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I'll just note from a political perspective, Donald Trump threatened to veto the final budget bill because of the totality of these spending increases. He was
by birken 9y ago
I'll just note from a political perspective, Donald Trump threatened to veto the final budget bill because of the totality of these spending increases. He was not in favor of these increases.
In fact the budget Donald Trump proposed [1] mainly was massive increases in military spending with sharp cuts to many domestic agencies (EPA -25%, Education -5%), including many research agencies they don't agree with (like the NOAA [2]).
But what happened is many Republicans in the freedom caucus refused to vote for a budget that increased the debt by so much, so a compromise was required as Democratic votes were going to be needed. So to vastly oversimplify, Republicans wanted higher military spending, Democrats wanted higher domestic spending, and the compromise was reached that everybody got everything and who cares about the national debt. The bill actually passed in a very bipartisan way, with 62% of republicans and 59% of democrats in the House voting for the final bill, but with many of the "no" votes for different reasons (no DACA solution, debt increase too much, not enough wall spending, etc).
So while these increases are good (if you happen to like R&D spending), they aren't due to congress shifting their spending priorities, they are just due to a massive increase in the debt.
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/trump-budget-2019/?utm_term=.1b35d6134447 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/trump-...
2: https://www.aip.org/fyi/2017/trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slashes-research-funding-even-deeper https://www.aip.org/fyi/2017/trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slash...
- gowld 9y agoIn other words, at the end of the day, traditional hog-trading politics as usual (going back 30+ years), for better or for worse, which frankly is a bit refreshing in the context of the other insanity flying around national politics this year.
- maxxxxx 9y ago"who cares about the national debt" This can easily be fixed with some more tax cuts if you believe the GOP.
- r00fus 9y agoIt's Laffer curves all the way down with them.
- hokumguru 9y agoDo you deny the phenomenon?
- vkou 9y agoI think people who poo-poo the Laffer curve deny that we are currently on the right side of it.
- Redoubts 9y agoI deny a western economy has ever suffered it because it requires an effective tax rate of 70% to observe. http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1148666/FULLTEXT01.pdf http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1148666/FULLTEXT01...
- otalp 9y agoFor all the talk of "fiscal conservatism", Reagan was the first post-war president to drastically increase the national debt - he increased the debt by 186% due to insane deficit spending.[1] After Bush Sr. added another 1.5 trillion, Clinton was the most fiscally conservative president in modern times, adding only 32% to the debt after 8 years. GWB of course again increased the debt by 101% and also fuelled a trillion dollar war which destabilised the entire middle east. Obama, facing the biggest recession in a century(which requires government spending to stimulate the economy) only increased the debt 74% after 8 years. The amount he added to the debt over 8 years is likely to be surpassed by Trump in just 4. If there's one relatively fiscal conservative party in the US, it's definitely not the GOP. Yet the media just takes at their word and continues to associate them with fiscal conservatism. [1] - https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296 https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-an...
- ckinnan 9y agoIt is misleading to fully assign spending outcomes to the sitting president-- Congress has far more control over spending than the White House. Clinton was anti-deficit but he also had the most conservative Congress in modern times after 1994 sending him appropriations bills. Obama had a similar dynamic after 2010. In both cases GOP Congresses imposed hard spending caps-- in fact, in 1994 they even clawed back spending from 1993.
- dragontamer 9y agoThe difference is that the Republicans use "fiscal conservatism" to really mean "Current President we don't like shouldn't get as much money". And then they give all the money to the Republican Presidents when they come into power (see Tax cuts, which I personally consider to be lavish spending) There's definitely a large group of Americans (likely a minority, but still a large group) who genuinely care about the debt, deficit, and balancing the budget. But there's really no major powers in Washington who actually do care. (And the few Senators who do care are nutjobs IMO. Its difficult to find a "reasonable" deficit hawk who doesn't believe in "Gold Standard " or other crap) I'm talking about simple, and reasonable ways to get rid of the deficit here: increase taxes slightly, reduce spending where we can. Is it really that hard? Alas, no one I'm aware of is for both increasing taxes and cutting spending. Apparently, cutting spending puts you in the group of nutjobs who believe that cutting taxes magically increases revenues due to "economic growth". Increasing taxes (which is championed by the left) also puts you in with the Bernie Bros who then spend all the money made on free college education for everyone, and other such projects we can't afford.