SUNDAY'S EDITORIAL

DEMOCRATS VS. REPUBLICANS

The United States is a country with a two party system of government made up of Democrats and Republicans. You're either one or you're the other or you're totally insignificant. If you lean center-left and you vote for a 3rd party candidate, you just helped elect a Republican. The opposite is true if you're center-right and you vote 3rd party, you will help elect a Democrat.

I am a Yellow Dog Democrat. I would vote for a yellow dog before I would vote for a Republican.

I am a Democrat because I am a fiscal conservative. You cannot be a fiscal conservative and a Republican if you know the truth about what Republicans have actually done over the last 25 years. Republicans over the last 25 years have epitomized fiscal bankruptcy.

I will try not to bore you with too much rhetoric but I will prove my point with the statistical facts and I welcome any challenges to those statistics/numbers because they come directly from the Congressional Budget Office, and they are easily attainable. In fact, their website is at the end of this.

FEDERAL SPENDING
Many people refer to Ronald Reagan as a 'fiscal conservative' and nothing could be further from the truth. In Reagan's 8 years in office his average increase in federal spending was 6.8%. Compare that to Bill Clinton whose average increase was only 3.55%.

When told this many people attempt to excuse Reagan because of the 'Cold War' spending but that's factually incorrect. If military spending had increased only by the rate of inflation during Reagan's 8 years in office, his average increase in spending would still have been 5.76%, still much higher than Bill Clinton.

An often-repeated fallacy is that Bill Clinton cut military spending and that is how he held down federal spending. Military spending was $292 billion per year when he came into office and it was $306 billion in his last year in office. They obviously confuse his record with George Bush the Elder, who in his 4 years in office reduced military spending from $304 billion to the $292 billion mentioned above.

DEFICITS AND THE NATION'S DEBT
Ronald Reagan was a miserable failure when it came to balancing the federal budget with an average yearly deficit of nearly $177 billion and adding $1.4 TRILLION to the nation's debt during his two terms in office. Another fallacy of this era that is usually spouted by Reagan-revisionists was that the "Democrats in Congress made him do it", which is totally ridiculous since the Senate had a Republican majority from 1981 to 1987.

Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton's administration is the only one since Dwight Eisenhower to balance a budget and they balanced four in a row. The amount added to the debt during Clinton's two terms? None. In fact, the cumulative total of his eight budgets was a SURPLUS of $62 billion.

The two George Bush's? If you think you're a conservative and a republican, you don't want to know. But I am going to tell you anyway. George HW averaged deficits of $259 billion a year and George W has averaged an astronomical $328 billion in his first four. Together the two Bush's have added $2.35 TRILLION to the nation's debt in their combined eight years in office.

So that's Reagan's $1.4 TRILLION and the Bush's $2.35 TRILLION for a grand total of $3.75 TRILLION in debt from three presidents that you want to be called 'conservative'?

Keep in mind; the $3.75 trillion is just the principle. The nation's debt is currently $7.7 trillion and all but about a trillion is directly attributed to these three 'conservatives' (sic).

Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, and when he left the nation's debt was $789 billion-now it's $7.7 TRILLION. Bill Clinton didn't add a dime to that debt, so guess who is responsible for almost $7 TRILLION of it? Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush. Three Republicans and definitely NOT fiscal conservatives!

And you so-called conservatives say you think the federal government spends too much? Well, last year the interest on that $7.7 trillion debt was $322 billion. One year's worth of interest-almost $27 billion a MONTH added to the bill. And you Republicans want to be called fiscal conservatives?

I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat and I'm a fiscal conservative. I would vote for a yellow dog before I would vote for a Republican.

If you think you are a fiscal conservative and you vote for Republicans, you are screwing up big time. If you think you're a fiscal conservative and you normally vote center-right or for Republicans and you are thinking of voting for a 3rd party-thanks for the help.

http://www.cbo.gov/

Next Sunday's Editorial-Republicans are as Morally Bankrupt as they are Fiscally.