"It is truly pathetic that conservatives, who once believed in pay-as-you-go accounting, can worship an economic policy that was nothing more than credit card spending sprees."

Isn't the whole idea, though, to force a fiscal crisis of such huge proportions it forces the gov't to abandon the social programs the repubs are to chicken to actually cut? The sad thing is they are actually succeeding.

Hillary Clinton brought this up before, that
republicans are trying to intentionally bankrupt
the government so they can do away with the
New Deal. Looking at Nathan's chart, it seems
as though this started around the Nixon era. Could it be that this period of turbulence in the late 60's was agitated by the backlash of southern conservatives against the peace
movement? Think about it; with Nixon in
office on a growing majority of southern militants,the defense industry was well poised to assert even more "undue influence" on our government. The war continued, but Nixon was unpopular and there was not yet enough public support to dismantle the social programs. It wasn't until Reagan came into office that the republican strategy of raising defense spending until something at the bottom had to be cut was
polished enough to work. Point; it was the election of 1968 and the success of Nixons'
southern strategy that green-lighted this policy,
but it could not be implicated until 1980,
when the political environment was more favorable
to defense spending.

"'You Ever noticed we live in a world where good men are murdered and mediocre hacks thrive? John Kennedy: murdered. Gandhi: murdered. Martin Luther King: murdered. Jesus: murdered. Reagan... wounded."-Bill Hicks

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers"
- Thomas Jefferson

also, Bush sucks :)

Just a test

Debt increased during certain Presidents, ergo those Presidents are responsible for the size of the debt? Not Congress, the beaurocracy installed by previous administrations, or uncontrollable circumstances?