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| ▲ | _heimdall a day ago | parent [-] | | If you go back that far, you have to keep in mind major shifts in party alignment. The two parties changed drastically coming out of the civil rights era and by the 80s had effectively flipped. I can't speak to the Republican politicians if the era, but all the Republican voters I know where legitimately focused on fiscal issues and balancing a budget until Trump showed up. Most of the older Republicans in my family have since left the party and registered independent, the younger Republicans I know are just about Trump though and, similar to Trump, don't really seem to hold any principles that underlie their views on any one topic. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent | next [-] | | 6th Party System Republicans were selectively focused on balancing a budget precisely when Democratic legislative priorities were in question. If you wanted to bust the budget on tax breaks for billionaires or pointless wars, they had excuses all lined up. | | |
| ▲ | AnimalMuppet a day ago | parent [-] | | OK, but that cuts both ways. Clinton inherited a deficit problem in 1992; he promised a plan to fix it. He produced one - a ten-year plan, with the vast majority of the cuts in years 9 and 10, that is, after Clinton left office, even if he were in office for two terms! The Republicans took over Congress in 1994, and immediately put an end to that game. Democrats say that the budget was balanced under Clinton, and it was, but it took a Republican Congress to force him to do it. (This also worked pretty well at starving Clinton's priorities, as you say.) So neither side looks very good. Republicans spend like crazy when in power (though Trump is far worse than the average Republican administration), and get budget-cutting religion when out of the White House. Democrats occasionally talk about the budget, but don't do anything when in power. The one historical example we have (post Andrew Jackson) of a fiscally responsible administration was a Democratic president hamstrung by a Republican Congress. | | |
| ▲ | ethbr1 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > a ten-year plan, with the vast majority of the cuts in years 9 and 10 Technically, Clinton and a Republican congress solved the deficit during his terms (1993-2001), albeit in large part via post-Cold War dividends from BRAC et al. Wikipedia has a nice graphic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/... The longer term plan would have been to solve the US debt, which was obviously larger. And tbh, will only realistically be solved via running persistent inflation. Honestly, Congress should pass a law requiring presidents to only publicly communicate budget projections up to the end of their term. No current term-savings, no announcements. |
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| ▲ | FrustratedMonky a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | " younger Republicans I know are just about Trump though and, similar to Trump, don't really seem to hold any principles that underlie their views on any one topic" This a big worry. I thought Trump was for old angry people shaking their fist at sky. The ones with dementia. Why are young into him? | | |
| ▲ | _heimdall a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm sure it varies in different parts of the country. I'm in the southeast, a very Republican region for the last 60ish years. I also have family in Arizona, not as red as here but still popular. In both areas, the young people I know that are Republicans, and pay any attention to politics, seem to mostly be attracted to his energy and wild promises/claims. They also tend to laugh at the things that I expect many here are concerned by. | | |
| ▲ | ethbr1 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | +1 In my experience, younger Trump voters in the SE tend to be more politically and economically ignorant.* Big claim, but as a consequence you're seeing his support tail off substantially in younger voters as the rubber (his campaign claims) meets the road (actual governing, policy, and results). https://www.chip50.org/blog/whose-approval-disapproval-of-tr... His rhetoric on the campaign trail was attractive to people who didn't think past first order effects ('Yeah! Fewer migrants! They took our jobs!'), but the net effects are becoming evident to those same people, even if they don't understand why. * I'm explicitly differentiating "Trump voters" from Republicans-who-voted-for-Trump (aka the temporarily endangered mainstream Republicans) |
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| ▲ | vkou 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some of them are redpilled assholes. A lot of them think life is a joke and that his 'trolling' is really funny. Some are the kind of angry young men that make up the front line of any brownshirt movement. Some are just going along with what's popular in their community. | |
| ▲ | bad_haircut72 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Trump got to where he is because of Twitter. Hes a product of the social media age. Gen Z respond to him because he understands internet culture, especially the vile parts like how to dominate a conversation by trolling etc - nowadays if you say something controversial, dont put out a PR apology, that hasn't worked since the 90s - instead, double down on it and throw an insult back. I think thats why (some) GenZ respond to him. None of this is a good thing btw. TL:DR Brainrot | |
| ▲ | danaris a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's a bit less of a worry for me, because Trump is going to die before too many more years go by (like, just of old age; man's not young or healthy). At that point, there's going to be a huge shakeup in the Republican Party, and the American right wing more generally, because from all indications, he's the only thing holding that coalition together, and they do not have a successor who could do anything like the same. |
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| ▲ | jmyeet a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Here are the changes in the two parties in the last century: 1. FDR made concessions to the working class in the Great Depression to stave off a communist revolution and protect the status quo. Yet this earned the Democratic Party almost unbroken control over Congress until the 1990s; 2. In the wake of desegregation and the civil rights movement, all the slaver-wannabe Southern Democrats (ie the Dixiecrats) left the party and became Republicans. This was an intentional effort by the Republican Party called the Southern Strategy; 3. Despite 60 years of control over Congress and the loyalty of the working class that went back to FDR, Bill Clinton decided "no, we need to be Republican Lite". This was the so-called Third Way neoliberlism. This is the era when we got the 1994 crime bill, welfare "reform" and NAFTA; and 4. After 40+ years of the destruction of real wages, working people were finally seeking a change in the 2010s. White working class people, who were once loyal Democratic voters, went to Donald Trump. I still believe to this day many of these people would've voted for Bernie Sanders had he been the candidate over Hilary "more of the same" Clinton. But there's no flip here. The Republican Party just got more insane, overt and racist and the same donors that back Republicans successfully turned the Democrats into the controlled opposition party. | |
| ▲ | danaris a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is utterly untrue. The Democratic Party has been the left-wing party since around the turn of the 20th century. Yes, there was a flip, but it was (roughly) under Teddy Roosevelt. Not Franklin Roosevelt. | | |
| ▲ | IAmBroom a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Actual data, like party voting by states, disagree. And the comment you are replying to didn't mention Franklin Roosevelt. Are you in the right thread? | |
| ▲ | scarecrowbob 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ah yes, I remember Strom Thurmond, that great firebrand of the left, and his 1957 filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Basically Lenin. /s To be fair, US political culture (and capitalism in general) contain deep, deep contradictions so it's going to require a whole lot of glue and squinting to say that there is any coherence to any US political party... The person you're responding to has it correct, though, that there was an important cultural shift around Johnson and Nixon and the Southern Strategy and all that... not that these cultural politics could ever touch the materialist facts of capital. |
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| ▲ | msandford a day ago | parent | next [-] | | It would be nice to see change in debt numbers vs change in deficit numbers. I think only Clinton ran a surplus in the last 30 years. | | |
| ▲ | dgellow a day ago | parent | next [-] | | With all the infrastructure work needed to adapt to a changing climate that’s very unlikely to happen. Assuming we decide to take the threat seriously | | |
| ▲ | mathgeek a day ago | parent | next [-] | | This is how I view it these days as well. I'm fine with running a deficit as long as we're solving real problems at a mix of time horizons. Using public funds to funnel more money to the ultra wealthy is the issue for me as a citizen. | | |
| ▲ | throw0101d a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > This is how I view it these days as well. I'm fine with running a deficit as long as we're solving real problems at a mix of time horizons. There's nothing "these days" about the idea: that's how all debt should be looked at. How much in interest will it cost you, and are the benefits you get worth that cost? Borrowing money at 2-4% to build water/sewers infrastructure so your population does not die, and thus allows for better economic growth, can pay for the borrowed money easily. Or roads, bridges, rail, schools, scientific research, etc. If you're borrowing money because you have low revenues due to tax cuts (especially in top tax brackets), then perhaps your ROI won't be as good. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast | | |
| ▲ | mathgeek a day ago | parent [-] | | That was an explanation of my own views (these days), not a statement about economics. |
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| ▲ | renehsz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There's nothing wrong with using public funds to solve real problems, but persistent deficit spending is the wrong way to go about it! Deficit spending causes inflation, and that type of inflation is a hidden, regressive form of taxation. It hits everybody, but the poorest suffer most when all the essentials get more expensive. The government creates new money, but really the value of that money comes out of everybody's income and bank accounts. If additional government spending is truly necessary, it should be funded through transparent, progressive taxation, so that it only affects those who can afford to pay the tax, and so that the voting public is aware of it. Unforunately, you're unlikely to win an election on the promise of raising taxes. The hidden tax of inflation, on the other hand, is so perfectly hidden in plain sight that most people don't notice it unless it gets out of hand. | |
| ▲ | PunchyHamster a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well the problems are not being solved, they are being added |
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| ▲ | badosu 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The funny thing is that from a levelized cost of electricity stance, renewables are the cheapest, and cheaper in most cases even after storage is included. It's insane. |
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| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yep, and the last Republican to run a surplus was Eisenhower during FY 1960. | | |
| ▲ | m0llusk a day ago | parent [-] | | Eisenhower who, despite being exhausted by WWII efforts, ran for presidency because he saw that as the only way to prevent a civil war. Nowadays the American Left is Center Right, but back then the American Right was Center Left. Things change, things stay the same. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > Eisenhower who, despite being exhausted by WWII efforts, ran for presidency because he saw that as the only way to prevent a civil war. Can you share more about this? I'm unfamiliar with a post-World War II civil war risk. Who were the conspirators? Who would be fighting whom? > Nowadays the American Left is Center Right, but back then the American Right was Center Left. Things change, things stay the same. I don't think this is the case. Populism has confused some folks about where things stand. There also seems to be this default assumption, kind of like the End of History, that being "left" is associated with moral goodness and so haha the American left is only just center right, ergo not quite good enough yet! I'd challenge that assumption. Frankly, the center is often the best because moving too far to one side or the other is destabilizing. Communism would be awful, as would other authoritarian ideologies like fascism. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent [-] | | The pendulum has been swinging pro-capital since Reagan and has not even stalled yet. This affects both parties. You will not find enlightenment by averaging "heads I win" with "tales you lose." FDR Democrats: fixed the Great Depression by bailing out the people not the banks (construction of roads, bridges, schools, dams, airports), regulated the banks, legislated protections for unions, electrified rural America, ended elder poverty with Social Security, won WWII, won the peace after WWII. Paid for it by taxing the rich, paid down the debt by taxing pensions. Clinton Democrats: cut the government to the bone, "DOGE but real," massive tax hike on top workers, massive tax cut on capital, kicked offshoring into gear (NAFTA was voted against by most House and Senate Democrats), teed up the China WTO admission for Bush, and handed him a massive budget surplus with a bow on top ready to be pissed away on not one but two pointless Republican forever-wars. Oh, and bonus Epstein connection. These are not the same. FDR Democrats would see Clinton Democrats as 100% DINOs, doing everything that Republicans say they want. The DINOs can only be identified as non-Republican due to their fiscal restraint which has not been a Republican quality since Eisenhower. Obama Democrats were better, but chose to bail out the banks not the people, didn't pass single-payer healthcare, and didn't end Bush's forever wars. Biden ended Afghanistan and quietly started enforcing Trump fair trade policies. So the Democratic party has been moving left at a snail's pace after reaching a zenith of "Republicans but less shit," but they are still far, far from FDR. Who was in turn far from actual socialists or communists. Here's hoping that on this next swing of the pendulum we land on FDR again, yeah? In any case, you cannot average your way to enlightenment. If you want that, you must learn about actual policies and actual history. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay a day ago | parent [-] | | I'm a fan of FDR and think he did great things, but he also was doing so at an unprecedented time period, the aftermath of the Great Depression, itself on the heals of a catastrophic World War I, and then of course, World War II. Didn't he have 3 terms? Didn't he threaten to pack the court when he didn't get what he wanted? Didn't the United States turn a blind eye to what Japan was planning because Americans were against being involved in World War II and this was a good way to flip that? There are a lot of other things. But I think your own argument betrays itself and proves my point. > but they are still far, far from FDR. Who was in turn far from actual socialists or communists. Here's hoping that on this next swing of the pendulum we land on FDR again, yeah? When you write this, you're basically arguing my very point - that the center is the best because moving too far to one side or the other is destabilizing. In your own words you've basically boxed in the Democratic Party in the center and you're just arguing FDR was in that center but further to the left. Ok? Yes I agree. If you go center right a bit, or center left a bit, what's the real difference besides the mascot? But even from the great things that FDR did, just because they worked at one point in time doesn't mean they are forever and always the best idea going forward. > Here's hoping that on this next swing of the pendulum we land on FDR again, yeah? Depends on the details. If we stop MAGA, DSA, fix crime, lower taxes, lower spending, streamline the government to be more effective (this could include something like government run healthcare by consolidating agencies), or other various ideas I'm always on board with talking through the pros and cons. As an aside I always liked Teddy Roosevelt too. Maybe my favorite president aside from the usual suspects like Washington or Lincoln. -edit- As another aside I don't think we have to have a pro-capital regime that's also against many of the ideas you might be in favor of. The Nordic countries for example are the most capitalistic countries on the planet according to many measurements. | | |
| ▲ | preg_match a day ago | parent | next [-] | | As a barely related note, FDR was a staunch capitalist. He didn't do what he did because he wanted socialism, quite the contrary. He recognized that the US was right on the edge of a communist revolution, and if he didn't come in and put in concessions, capital would be over. I genuinely believe that if FDR or an FDR-type did not exist, then communism would be the status-quo of developed nations. The US would turn communist after a bloody civil war. We would ally with the Soviets after. Together, the US, Soviets, and Europe would easily win WWII. At that point, Communism is set as the world order and would continue throughout the 20th century. Many parts of history would turn out "good" - no cold war, no Vietnam war, no Red Scare. Many other parts would turn out bad. What FDR did was just enough to buy a few decades of peace before the capitalists ransacked the government again. By then, Communism was the ultimate enemy for obvious reasons. The propaganda was far too strong for any kind of revolution, and technology improved enough that people weren't nearly oppressed enough to care about any revolution. Oh, and we probably would've gotten the civil rights era a couple decades earlier. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay a day ago | parent [-] | | Given the history of communism and the results in every state that implemented it, I just do not agree with this assessment at all. For example, you don't need the US to be a capitalistic country for the implementation of the gulag or the Great Leap Forward. Both resulted in at a minimum tens of millions of deaths. When you say things like "buy a few decades of peace before the capitalists ransacked the government again". What are you even talking about? I'm genuinely perplexed. Capitalism didn't, for example, cause World War I or even World War II - World War II was caused by the rise of Nazism, a nonaggression pact with Communists, and then the attack and partitioning of various countries in Europe by both the Nazis and Communists. In Asia, again, fascist powers attacked capitalist societies such as the United States. How would the US, Soviets, and Europe (who is Europe?) win World War II when from the beginning the Soviets and Nazis were aligned and jointly invaded Poland? I would certainly grant you that, perhaps the United States would have experienced additional strife or maybe even a civil war had conditions gotten bad enough, but I can't for my life ever think that such a thing was even moderately serious. Even in countries where Communism completely took hold, capitalism found its way back because humans by intrinsic, evolutionary nature, always arrive at the same foundational conclusion which is property rights, cooperation for the greater good without coercion, and abstractions such as code or even money. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > Given the history of communism and the results in every state that implemented it The #2 economy in the world is run by the Communist Party of China. #1, if you measure in material terms rather than financial terms. The 1991 talking points are stale. Time passed, and the private owners of the US economy sold our industrial base to the communists in order to stuff their bank accounts. Private ownership provided the means, motive, and opportunity. I am a capitalist despite what it has done to my country, not because of it. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay a day ago | parent [-] | | > The #2 economy in the world is run by the Communist Party of China. #1, if you measure in material terms rather than financial terms. Well if you can even get accurate measurements out. Nobody really knows, for example, whether the population of China has been severely undercounted, or truly how much debt has been amassed, or what the next crises may be, similar to over-building in housing. You also can't ignore the history of these countries in modern context. China has become more capitalist over time because communism was not working. The comment I was replying to was talking about World War II so of course pointing out the tens (hundreds?) of millions of lives lost due to communism is just participating in the discussion that was put forth here. I'd say the greatest gift China continues to give the United States is hamstringing its economy. They'd easily be #1 right now if not for the CCP. > Time passed, and the private owners of the US economy sold our industrial base to the communists in order to stuff their bank accounts. Not just that, but in order to get Americans the cheap baubles they so desire. But that seems less of a criticism of capitalism and more of a government failure. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent [-] | | Right, because Joe Sixpack got a choice between "cheap baubles" and "a job" and chose "cheap baubles"? No, this decision was made by shareholders for shareholders. It's a government failure all right: a failure of the government to tell the shareholders to stop selling out America. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not resolving policymakers of blame, but ignoring consumer behavior and cultural attitudes leads to incomplete analysis and faulty solutions. You see the same thing with respect to the environment. People still buy plastic bottled water, for example and travel all over the world on vacation while talking about how we need to reduce emissions. We can't reduce emissions without reducing or changing consumption patterns too. Corporations simply sell products that people want - it's up to us as a country to rein them in and that goes for both policy and behavior. |
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| ▲ | preg_match 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sorry, I mean Peace as in "we're not beefing with the communists right now". Part of the reason, maybe the biggest part, that communist nations struggled is because the world's largest world power, which held 50% of the global GDP post WWII, openly opposed them as much as possible. It wasn't just war, it was trading, economic attacks, propaganda. Capitalism seeped back into communist nations because they saw the US was rich, whether that was true or not, and wanted to be more like the US. This was orchestrated intentionally over decades, this was literally the US' #1 goal. And, to be fair, the US was rich. By circumstance. Post-WWII Europe was destroyed, we held 50% of the world GDP basically by default. Then our richness eroded as communist nations developed extraordinarily quickly, and threatened the US hegemony. Then we imploded our richness from within by throwing away the concessions FDR bought. The average American got poorer and poorer, and the golden age became known as that. Nobody really noticed because technology advanced, so people were poorer, but it was hard to tell. By the 80s people knew. Then we got Reagan, and things only deteriorated further. That's not to say that communism is good or would have been good. It would have just eliminated a lot of strife in the world and would basically align all developed nations on one singular ideology. Would that ideology then be overthrown? We don't know, but I highly doubt it. People in the US would still be living good lives, except for a very small pool of elite few who got their shit rocked. Everyone else would still enjoy the advances of technology, and they would be content. The USSR would have been much more successful with the US ideologically and economically backing them. It would also be very hard to have a war at that point: over what? All of our post-WWII wars are over communism. I mean, think about it. The USSR was the second world power, and it was very close! Despite the largest economy and military in the world doing everything in their power to ruin them. Imagine if, instead, those two powers worked together. Imagine where the USSR would be. Also, the USSR was more progressive than the US. I'm talking gay right, rights for minorities. We would've gotten the civil rights era decades earlier. Gay marriage way, way earlier. Anyway, I'm not a communist, and I'm happy with how the US turned out for the most part. I just think about how different history would have been if just one president was changed. I do truly think that if FDR was never president, most if not all developed nations would be communist to this day. I think people really do not appreciate just how close the US got to being communist. It was really, really close. We were going down the exact path of every communist nation that followed. There's some sources from the early 20th century, it's interesting to read. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Jeez the horror of societies around the world wanting to be rich. Damn America for wanting to provide material wealth, medicine, and more instead of its citizens living in abject poverty! > I mean, think about it. The USSR was the second world power, and it was very close! Despite the largest economy and military in the world doing everything in their power to ruin them. Imagine if, instead, those two powers worked together. Imagine where the USSR would be. This is a very one-sided view. The USSR, by the way who was in league with the Nazis until Hitler betrayed them, also did everything in their power to ruin liberal democracies. Imagine, if instead, the USSR had worked along side the United States instead of opposing it! The USSR also created things like gulags. Ever been to one? I haven't but I've heard they're not that great. Why did the USSR have to create those? Why does China even to this day have to disappear people? Fall in line with our ideology or die? Sounds a lot like Nazism to me. Meanwhile in the United States you can literally live life as a communist if you so desire. Why is one society more tolerant, wealthy, and happy and the other largely no longer exists? Because around the world people chose to not go to the gulag, to think for themselves, and to make the best use of resources available to them. I find this USSR revisionist history to be a bit jarring. The USSR didn't even get along that well with China who was a fellow communist state. How can you argue that if everyone was communist we'd all get along when even the communist states (and those they subjected, such as in Eastern Europe) didn't get along? |
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| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Teddy Roosevelt. The man who carved the Lincolnite Progressives out of the Republican Party, taking with him the last good Republican president and the last good Republicans. He fumbled 1912, but the man in the arena said all that needs to be said about that in The Man In The Arena. > you're just arguing FDR was in that center but further to the left I'm arguing on your terms in the hopes that when you see the output of the "center" function change dramatically with zoom level you will trust it a little less as a source of foundational truth. Centrism is like listening to only pop music. Many, perhaps even most good ideas can be found there, but the top slots are all bought and paid for and what do other people know anyway. Political ideas, like songs, should stand for themselves and earn their place. We should be glad that our ancestors were bold enough to occasionally push for new ideas or else they would have thrown all good ideas of history onto the refuse pile alongside the bad ones. > I don't think we have to have a pro-capital regime that's also against many of the ideas you might be in favor of. Of course. I'm a capitalist, in the words-mean-things sense of the term where "capitalism" means "private ownership of the means of production." Skin-in-the-game capital allocation is special and we shouldn't throw it out with the bathwater. But people who call themselves capitalists generally have politics closer to "Elon's 0.25% taxes are too much and your 25% taxes are too little" than "a laissez faire garden is a garden of weeds," which is where I stand. It's OK to believe that a softmax function is the best way to run an economy (I do!), but it's a fact that this pushes people down and one had better develop some Nobblesse Oblige to compensate or we will not see eye to eye. People who call themselves centrists generally look for the center between recent presidents, who were all economic-right neoliberals from the perspective of policy accomplishments. Whereas I take the perspective that the neoliberal economics common to both parties is exactly what fucked up this country and needs to be undone. > But even from the great things that FDR did, just because they worked at one point in time doesn't mean they are forever and always the best idea going forward. Yeah. The economy has become more productive since the days of the Dust Bowl, so we should be more ambitious with our demands than FDR was. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay a day ago | parent [-] | | > I'm arguing on your terms in the hopes that when you see the output of the "center" function change dramatically with zoom level you will trust it a little less as a source of foundational truth. I'm not following. Can you expand upon this? I'm certainly not arguing that the center is the only source of good ideas - both MAGA and DSA have had great ideas, or at worst identified very real problems that weren't being addressed, but that's different from being run by, say, those organizations completely which would shift us to the far right or far left. We can debate the zoom level but I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying the center isn't left enough? It's too far to the right? If you wanted to argue that FDR's policies were barely moving the needle on the left and they're still right-leaning, I say call me an ultra-conservative then because while I don't really have too much of an issue in the grand scheme of things about the New Deal policy suite (which has a mix of good and bad effects and assumptions as all policy does) to imply that such policies aren't to the left seems to me to be an arbitrary goal post move. Idk. Moving to the left or the right isn't a given, nor is it a given that such a move is good for any given society. People seem to have confused Progressivism with Progress. It's not a given, just as the End of History wasn't a given either. > People who call themselves centrists generally look for the center between recent presidents, who were all economic-right neoliberals from the perspective of policy accomplishments. Whereas I take the perspective that the neoliberal economics common to both parties is exactly what fucked up this country and needs to be undone. Sure, but your prescription seems to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) to throw the baby out with the bathwater - in other words destroy the institutions (either the MAGA or DSA version). Neoliberalism certainly has had a lot of issues but day-to-day life is pretty great for the vast majority of people under those regimes. Free speech, freedom of religion, free markets. Not bad at all. > The economy has become more productive since the days of the Dust Bowl, so we should be more ambitious with our demands than FDR was. Sure but your demands from extraction don't come from "the economy" they come from real people. That's where the rubber meets the road in a lot of these schemes and you start to lose contact with reality and what people actually want. For example, I think the economy has become more productive, my demands are the government does XYZ - maybe that doesn't align with your XYZ. Now what? You're just rehashing the current state at that point. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Sure but your demands from extraction don't come from "the economy" they come from real people. Elon was bitching about paying 0.25% tax on twitter the other day ($500M/yr on $200B/yr) and here I am paying well north of 25%. I could advocate multiplying his taxes by 100 and still be advocating for comparatively regressive taxation. I don't think you are honestly engaging with how fucked this has gotten. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Please stop saying things like " I don't think you are honestly engaging with how fucked this has gotten.". This is just a dumb waste of time. When someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean they are not "honestly engaging with...", it just means they disagree with you. Whenever you or someone else writes something like that, it then means you are not honestly engaging with the person you are replying to or the topic at hand. Every accusation is a confession. I don't disagree with raising taxes on these billionaires or whatever. If for nothing else but personal preservation and because they failed in giving back to society. |
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| ▲ | marcusverus a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
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| ▲ | altairprime 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This needs three changes to support meaningful discussion and response: First, all values should be in the same unit; switching from B to T worsens readability here. Second, it should include the total change as % of GDP as a range across their 4-year term; comparing by actual economic output fractions is better than raw or inflation dollars alone. Third, the raw dollars should be inflation-adjusted to allow comparison; as presented, no comparison other than sign +/- is meaningful, and especially not of scale of +/-. | |
| ▲ | goalieca a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not an American here, but doesn’t Congress pass budgets? Everyone always blames the president but as I look in from the outside, it’s entirely the house and the senate who bungle things. | | |
| ▲ | dataflow a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I've had the same question for a long time and I suspect the answer is something like "the executive is still the one doing the analysis and making the proposals" - presumably Congress doesn't just allocate with complete disregard for what the executive requests. If the executive requests less then it (usually) gets less. But I'd definitely appreciate a more satisfactory answer. | | |
| ▲ | ethbr1 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | As the quip goes, 'the President proposes and Congress disposes' In the sense that the President (and the executive branch behind him) almost always have greater unity of purpose (it should! The President technically picked them!) and therefore clarity of vision than Congress. But Congress (as a largely power-distributed, multi-state-representative body) is ultimately empowered to say yes or no. As a realpolitik result, Congress (of same or opposition party) generally lets the President lead with a proposal, and then adjusts it to their satisfaction into something that can pass. Congress would likely be realistically unable to generate a yearly budget, if left to their own devices, due to competing interests and priorities. Having a starter plan from the President cuts through some of that, even if they strike large sections of it. |
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| ▲ | georgemcbay 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Not an American here, but doesn’t Congress pass budgets? In theory. In reality the US Congress hasn't passed a full real budget since 1996 (for the 1997 fiscal year). Our system of government is hopelessly broken. |
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| ▲ | Y-bar a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Two thumbs up for bringing numbers. Though I would like to see which dates were used to calculate them. And if it was from ”first day to last day of office” it would also be interesting to calculate with a certain ”lag” to account for the fact that effect of some legislation may not show until a bit later. | | |
| ▲ | IAmBroom a day ago | parent [-] | | You are welcome to do the highly customized analysis you desire. |
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| ▲ | refurb a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You need to adjust for inflation. Also the correct measure is % of GDP | | |
| ▲ | fluidcruft a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Democrats Change in Deficit
--------- -----------------
Joe Biden -6.1% GDP
Barack Obama -6.4% GDP
Bill Clinton -5.0% GDP
Jimmy Carter -0.2% GDP
Republicans Change in Deficit
----------- -----------------
Donald Trump +8.6% GDP
George W. Bush +11.0% GDP
George H. W. Bush +1.1% GDP
Ronald Reagan +0.2% GDP
Gerald Ford +2.3% GDP
Richard Nixon +0.7% GDP
Dwight Eisenhower -1.1% GDP
via ChatGPT which among other things verified the original table. I didn't bother with inflation adjustment since it's normalized by GDP. | | |
| ▲ | a day ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Good call, normalizing to GDP instead of deficit fixes the flip into/out of surplus problem. Also, now that aggro "cite your sources" guy ran, it's probably worth duplicating the cite here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/... Despite being witehouse.gov, I am pleased to see that this is one page that Trump has not yet updated to read "Republicans Rule Democrats Drool" over an editorialized fever dream replacing inconvenient data. Grab it while it lasts, and let's hope that accounting remains boring enough to repel such attention! | |
| ▲ | root-parent a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Change in U.S. Gross Federal Debt
(fiscal-year-end figures, not inauguration-to-inauguration) Democrats
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President Start End Change
---------------------------------------------------
Joe Biden $28.386T $37.375T +$8.989T
Barack Obama $11.876T $20.206T +$8.330T
Bill Clinton $4.351T $5.770T +$1.419T
Jimmy Carter $0.706T $0.995T +$0.288T
Republicans
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President Start End Change
---------------------------------------------------
Donald Trump $20.206T $28.386T +$8.180T
George W. Bush $5.770T $11.876T +$6.106T
George H.W. Bush $2.868T $4.351T +$1.483T
Ronald Reagan $0.995T $2.868T +$1.873T
Gerald Ford $0.484T $0.706T +$0.223T
Richard Nixon $0.366T $0.484T +$0.118T
Dwight Eisenhower $0.266T $0.293T +$0.027T
Source:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/...These are changes between fiscal-year endpoints, not the exact
amount of debt incurred during each president's time in office.Fiscal years do not line up with inauguration dates. | | | |
| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | FrustratedMonky a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is theory that debt drives GDP. The more debt, the more money in circulation, more GDP. So cutting debt, cuts GDP. Also. Not sure GDP is completely normalized verses inflation. | | |
| ▲ | fluidcruft a day ago | parent [-] | | I'm no expert about anything related to this but the obvious fact that the size of the debt as proportion of GDP has consistently increased since Reagan first implemented this scheme suggests it's pretty obvious these GDP gains do not offset increased debt (and that this is causative). | | |
| ▲ | FrustratedMonky a day ago | parent [-] | | Not offset. Other way around. Debt comes from spending, that spending is on stuff, which drives GDP. So whole concept that we could reduce debt by increasing GDP and tax it, is not how the money actually flows. This is why in economic downturns, often the best solution is more debt, by more spending. And trying to fix economy by 'austerity' makes things worse. Of course, also I don't know solution, or what the 'right size' debt should be. Just that it isn't black/white. | | |
| ▲ | fluidcruft a day ago | parent [-] | | It makes sense that spending stimulates GDP in the short term. The consequences of debt are delayed. The argument that people tried to make in the past was that spending can stimulate growth so much that growth ultimately overshadows debt. That was controversial 50 years ago but at this point it doesn't seem like it's working out as expected since debt has been doing nothing except steadily increase relative to GDP. Sometimes it's valid to accept that failed experiments are failures. |
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| ▲ | marcusverus a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is nonsensical. Debt-to-GDP over the course of an entire term is what matters. Debt was 77% of GDP when Obama took office and >102% when he left. The "change in deficit" is a useless measure. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S | | |
| ▲ | fluidcruft a day ago | parent [-] | | Democrats Change In Debt/GDP
----------- ------------------
Joe Biden +0.1 pp
Barack Obama +22.2 pp
Bill Clinton -9.4 pp
Jimmy Carter -3.1 pp
Republicans Change In Debt/GDP
----------- ------------------
Donald Trump +18.9 pp
George W. Bush +27.3 pp
George H. W. Bush +12.6 pp
Ronald Reagan +19.8 pp
Gerald Ford +2.3 pp
Richard Nixon -4.7 pp
Dwight Eisenhower -16.1 pp
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | actionfromafar a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | President Change pp
Eisenhower -1.8
Nixon +0.8
Ford +0.8
Carter 0
Reagan +0.5
GHW Bush +1.8
Clinton -6.1
GW Bush +4.3
Obama -6.6
Trump +11
Biden -5.8
But Trump 2 will definitely lower it, more than anyone has ever seen before. | | |
| ▲ | frankdejonge a day ago | parent | next [-] | | What do you base that expectation on? | | | |
| ▲ | apercu a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > But Trump 2 will definitely lower it, more than anyone has ever seen before. Lower what? | | |
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| ▲ | itbeho a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You should be comparing which party controlled congress as well. | |
| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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