Now that the Republicans have control of both houses of Congress and the presidency they have forgotten their “no new debt” crusade. It was just six years ago that Grover Norquist transformed a single issue – preventing tax hikes – into one of the key platforms of the Republican Party. Norquist’s biggest coup was getting more than 270 members of Congress, and nearly all of the 2012 Republican presidential primary candidates, to sign a pledge promising never to vote to raise taxes. Norquist may be happy that there will be a reduction in taxes but the price will be a new higher national debt.
President Barack Obama’s oversight of the deficit was leaving “America’s future in the balance,” the Republican National Committee said in 2011. A year later, Senator Mitch McConnell said the federal debt was “the nation’s most serious long-term problem.” The debt was “killing our economy.”
How can today’s GOP vote for a new tax law that will raise the national debt over the coming decade? The answer is they are more interested in helping the rich get richer. The proof is the rise of the stock market since Donald Trump’s election.
Look at the history of our national debt since 1981.
Ronald Reagan, a member of the Republican Party, took office as the 40th President of the United States on January 20, 1981. After serving two terms the national debt had grown from just short of $998 billion to over $2.6 trillion. That was after his promise that the debt would shrink due to his plan that would encourage more spending that would more than make up for lower taxes.
George Herbert Walker Bush was left to explain the giant tax cuts passed into law under Reagan. Remember his “No new taxes” campaign? He did raised taxes and the debt continued to soar. It was almost $4.4 trillion when Bush left office in just four years. HIs loss for a second term was the result of raising income taxes and a recession.
During the Clinton presidency of eight years the debt had grown to over $5.7 trillion. That was a relatively small expansion of the national debt.
Between 2001 and 2008 the debt climbed from $5.7 trillion to $10 trillion. Those were the years of the George W. Bush administration. That was after a tax cut and the cost of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama did even worse than his predecessor leaving office with a $20.5 trillion debt. For eight years, Republicans warned the American public that we were hurtling toward certain fiscal doom. In 2012 Senator Mitch McConnell said the federal debt was “the nation’s most serious long-term problem.” John Boehner, when he was the House speaker, in 2013: The debt was “killing our economy.”
There is nothing in the current plan to cut taxes that will change the trend of more national debt. The party out of power seems to always cry over the growing debt. Republicans have a history of opposing any thing that will increase the debt as long as they are not in the majority.
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