Once again we see the pattern of Republicans spending like drunken sailors when they are in power, and then becoming deficit hawks when they lose power. During the George W Bush administration, VP Dick Cheney famously said “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”
Cheney was talking about the midterm elections, which the GOP had won. Despite prosecuting two expensive wars, the Republicans wanted to cut taxes for the rich, but Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill objected because growing budget deficits posed a threat to the economy. Cheney was saying that the voters don’t care about deficits. He was right, the wealthy got their tax cuts, and O’Neill was fired.
Now, with Biden about to assume the presidency and the coronavirus pandemic completely out of control, the Republicans suddenly care about deficits again. In reality, they want to cripple the Biden administration and then blame the resulting economic problems on the Democrats.
They did that with Obama, after they then handed the new president an economy in freefall. Now, they are doing the same thing with a pandemic that they are continuing to refuse to fight. Will Americans be fooled again?
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Guillotines could make a real big comeback if our corrupt “betters” do not wake up and smell the coffee.
Ah, but this is America, where we are all (talking white folks here) just temporarily embarrasses millionaires, so egalitarian measures are rejected by our political class and their believers.
Meet the insane USA, and as we all know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
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[…] Knee at Political Irony explores the predictable migration patterns of deficit hawks. They fly to some remote isle during Republican tax-cuts-for-the-fabulously-wealthy years, then […]