U.S. Deficits By Party

[cannonia]

This only goes until 2002, but the point is clear.

The choice of cutoff point makes it downright dishonest to post this chart now.  Deficits were reduced through most of Bush's term, and Obama's deficit dwarfs any other president's budget deficit.

So just to play tit-for-tat:

[Frink]

Marokai is right. Unemployment decreased dramatically (from 25% to 14%) between 1933 and 1937, when the New Deal was in full effect. When FDR decided to listen to the GOP's advice and cut govt. spending in 1938, the economy went back into a recession and unemployment bounced back up.

Indeed. In fact there's a line of thought that a larger New Deal, in terms of public works and the like, would have got us out of the crisis completely. WWII, however, provided just as excellent a stimulus.

Or had the New Deal lasted longer (in its same capacity), it would have also brought the U.S. out of the Depression.

I disagree. I don't think the New Deal was allowed to go far enough down the road that some of FDR's advisers, like Hopkins, wanted to take it to bring us out out of the Depression. Unemployment and GDP graphs, however, do show that it was significantly improving the crisis. Of course I could be wrong as unemployment did fall almost 15% before 1937.

[opebo]

The choice of cutoff point makes it downright dishonest to post this chart now.  Deficits were reduced through most of Bush's term, and Obama's deficit dwarfs any other president's budget deficit.

I suppose the distinction is, cannonia, that Obama's deficit was caused by a near total collapse of the economy (arguably baked into the pie before he was even in office), while by comparison all the previous recessions were very mild, until one gets back to the Great Depression.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Makes me feel bad for Obama.

      Heh, true. He's shaping up to be the perfect counter-argument against any idea of the Democrats being a party of relative fiscal responsibility.

Bush left us with a deficit of over $1 trillion, so I'm not sure what your point is.

[Sbane]

This only goes until 2002, but the point is clear.

The choice of cutoff point makes it downright dishonest to post this chart now.  Deficits were reduced through most of Bush's term, and Obama's deficit dwarfs any other president's budget deficit.

So just to play tit-for-tat:

Didn't the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan actually count for the budget under Obama, thus causing the rapid "increase" in the deficit? Apparently under Bush we were using magic to pay for the wars. Yet another Obama failure......

[Ameriplan]

Makes me feel bad for Obama.

      Heh, true. He's shaping up to be the perfect counter-argument against any idea of the Democrats being a party of relative fiscal responsibility.

Bush left us with a deficit of over $1 trillion, so I'm not sure what your point is.

that Obama increased 900%. Yeah no point.

[Beet]

Makes me feel bad for Obama.

      Heh, true. He's shaping up to be the perfect counter-argument against any idea of the Democrats being a party of relative fiscal responsibility.

Bush left us with a deficit of over $1 trillion, so I'm not sure what your point is.

that Obama increased 900%. Yeah no point.

No he didn't. What jfern meant was that Obama inherited the present deficit of $1 trillion, which is true. The day he took office the CBO was already projecting the deficit at $1 trillion. The first Obama budget was proposed in February 2009 for the Fiscal Year starting October 1, 2009. It is a trillion dollar deficit, but it's actually coming in a bit lower than the last deficit. Not that that's particularly good or anything.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Makes me feel bad for Obama.

      Heh, true. He's shaping up to be the perfect counter-argument against any idea of the Democrats being a party of relative fiscal responsibility.

True. Spending more than any other president combined can do that to a guy.

He had to spend that much to pump the economy back from a recession which he inherited from Bush Jr.

Also, I'm pretty sure this chart is without the social security surplus, as Clinton doesn't have a surplus here for any years of his Presidency.

LOL, just like FDR, huh? More spending = Cure deficit. Maybe he should start a world war just like FDR had in order to save his legacy.

The economy was recovering under FDR even before WWII.

And WW2 was just a big government stimulus package.  It's funny how so many forget that.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Marokai is right. Unemployment decreased dramatically (from 25% to 14%) between 1933 and 1937, when the New Deal was in full effect. When FDR decided to listen to the GOP's advice and cut govt. spending in 1938, the economy went back into a recession and unemployment bounced back up.

Indeed. In fact there's a line of thought that a larger New Deal, in terms of public works and the like, would have got us out of the crisis completely. WWII, however, provided just as excellent a stimulus.

Except it never would have.

And war is a terrible waste of resources.

That's exactly what the economy needs though.. a terrible waste of free printed money.

No, that sort of thing is the reason the economy is in the terrible state that it is in in the first place.

War and government make-work programs only serve to conceal economic troubles in the short-term, and worsen them in the long-term.

Yeah, Herbert Hoover was a raging Liberal and... oh, wait, scratch that....

[Vepres]

This only goes until 2002, but the point is clear.

The President has uniform control over spending, really? If one looks at the partisan control of congress, there is no clear pattern between party and spending FWIW.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Marokai is right. Unemployment decreased dramatically (from 25% to 14%) between 1933 and 1937, when the New Deal was in full effect. When FDR decided to listen to the GOP's advice and cut govt. spending in 1938, the economy went back into a recession and unemployment bounced back up.

Indeed. In fact there's a line of thought that a larger New Deal, in terms of public works and the like, would have got us out of the crisis completely. WWII, however, provided just as excellent a stimulus.

Except it never would have.

And war is a terrible waste of resources.

That's exactly what the economy needs though.. a terrible waste of free printed money.

No, that sort of thing is the reason the economy is in the terrible state that it is in in the first place.

War and government make-work programs only serve to conceal economic troubles in the short-term, and worsen them in the long-term.

Yeah, Herbert Hoover was a raging Liberal and... oh, wait, scratch that....

Herbert Hoover was no liberal. His economic policies were thoroughly interventionist and were what laid the foundation for what FDR would turn into the Great Depression. Good foreign policy, though.