired during the much ballyhooed 'Slick Willie' era. I don't really know what the answer is anymore, because until enough of the American people become genuinely interested in taking seriously the problems that we now face and are able to recognize that the Democrats have no interest, whatsoever, in taking the necessary steps in correcting those problems, then we will continue on our little journey here, right down the crapper.
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