The legendary American historian Will Durant once wrote that "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." Certainly that is true of the last three "greatest", the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union, all of which were rotten at the core well before they fell.
The United States of America is no different. We have defeated the mighty British in the Revolutionary War, withstood their all-out attempt to retake us in the War of 1812, defeated our own internal demons in the Civil War, played a major role in overcoming Fascism, Nazism and Communism in the 20th century.
But in recent years we have been bedeviled by our own internal conflicts, which have reached a point where our own unique version of Democracy may no longer be able to function. There are many reasons for that, but the most pressing is the same one that brought down both Rome and the Ottomans…a combination of ignorance and arrogance.
George Washington warned against the establishment of political parties, but as great a man as he was, was unable to resist being sucked into the party battle. In his first term, he was the first and only US President elected without any party affiliation. By his second term, he was reluctantly a member of the Democrat-Republican Party.
Over time, party politics have been able to dominate our political process, to the point that today, much of what passes for politics is simply propaganda. The Republican Party, learning from Dr. Joseph Goebbels, who understood that if one repeated something often enough, it would eventually become "true", has become the master of propaganda.
Their greatest triumph has been the acceptance by the general populace and much of the press, even many Democrats, that the GOP stands for fiscal responsibility, while the Democrats are profligate tax and spenders. If you listen to today's soundbite substitute for news, you will believe that the current President is the worst spend and taxer of them all. Of course, you will be wrong, but that has become the Republican way…relying on the ignorance of the populace to get themselves elected.
This chart shows pretty much the opposite is true. It is not based on hysterical pronouncements from Rupert Murdoch's "news" outlets or the jibber-jabber of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or any of the other insane babble from the world of Chicken Little, but on simple figures supplied by the Congressional Budget Office.
As can be seen, even the first sharp increase in the deficit in the 20th century, during the totally corrupt Harding administration, was a nearly invisible blip in the chain of events. The first truly visible increase occurred during Herbert Hoover's administration at the outset of the stock market crash and the Great Depression, the result of eight years of corrupt and careless Republican administration.
The rise in the deficit during the early FDR years was not that sharp…his final average is the result of the outbreak of World War II as government revenues lagged the cost of prosecuting the war.
Truman benefited from the sharp drop in spending that accompanied the war's end, again lagging revenue. The Eisenhower administration quickly corrected Truman back to a normal level. After that, during the Kennedy/Johnson years, things remained normal, even through the Nixon years.
No one has ever been able to adequately explain what happened during the Ford administration, but it was the beginning of a discernible trend that has separated the parties ever since. The much vilified Carter brought the deficit back to the norm, but the "Great Reagan" led the first real breakout to craziness. He raised numerous taxes numerous times, yet found a way to dramatically increase the deficit. His successor, GHW Bush, actually began a decrease, but was booted from office for breaking his promise not to raise taxes. It is about there that stupidity began to claim America.
But we had an interregnum, as Bill Clinton moved to the center and continued GHW Bush's deficit reduction until it reached the lowest point since Truman. That would probably have continued, except that the US Supreme Court decided to pre-empt the voters in 2000 and put into office the biggest bunch of fools in American history.
GHW Bush's son W. became titular President, but his administration was actually run by the "neocon" wing of his party, most prominently Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and their ilk. They believed in Reagan's craziest thing, "trickle down" economics, and the "fact" that deficits didn't matter, and also bought into the ridiculous idea that Reagan had, by talking tough, brought down the Soviet Union in a matter of a few years. Cheney and Rumsfeld especially were eager to demonstrate that American military power could rule the world.
So they managed to start two ridiculous unfunded wars while their dummy Bush was busy slashing taxes. You can see the result on the chart. In fact, I have divided the chart into two parts for the great W. era…the first covers only his first seven years, to give yo an idea of how the "neocon" policies worked to perfection, increasing the deficit geometrically by more than all previous deficit increases in American history.
The second W. Bush entry shows what happened in his last year as the neocon policies resulted in the crash of the economy, a deficit increase that outstripped all single year deficit increases in recorded history.
Of course, the ignorati drumbeat since the Bush years tells you that the Obama administration has continued the deficit increase. If you are foolish enough to believe that, then you are part of the problem. On the other hand, the decrease shown under Obama is a bit unfair. He has had the advantage of working against the astronomical rise of the Bush years. Still, his accomplishments should be enough to put the lie to the GOP BS. Of course, that will not happen.
As Pogo said more than once, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
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