(Originally posted at The Subjective Scribe)


Hat tip to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for capturing our QUOTE OF THE DAY from former Oklahoman Congressman J.C. Watts:

Congressman, I agree wholeheartedly with you on this one. Now will Watts' fellow Republicans, including apologists on this board, admit there's indeed a problem in Washington with their own leadership? I'm not optimistic.

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no kidding. if they dont shape up and stop being democrats they will lose their support. people will abandon the party.

Stop being democrats... hmmmm... there's a laugher...

Since World War II, under which administrations did spending outpace revenue and the national debt grow? Primarily under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 42 — Republicans. So who are the real fiscally responsible administrations? Let's let the facts tell us.


National Debt as % of GDP. see also: (Source )


Here's another way of lookin at it:


The Presidential contributions to the gross federal debt are computed from data available from the White House.gov in the Historical Tables, Table 7.1 (PDF), p. 118, for FY 2005. The graph and data are also available in this XLS source file.


So which presidents added to the federal debt? Republicans Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. Which presidents didn't add to the federal debt? Democrats like Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy and Truman — wait... that's all the Democratic administrations since WWII.

So, based on history, which party has a better track record of fiscal responsibility? When Democrats spend, they find ways to pay for it — call it "tax-and-spend" if you want. When Republicans spend money (and they spend it like there's no tomorrow), they let future generations worry about how to pay for it — call it "borrow-and-spend". Which means down the road, we will pay more in taxes and get less in government services as we try to pay for out-of-control spending now.

By the way, 19¢ out of every tax dollar right now goes just to pay interest on our national debt. That's more than what we spend on programs/services for income security, education, veterans, nutrition and housing combined. That's fiscal irresponsibility no matter who's running the show.

Wow, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Here's another "proud" fact that Republicans — or at least Bush lovers — can brag about:

I'm not either, Scribe. I've asked over and over again for this type of response, and time and time again have been let down. But, I'm also not surprised.

Nice work, btw. I'm glad to see your posts again.