FatHobbit;1151723 wrote:Unfortunately I don't think it's just the libs who play that way. It's EVERYONE.
True, to some extent. Certainly today I think the vote pandering has become so strong that Repubs are going along not to "buy votes" but more so they are afraid cuts will refund votes. I think this all does have it's roots back to about 2000 when Repubs and Dems came together in a bipartisna orgy of tax cuts and spending increases. The former is fixable, the latter is what has really spiraled out of control and entitlements are just so hard to undo (at least for career politicians).
This really started getting out of control under Bush. You have the tax cuts probably bleeding off a few hundred billion a year, and then the wars. Then the budget ballons his last few years with the double-whammy of stimulus, bailouts and loss of revenues from job losses. But then, inexplicably, that jaw-dropping deficit has ballooned another $1T a year or so. And I keep asking the question "where is that money going"?
I guess the best way to describe it is Republicans have been bleeding us slowly, death by a thousand cuts (or lack thereof, being more appropriate). But Obama and the Dems have opened up a vein or two. At this point, it's a relatively small minority in Washington that still believes deficits matter. And today, as in right now, that might be true. But the debt it being piled so high that when we can't get cheap credit anymore and have to pay either much higher interest rates or inflation (or both), there will be no getting out from under it.
When rates get back up to 6-7% (normative levels, for the most part), the debt service alone is going to add another $400B or so to spending. So you can go raise rates on corporations and the rich, and in just a few years all that will do is cover the higher debt service, leaving a $1.5T hole that will mean either massive cuts or tax increases for the other 90%.
