I put together a quick flow chart to determine if we need to worry about the national debt.

  Is a democrat in office?
    |                  |
    |                  |
   Yes                 No
    |                  |
    |                  |

Spending must________No big

stop immediately_______deal

▲ xnx an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Republican fiscal strategy seems like they're going to try and rollover the deficit like a high score in Pac-Man.

▲ cyanydeez an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The funny-stupid bit is that Republicans discovered that this is a viable strategy and _therefore_ raise the debt as much as possible _so that_ when democrats try to do anything of long term value, they can scream about "the debt is too high!"

▲ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲ xienze 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And don't forget the flipside. When a Democrat is in the office and a Republican raises red flags about the national debt, similar "no big deal" arguments are made ("you don't get it, a nation isn't running like a household, debt doesn't mean the same thing" / "oh yeah, well look how fast the national debt rose under <last Republican president>; checkmate!")

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lux-lux-lux 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Going back over every president over my lifetime the deficit has trended down during Democrat presidents and up during Republican ones, so I’m not sure this is true!

	▲	goalieca 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Congress passes budgets. Checkmate.

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watwut 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is no flipside and attitudes toward debt are not symmetrical. And outcomes are not symmetrical either - most of the debt is caused by republicans.

	▲	dionian 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Source?

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api 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only true in the 20th century. Since George W. Bush it's been Republicans by far. These are objective numbers. I'm not sure how people can argue with them.

Clinton's balanced budget and surplus is a bit of an outlier, and my understanding is that it had two causes. One was the line item veto, eventually overturned. The other was a booming economy and no major wars (peace dividend). We could have the latter now, of course, if we didn't go get into wars that don't concern us.

Bush is when I'd say the Republican Party gave up any actual belief in fiscal restraint. They still use it rhetorically because it sells with their base but they do the opposite when in power, which means they clearly don't really believe in it.

Trump is the biggest spender, and I don't think you can blame it all on COVID because he's still doing it. This shouldn't surprise anyone. As a shady hustler "businessman" he was known as the "king of debt" and borrowed and walked away so many times many banks would no longer deal with him under any circumstances. He's really one of the legendary practitioners of predatory borrowing. Along with "any publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name right," his other motto might be "if you owe the bank a million dollars you have a problem; if you owe the bank a billion dollars the bank has a problem."

	▲	readthenotes1 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Clinton didn't have the line item veto long enough to make the difference. What he had was a booming economy and a republican Congress and the ability to get along with them.

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jerf 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, the minority party complains about spending, the majority party spends. "D" and "R" doesn't enter into it.

You'll note even the minority party rarely does much about it, like, proposing concrete spending cuts or anything. Not quite never, but rarely. Or pushing actual cuts through a branch they control even if it will be shot down by another. Proposing a concrete cut would open them up to criticism. They just complain vaguely about the spending.

	▲	vlan0 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not since Clinton in the 90s. Could use another pull back on military spending like we did then