So we hear the republican chanting over and over how the sky is falling if we don’t balance the budget, even if it means we have to take food out of the mouths of our elderly and sick and weak and poor. The world will end. Why all the noise?

The Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling 18 times during Reagan’s administration. Got that? 18 times. During that time Reagan increased our nation’s deficit by three trillion dollars, more than all the previous presidents combined.

Where did all that money go? It went to tax breaks for the rich, mostly. That and to the military budget and his failed Star Wars program.

Then, along came Clinton and he balanced the budget and had a surplus that would have paid off the deficit in 10 years.

Where did all this money come from? Clinton ended “Welfare as we know it.” In other words, he stole it from the poor. He also raised taxes on the wealthy a couple percentage points.

Then, Bush added almost five trillion dollars to the deficit and the republican voted seven times to raise the debt ceiling.

Where did all that money go? Tax breaks for the rich and two illegal wars.

Then the economy crashed, as it always does when you lower taxes on the rich, and Bush pushed through another trillion dollars to the banker crooks.

Now, Obama wants to add a small fraction to the debt, less than 8%, and the Republicans are threatening to bring the entire country down unless we take more money from the poor.

Do you see any sort of pattern here? The republicans ran up almost all of the 10 trillion dollar debt and they don’t want to pay for it. They want the poor and the weak and the elderly and the sick to pay for their big party.

The republicans and the rich have been living large for the past 30 years at our expense and now they want you and me to pay for the bill.

What would you say about a political party that does this? What would you say about a party that is willing to crash our economy if they don’t get their way on everything? We’re in this mess because of the tax breaks to the rich and the republicans are saying they will destroy the country if we don’t give more tax breaks to the rich.

What party does big business own?

I’ve heard one person after another explaining how Obama’s deficit is the biggest in history. I though I would look into this claim a little and see what I can find. Here’s is a quick graph from OffTheChartsBlog to show what the major contributors are to the deficit.

US Deficit

Take a look at the white area of the graph at the bottom. You see the small sliver of white? That is what the deficit would look like without the Bush years. In other words, take away the economic collapse Bush ushered in, take away the Bush tax cuts for billionaires, take away Bush’s misguided wars and what you have left is the small area at the bottom.

Of course, the TARP money is from the Bush years if you remember. TARP was already passed before Obama took office.

So, please, do yourself a favor and get in the habit of questioning the numbers and fears you hear spread by the right wing lie machine. It’s sole purpose is to take advantage of the uninformed. Don’t be one of them.

Happy New Year to one and all. May this year bring you the financial relief and medical coverage you so deserve. Let’s take a quick look back at the past decade.

Let’s see, it’s January 2000. The economy is booming, the federal budget is in the black for the first time in decades, we were at a time of relative peace. We trusted our sciences and scientists, we had confidence in our banks. We had some control over our banking sector, even though Gramm-Leach-Bliley act had just been passed but the banking sector insanities hadn’t shifted into high gear, yet.

The middle-class American made almost $1700 more per year than today.

Oh, and did I say that we weren’t in the middle of two middle-eastern wars? Oh I did?

So, what, exactly, can you say that America saw in the past decade that was beneficial? Okay, sure, there were a few Peace Prizes, a few discoveries, oh, and we finally pulled the life support from a long gone dead woman.

You can say it is just a coincidence that these were the Bush years, but no one really believes that it was anything but Bush and the Republican politicians who benefited from everything that is now harming America.