I dunno it seems to me that whenever the Democrats are in office the deficits start to go down; and whenever there is a Republican in office they tend to go up. That's been the pattern my whole life so far.

Like, you say the two sides are the same because one wants to spend endless money on wars and the other wants to spend endless money on social programs, but we only ever spend endless money on wars. There's no spending comparable to war on poverty / illiteracy / sickness / homelessness.

Same observation. I’m beginning to think that it’s not about “spending” like if money was a finite resource. It’s really about the outcome of the policy: more power for elites and more access to energy and resources; vs more power and independence for regular people (and thus less for elites relatively speaking). From a “spending” perspective you could really do both and in the real economy they don’t even compete for the same resources.