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Originally Posted by The_Dunedan
Host,
The problem with your thesis is that this is a case of Democrats finding and exposing corruption among Republicans, their nominal opponents. Back during the Clinton Regime, the Republicans were finding and exposing tonnes of similar corruption by Democrats (campeign fundraising, tech sales to China either directly or via Israel, etc). When the Dems start rooting out the corruption and abuse of power in their own ranks, I'll believe there's some difference between the parties.
Meantime, both parties continue to wage aggressive wars abroad and tighten restrictions on Civil Liberties in the US. Both parties advance the agenda of Victim Disarmament. Both parties borrow titanic sums of money which they leave it to future generations to repay. Both parties have stood by silent (or even cheering encouragement) as a debt-driven real-estate market has bubbled...and burst.
When one of the major parties disavows and works to change the above, I will believe there is a difference between the two. Until then, no sale.
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The_Dunedan, 99 percent of the efforts to oppose recent war policy have come from democrats, and your spending characterizations do not match the data:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...ebt_histo4.htm
09/30/1977 * 698,840,000,000.00
09/30/1980 * 907,701,000,000.00
09/30/1981 * 997,855,000,000.00 Democrat Carter's budgeting ends
Total Debt increase during 4 year Carter Term= 299.015 billion dollars
09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16
09/29/1989 2,857,430,960,187.32 Republican Reagan's budgeting ends
Total Debt increase during 8 year Reagan Term= 1859 billion dollars
09/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38 Republican Bush's budgeting ends
Total Debt increase during 4 year Bush Term= 1554 billion dollars
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...ebt_histo5.htm
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06 Democrat Clinton's budgeting ends
Total Debt increase during 8 year Clinton Term= 1396 billion dollars
09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
Total Debt increase during first 5 years of Bush Term= 2699 billion dollars
Between 9/30/1999 and 9/30/2000, <b>annual increase in treasury debt, which had averaged</b> ($3413 billion divided by 12 years of republican presidencys) <b>$284 billion during the 12 years of Reagan/Bush, had been reduced to just 18 billion.</b> Annual debt increased between 9/30/2000 and 9/30/2001 to $123 billion, because president GW Bush, after Jan. 20, 2001 Inauguration, instituted an income tax rebate that refunded an unbudgeted amount of at least $70 billion, negatively impacting budget year ending 9/30/2001
What I am saying, Dunedan, is that you are reacting to problems that are not "there".
It is 2007. The record of the past 17 years of treasury debt increases under republican
presidents speaks for itself. Comparing it to the past 12 years of democratic presidencys,
speaks for itself.
The data supports my POV that it is inaccurate to claim that "both parties" spend uncontrollably. During the Clinton presidency, runaway annual debt increases were brought to a halt, due largely to reasonably higher taxes on top income brackets that did not significantly alter their incentives to earn, or their lifestyles, and fiscal budgetary discipline. The total non-military federal employment levels actually were decreased to achieve near deficit elimination!
So, your complaint about "both parties", where it has to do with spending, IMO, is muted.
We live in a time where the DOJ has been corrupted into an empty, partisan, corrupt "shell" of it's former self. If there was congressional democratic "corruption" of any significance, in the recent past, why have we witnessed only indictments and prosecutions by this highly partisan DOJ, of republican members of congress?
If you were correct, and there is recent democratic corruption in congress to be rooted out by Rep. Waxman's committee and by others, equal to (or....any) what is being investigated about republicans, why are we not even seeing thinly veiled DOJ harassment prosecutions, based on slim evidence...of democrats?
If the crimes of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), and of Rep. Whats-his-name (D-WV), are proveable infractions of the law, where are the indictments from the DOJ?
Dunedan, I think that your "both parties" spend and "break the law" to a level where both can be justifiably dismissed, in favor of what you envision as political "reform", does not match either the records of fiscal management or of levels of corruption, actually experienced.
If "one party" has done a far better job of fiscal management and ethical, open, accountable government, than the other, why tar them both equally and advocate the dismissal of both?
By your advocacy don't you remove the incentive for republicans to attempt to reform their fiscal mismanagement and closed, unaccountable methods of governance, and for democrats to keep on doing what they've been doing....sound fiscal management and governmental accountability?