As the idiotic Republican shutdown continues and debt ceiling collapse looms, GOP approval ratings plummet yet again in latest poll. The new survey from ABC/WaPo finds a stunning 74% of Americans disapprove of the way the GOP is handling budget negotiations, that’s up 11 points from before the shutdown started.
But more important to remember, as all of this idiocy drags on — and as Dems consider some form of “concessions” to allow the GOP the face-saving measures they need to get out of this mess — are numbers like the following, underscoring just how idiotic and hypocritical all this nonsense actually is…
Please RT : 3 Presidents and only 1 has slowed the GROWTH in Federal Spending. cc: @ToConservatives @edshow pic.twitter.com/NCV6XRrLvh
— ClassicalProgressive (@ProgressEconomy) October 14, 2013
What does that same chart look like for Clinton?
Please can we have a multi-party system so that when one of them flames out and self destructs like currently is happening, we will still have a functioning government. If we have multiple parties, we would not look at things so black/white because there would be shades of gray between the parties. Since we only have two parties we tend to rally in tribal fashion around the party we have closest affinity towards. Issues are hardly ever one extreme or the other but that is how are politics have devolved.
Jay @ 1:
This should give you a pretty good idea of where Clinton fits into the above numbers [click to enlarge]:
Alex @ 2:
I responded to your similar comment in another thread here. In short, while I share your interest in more points of view than our two-party duopoly offers, I’m not sure that a third party, at least in this case, would have resulted in avoiding the mess we are now in. But see my comment over there for more nuance.
This is something i’ve often wondered about. Obama gets credited with spending us into oblivion and my question would be, on what?
What has he spent fiscally that was not already on the current budget cost trajectory? That was not a rhetorical question, please feel free to chime in…..
…and somehow when the votes are tallied on electronic voting machines, we get a lot of Republicans in there anyway! Hmmm…
OBAMA SEQUESTRATION
The deficit is declining at fastest pace since WWII.
The president has introduced a plan that would avoid Sequestration
awful cuts and proposes to boost the economy and restrengthen the middle class.
His plan cuts spending wisely, gets savings in entitlements and closes tax loopholes that favor the rich. Total Deficit Reduction to date has been $2500 Billion and additional $1800 Billion is in his long range plan.
His plan is not approved by Tea Party Sequesters who want more spending cuts especially in entitlements. Will AHC cut spending? It seems unlikely.
No one mentions Revenue like canceling Bush Tax Cuts. And Payroll Tax Cuts.
We will never get close to reducing spending and balancing the budget without Revenue increases on the wealthiest. Why? Simple. They have all the money. When 20% have 85% of wealth it does not leave much with which to work.
REAGAN BOOK BY CHRIS MATTHEWS
Chris wrote a Whitewash and omitted Reagan economic failures and others.
I voted twice for him. I loved to hear him speak.
His negatives are””Increased Spending by 80%–Debt by 189%–initiated our involvement in 5 foreign conflicts””Cut Carter’s creation of 218,000 jobs per month to 175,000″”Started redistribution of wealth by giving top a 60% income tax cut.
I believe CS #7 has a good point re: revenues. The charts only show SPENDING. If you superimposed revenues collected, you would see Reagan and Bush increased deficits as much from their tax cuts as from their military spending. However, Obama’s first years might have a revenue drop due to the unemployment (and loss of tax revenue) due to Bush’s Great Recession legacy.