Federal Government at Stand Still While Deficit Increases

Remember those “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs” commercials? The United States Government should be the subject of those commercials now.

The party divide today in Washington—with Republicans driving to the right in Scott Brown’s truck and Democrats floating to the left on Teddy’s ghost—is the sole reason why we will not be getting out of this federal debt anytime soon.
While most economists are insisting that the debt cannot be reduced without bringing in more government revenues, i.e. taxes, the Republican Party is being courted by the Tea Party movement, which is increasing pressure on Republicans to oppose any tax increases.

On top of that, the Republican Party is repeating their mantra of “cut spending! Cut spending!” when in reality, under George W. Bush, they actually didn’t cut spending. According to the Independent Institute, Government spending actually increased during the Bush years by the highest rate since President Nixon at 28.8%. Not to mention the two wars Bush brought us into as well.

Bush also cut income taxes, which affects the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans the most, which resulted in a lack of government tax revenues, which in turn resulted in a federal deficit at the end of Fiscal Year 2009 at a record $1.4 trillion.
Obama deficit or Bush deficit (41% of America blames Bush, while 7% blame Obama), whatever one you blame on our current federal debt isn’t the way we should be looking at it.

And the Republican Party may be the party of no, but the Democratic party who controls Congress right now is doing much of the same, refusing to even work with the Republican Party on anything, locking them behind closed doors on Health care meetings, budget debates, etc.

And while Senator Evan Bayh (D) and John McCain (R) have come together to offer a plan to help reduce the deficit, many Republicans and Democrats are just too polarized to even think about working together simply for one reason: reelection.

When will it end? In turn, the Democrats will be blamed in this year’s elections, it’s just the political cycle. In 2012, the Republicans in turn will be blamed as well, unless something is done to reverse the crisis.

It hasn’t always been like this, however. As the New York Times reported today “In 1987, a global markets crash led the Reagan administration and Democrats to agree to a deficit-reduction package of spending cuts and tax increases.”

Meanwhile, President Obama has proposed a “spending freeze” on everything BUT the main government programs that spend the most money—Social Security, Medicare and military spending. While the costs of Medicare can be reduced by..guess what..Health care reform, both parties refuse to strike a compromise (Thanks, Mr. Cosmo).

And while terrorists attack us with you guessed it…planes and bombs strapped to their legs…we spend $522 billion on defense spending while over $10 billion of this is spent on the “missile defense system” to protect us against these tech savvy terrorists attacking us with, you guessed it…box cutters.

The point is, both parties are too polarized to even bother coming together for a consensus, which is what has happened in the past. And neither party looks as if they will “cut spending” in the coming years.

I’ll admit it, Republicans AND Democrats are battling over which party is better, Republican or Democrat, all while they are forgetting that we’re all Americans and we’re all going to have to tackle this issue sooner or later.