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Hypocrite Republicans Ignored Decades of Debt Until Obama Became President
By: RmuseJan. 15th, 2013more from Rmuse

The act of replacing a high-priority action with a task of lower priority, or doing something of no importance at all and thus putting off important tasks to a later time is procrastination. The real issue, and problem with procrastinators, is ignoring the urgency of a high-priority task and in America, Republicans never place a high-priority on spending and the national debt until there is a Democrat in the White House that has been a regular occurrence dating back to the Reagan era. The priority for the last two Democratic presidents has been cleaning up the fiscal mess left by their Republican predecessors, and invariably, Republicans complicate matters by threatening to shut down the government to confound the Democratic president’s clean-up efforts and punish the people for electing a Democrat in the first place.
If it were not so serious, it would be comical that Republicans have the ability to prioritize reducing spending and the nation’s deficit when a Democrat is in the White House, because during Republican administrations, out-of-control spending and rising debt are the lowest priority possible for allegedly fiscally responsible conservatives. During George W. Bush’s administration, Dick Cheney reminded Americans over the course of eight years that Ronald Reagan said “deficits don’t matter,” and then on January 21, 2009 after Bush left President Obama a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009, deficits instantaneously became Republicans highest priority next to cutting safety net spending and reducing the deficit they ran up for two unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts for the rich, and an unfunded Medicare prescription plan.
Now, Republicans claim that the nation cannot procrastinate addressing eight years of Republican debt and out-of-control spending any longer, and to force the President to clean up the fiscal mess they left the country faster, are making very serious threats to shut down the government and default on the debt they racked up during the Bush era. Shutting down the government is a favorite ploy of Republicans during Democratic administrations and it informs more that Republicans are wreaking vengeance on the voters for electing a Democrat than fiscal policy, but that is the price Americans have had to pay for rejecting Republican presidential candidates.
Republicans are fond of claiming President Obama increased spending to unsustainable levels, but the facts do not bear out their assertion. The President has been so serious about reducing spending, that his record reveals he is a spendthrift compared to any Republican administration since Eisenhower. One House Republican, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state said, “I think it is possible that we would shut down the government to make sure President Obama understands that we’re serious. We always talk about whether or not we’re going to kick the can down the road. I think the mood is that we’ve come to the end of the road.” The end of the road came when Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, and despite setting a record for the lowest spending in decades, Republicans are out to slash Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and any program unrelated to defense and corporate entitlements.
There is a contingent of Republicans who are panting to shut down the government just ”to get it out of their system, and to do that for member-management purposes — so they can show their constituents they’re fighting” according to a top GOP leadership adviser. One Utah Republican, Jason Chaffetz said Republicans will “shut things down or even default if Obama doesn’t bend on spending. No one wants to default, but we are not going to continue to give the president a limitless credit card” in spite of the President’s stingy fiscal policy. It is odd that Republicans freely gave George W. Bush a limitless credit card that President Obama is being charged for, and to demonstrate how serious they are, Republicans are wont to totally destroy the economy and shutdown the government unless retirees, Veterans, the poor, disaster victims, schools, soldiers, the disabled, and children absorb Republican cuts.
Yesterday at his press conference, President Obama called for $1.5 trillion more in deficit reduction to stabilize the nation’s fiscal trajectory, and according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the White House has done about $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction since the beginning of 2011 and recommended that lawmakers pursue about $1.4 trillion more to stabilize the deficit over the next 10 years. President Obama said, “we need about $4 trillion to stabilize our debt and our deficit, which means we need about $1.5 trillion more,” and the $4 trillion figure is precisely what he proposed in 2011 that flummoxed Republicans and led to a credit downgrade, the fiscal cliff, and sequester cuts looming in a couple of months. Still, Republicans are holding firm to their threats to shut down the government and default on the nation’s debt apparently because they “just want to get it out of their system” and show the President they are serious about spending cuts and deficit reduction.
This Republican Party is not serious about anything that does not ravage Medicare, Social Security, and safety nets while protecting bloated defense spending and corporate entitlements. Their highest priority, by their own admission, is crashing the economy and shutting down the government to punish the American people for re-electing President Obama and show their constituents they are fighting the President. The President gave them a sweet deal to avert the fiscal cliff and they balked the same way they shunned John Boehner’s absurd Plan B, and it is becoming apparent there is nothing whatsoever they will accept that does not include either a credit default and government shutdown, or eviscerating safety nets. They procrastinated addressing Bush’s out-of-control spending and deficit increases until a Democrat entered the White House at which time they suddenly became serious fiscal conservatives.
It seems there is nothing, and no-one, to rein in recalcitrant Republicans single-minded priority of obstructing President Obama from cleaning up their fiscal mess, or their insane and politically suicidal plan to shut down the government and cause a credit default. What is telling, is that they would rather cause a global economic catastrophe and decimate Americans than work with the President, and there is nothing as dangerous as dying tyrants lashing out at their own people, and whether they are angry they lost the election, or confounded at their inability to rule America, it is the American people who will suffer and sadly, that too is one of their highest priorities.
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Tony Saprano
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 10:50 am
Rmuse.. Excellent ! Let’s remember, that they had to add additional digits to the National debt clock to show the full amount Bush ran up. They had no problem with the debt then.
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harris stein
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 12:07 pm
Forget Reagan, this goes all the way back to the Hoover, Roosevelt transition. The republicans screwed up the economy from 1920 to 1929 with their laissez-faire trickle down nonsense. Roosevelt was left to clean things up and he did, but then in 1936 with republican gains in congress they forced Roosevelt to cut the federal budget drastically and caused another recession which plunged the country back into economic depression.
Since then, Eisenhower has been the only republican to manage deficits as they should be and he had to deal with the debt from world War 2.
What began with Reagan was the idea of the new economy where the dollar replaced the British Pound as the world’s reserve currency. That was why the attitude among the Reaganites was that deficits don’t matter. Things have changed since then. The British pound is back and now the Euro is a competitor to the dollar. So now deficits do matter, however the Bush 2 administration wanted the best of both worlds. He wanted laissez-faire capitalism and deficit spending to finance imperialistic wars of convenience and massive tax cuts for ultra wealthy investors and corporatists.
Now the republicans in congress have turned their backs on responsible governance. What is absurd is that the republicans in congress truely believe they have the backing of the entire country. That’s nonsense, they only have the backing of a minority of about 30 to 40 percent of the people. Their obsession with punishing people who voted for Obama and undermining President Obama to make him look bad in the light of history is doomed to fail. Hopefully, the midterm election in 2014 will remove many of the right wing extremists in congress.
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Sugapea
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 2:44 pm
Run For Office…People!
Get involved in your Local Democratic Party. We can change this horribly Destructive Republican Trajectory!
“Live your life with Empathy…
…And we can change the world”
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Rho
Jan. 16th, 2013 at 6:05 am
Already on that! http://drummondforcongress.org
Not a Demo or Repub, but a logical thinking Independent, which we so need more of!
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Royella Jaynes
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 12:13 pm
check the records. Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling every time it came up for vote since Clinton was in office, until Obama became president. Now, all of a sudden, despite hugew spending cuts he’s already made, they refuse to cooperate just for the sake of being contrary. Time for them to be held accountable! This is not doing the jobs they were elected to, and is a huge waste of our money!!
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1voice1vote
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 1:03 pm
Keeping in mind that this ADDS to the debt, our tax dollars in fiscally conservative Republican hands: 113th Congress: “House Republican leaders have signed on to spend up to $3 million to keep defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court.”
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1voice1vote
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 1:32 pm
a default will cost us
“Fitch warns it may downgrade US over debt standoff”
“The United States could lose its top credit rating for the second time if there’s a delay in raising the country’s debt ceiling, Fitch Ratings warned Tuesday.”……
“Standard & Poor’s was so concerned by the dysfunctional nature of the 2011 debate that it stripped the U.S. of its triple A rating for the first time in the country’s history.
““The pressure on the U.S. rating, if anything, is increasing,” said David Riley, managing director of Fitch Ratings’ global sovereigns division. “We thought the 2011 crisis was a one-off event …. if we have a repeat we will place the U.S. rating under review.”………
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/fitch_warns_it_may_downgrade_us_over_debt_standoff/
Exceptional work, Republicans.
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majii
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 2:43 pm
IMO, republicans don’t care about creating jobs, real fiscal responsibility, or how much the American people have to suffer due to their incompetence, 1voice1vote. All they care about is wielding political power any way they can. Compromise? That’s something for democrats. They’re pissed that they lost the last two presidential elections, know they have less power than during the Bush years, and their solution is to abuse their remaining power to thwart one person–President Obama. I look upon them as vengeful idiots who really have no business holding public office because they’re too immature and petty.
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Nancy Olivera
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Obama has had his hand in the over spending crisis for the last 4 years, at record deficit pace -
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Shiva (Moderator)
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 3:05 pm
And every penny approved by the congress. Congress spends far more than what the president is involved in
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majii
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 5:18 pm
I’m a retired teacher who taught civics for over 30 years, and I am still capable of being amazed at the Americans who talk about the Constitution but don’t know jack about it. Any good 9th or 10th Grade civics student can tell you that all authorizations for spending begin in Congress, specifically in the House, but we still have adults running around who think that a president can spend and borrow at will. Another very sad thing, Shiva, is that these same Americans vote people like the teapublicans into office who don’t seem to know how the governments they represent operate. Our city councils, state legislatures, and Congress are filled with uniformed lawmakers and/or lawmakers who feel that their ideology trumps all laws and constitutions.
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Sugapea
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 3:30 pm
Nancy, Perhaps you missed this link:
Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/
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majii
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Folks like Nancy don’t need no stinking facts, Suapea, all they need is their beliefs and Fox news to tell them that what they believe is correct. This backfired on them in the last presidential election, but many of them have learned absolutely nothing! I fully expect them to continue being “shocked” when reality hits them.
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j
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 3:07 pm
they are salivating over the fact that they think they are going to privatize social security and give medicare recipients a voucher, in other words kill the two programs.
The Pentagon budget has doubled since 2001 (Bush wars) and it was already larger than the defense budget of all other countries combined. They do not want to cut one penny, also we are giving huge subsidies to fossil fuel companies (none to green energy) and they refuse to stop them.
Why are we giving so much aid to Israel, while we cut health care etc and Israel has universal health care and continues to refuse to work with us?
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phooeyrat
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 4:43 pm
just imagine what our subject matter would be about now had (king)mitt and (joker)paul “won” the election. the hair on the back of my neck stiffens at the thought…lets all do what we have to and throw these puppets of the corporate elite and their spawn out of “our” the-peoples govt.offices at all levels; federal, state, county, city and town. lets “end” this madness! lets get on with it! this is not a joke its real! someone could be hurt by these “moronic- clowns”.in my opinion. make it so…
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phooeyrat
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 5:28 pm
“we the people”(the 98%) “need” to show these radical republican (fools) and the rest of the planet that we support and stand behind and in front of our current elected president to “protect” him and his policies for this country’s future… not theirs!!! in my opinion.
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lm945
Jan. 15th, 2013 at 7:45 pm
The only thing that will satisfy the GOP is the elimination of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, Veterans benefits, HUD, Department of Education, EPA, and Obama’s head on a plate.
And I’m not sure even that would be enough.
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phooeyrat
Jan. 16th, 2013 at 12:42 pm
“remember”; that “they” all of our govt.officials are elected (hired) by “we” the people” to “serve” for the people. not for us the people to “serve” for them…so i’d say the question should be; are you “satisfied” with their service? if not let them know how you really feel about them and their service. you pay their salary. you should be satisfied don’t you think? all of us need to let them know who they work for… and what we expect of them…in my opinion. this holds true for all elected officials state, federal etc.
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phooeyrat
Jan. 16th, 2013 at 1:39 pm
always remember “we the people” elected (hired) “these” govt. official’s to serve us. “we the people” do not serve them. the question is; are “we” satisfied with “their” service? if not let them know how you feel.
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Rudy Gonzales
Jan. 16th, 2013 at 2:22 pm
It is going to take a concerted effort by everyone interested in taking our country back from the fringe elements who have turned the Republican party into a mockery. This once proud party of Lincoln and Reagan has free-failed into extreme radicalism. It is sad that outright bigotry has trumped this once sane segment of political power. Voter disenfranchisement is prevalent across the nation and Texas has become both lightening rod and laughing stock. Colin Powell is 100% right in his assessment. Sunday, 01-13-13, on Meet the press General Colin Powell delivered a scathing indictment of the current TEA-Republican party.(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/) “Powell’s words ring dead-on,” as Cory Booker said, and I have been putting these same comments out ever since Obama won the right to run against the GOP.
After watching PBS’s program:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/inside-obamas-presidency/the-republicans-plan-for-the-new-president/
I am convinced these white minority TEA-types were and still are nasally in their whining over their loss to the first black president. Even McCain has turned out to be a 180-er on many issues and has lost any credibility once had. All twelve TEA-Republican’s mentioned have but one plan in mind – “Do nothing!”
Effectively keeping Obama from any accomplishments will solidify the 2014 vote to oust these radical fringe when possible.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/inside-obamas-presidency/
Obama has been effective even with the head winds of the TEA-types and bigoted exercises they have put forth.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/
Do not sit on the sidelines and allow others to make decisions that will effect you, or your family directly, without your input. Get active in local, state and national politics and keep yourselves informed. We can make a great change in the 2014 Mid-term election!
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phooeyrat
Jan. 16th, 2013 at 6:42 pm
“people”; forget now (for the moment at least) the “world of sports” and “super-stars” and instead “focus” on the “world of politics”; where the “real-world” life and death struggle issues and decisions that are made by “our” elected govt.”officials”(players) happen every day. decisions that affect not only all of “our-country”(home team) but the entire planets citizens and echo systems. the decisions and plays made by some of our govt.officials (players) and their (corporate-sponsors) abuse this entire planet that we need to exist on and they are also destroying our future ability to share in the “american-dream” (so to speak). pick your political team and players and support them like it is a matter of life and death (just like “most”of “you” sports-fans do today) because it actually is. get the “real-score”.”play-politics”. pass this on please. lets hope that it catches on. keep your eyes on your govt.officials; not only just “the-ball”. the results might open-up some “more-eyes” to a new-perspective on what is truly facing all of humanity and the evolution or destruction of our species… the stakes are real! in my opinion. play the real-game.
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inez
Jan. 16th, 2013 at 9:56 pm
most of these politicians are puppets of the koch brothers, shadow fund raisers,and corporate lobbyists all in the interest of making money, not doing their job..support, no labels, commonsense, crew, and your local unions. we must combat the “bought and paid for” mentality in dc. consider the groups who supported mitt financially and yet lost …….we, are the deciders in every election. you must becomea supporter of democracy, by voting out these leaches.
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Jim
Jan. 17th, 2013 at 10:44 pm
You keep whining about hypocrisy as we keep adding to our 16 trillion in debt. Not real smart.
I wonder….was it hypocritical when then Senator Obama said in 2006 “Raising the debt ceiling is UnAmerican, irresponsible, unpatriotic and a failure in leadership” ?
BTW it seems most here forget that it was the GOP who worked with President Clinton in working to right our finances.
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Shiva (Moderator)
Jan. 17th, 2013 at 10:50 pm
Who controls every drop of government spending?
Who got the budget control act signed in 2010 that requires everything new that requires spending has to have equal cuts?
Who put the Bush wars into the budget so they would be funded?
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Jim
Jan. 17th, 2013 at 10:46 pm
Wow overall this site appears to be of one mind. So much for diversity of thought.
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Shiva (Moderator)
Jan. 17th, 2013 at 10:51 pm
Its true. Unfortunately we seem to get a lot of incoherent right wing people that cant seen to post without swearing, attacking the authors or calling others names. ergo..one thought.
Did you have a diverse thought to give?
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Valdeck
Jan. 18th, 2013 at 5:16 am
Taxpayers foot $222,000 bathroom renovation for (former) interior secretary (Republican)
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Historical Movies need to be made to remind the American people of the Republicans’ Recurrent History of Hypocrisy (Just like the Holocaust historical movies that remind the Jews to be vigilant against a recurrence)
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This is only one of the millions of deficit spending the Republican leaders love to do whenever they are in the White House. When they lose the White House they revert to pressure the Democrats to cut spending that the Republicans initiated. Then the Democrats create a surplus. Then when the Republicans again win the White House, they resume their deficit spending and say deficits don’t matter… Ironically, the media and the Democrats are repeatedly fooled by the Republicans hypocrisy intellectual dishonesty. No wonder that they initiate legislation that order the US Postal Service to lose money by pre-paying billions of postal services revenue dollars into workers’ pension fund from which to finance the Republicans’ pensions and deficit spending lifestyle while the Democrats in Congress sit on their hands, accept being defined falsely as “tax and spend liberals” and enjoy financially also at the expense of the 80% to over 90% of American people in poverty, income inequality, under-employment and health matters with credit cards.
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