I find the above (and I've seen such data before) interesting. It demonstrates what I've been saying here, and against which Republican apologists argue in the same way some believers argue the age of the earth. Reaganesque tax cuts don't work the way Republicans claim, and never have. Yet the dead-enders that are the elected representatives of that party offer up only more of the same, while doing their best to derail and discredit those who want to do things differently.
It's amazing to me, nearly unbelievable. Elected Republicans, and too many of those who sent them there, appear more than willing -- anxious!! -- to be known as the party that denies facts. They actually seem to believe the public, whom they've so easily fooled for most of the last forty years, will forever, even now, buy what they're selling. And bring them back to power. To have it done to themselves all again. Like some sort of unholy Stockholm syndrome.
I'm not convinced Obama can change as much as he thinks. He certainly can't ever get the current crop of Congressional Republicans to act responsibly -- no one could. But, light-hearted and silly optimist that readers will recognize in me, I think maybe he's done this much: he's convinced a majority of the country that they've been deeply mislead and mortally damaged by Republican catechism. The question is whether the minority who still want to believe are enough to prevent the damage from being undone.
The need to believe the unbelieveable, after all, is powerful; and it runs deep and to the right.
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LOL "Dead-enders"?!? Who is this, Dick Cheney? Nice Graph, shows nicely the prosperity Newt Gringrich started back in 94'... I liked the Clinton days myself, Sending Cubans back to Cuba where they belong, Invading Haiti, and executing retarded black men...so..what you're sayin, accordin to your graph, is you wanta go back to the economic conditions of the Carter administration??? Still can't understand why you're so gosh-darned(I can talk old to) insistant the Conservatives go along with y'all... We don't give an F what y'all do when we win...
ReplyDeleteWhens Git-Mo closin again??
Frank
While your thesis about tax cuts may be true, this graph doesn't show it since it doesn't show tax revenues as a percent of GDP.
ReplyDeleteWhat this graph shows is that Republicans in the last few decades are not the party of fiscal responsibility and small government.
GDP grew throughout the period and if Republicans were truly in favor of limited government then government spending would have been flat or declining while GDP rose and the graph would trend downward during Republican administrations.
this is a perfect example of something i don't understand: the above comment by frank seems to be a case of someone glorifying their ignorance through 'head-in-the-sand' humour.
ReplyDeletewhy does the right wing always behave this way?
Frank is so perfect an example of a right-wing raver that I suspect him of being a Poe. (That is, an example of Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing".)
ReplyDeleteAssuming we extend Poe's Law to also cover right-wing raving, of course. I don't see why we shouldn't; the principles of these two groups are very similar.