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And which party controls congress? I'll give you a hint: It's the party that spent decades advocating for irresponsible tax cuts without cutting spending[0]. [

And which party controls congress? I'll give you a hint: It's the party that spent decades advocating for irresponsible tax cuts without cutting spending[0]. [0] Yes, I know that the Republicans said that they were going to cut spending to match the tax cuts, but that never ends up happening.

jameslk 19d ago
The high inflation since Covid and $40 trillion in debt didn’t happen under one party
- owebmaster 19d ago
  But just one wins elections promising they will reducing it
  - jameslk 19d ago
    Neither party has realistic plans to reduce the debt. It’s been that way for decades. Kicking the can down the road gets more votes
    - watwut 19d ago
      It was democrat who ended with surplus. This is not both sides issue. This very much "conservatives make things worst and hide behind both sides".
  - chucksta 19d ago
    What's the other promising to do with it?
- atmavatar 19d ago
  The (vast?) majority of the debt happened as the result of the Republican party both increasing spending and cutting taxes every time it lands someone in the White House and before midterms flip the House back to Democrats. There's a fair argument to be made that the Democrats could/should have reversed these disastrous fiscal policies when they gained power, but it's important to be wary of Murc's Law while also acknowledging doing so would also burn a lot of political capital Democrats never seem to have much of. The American electorate is a grade school child constantly evaluating which parent it likes the most. One tells you that you can eat as much candy as you like and play video games all night (neither of which hit you until the following day), while the other occasionally tells you to eat your vegetables, do your homework, and clean your room.
  - jameslk 19d ago
    > The (vast?) majority of the debt happened as the result of the Republican party both increasing spending and cutting taxes every time it lands someone in the White House and before midterms flip the House back to Democrats. Both parties have run an increasing deficit, with the only outlier being a small amount of time in the late 90s. The deficit is largely caused by social security outlays, medicare/medicaid outlays, and military spending, none of which are going to meaningfully change under either party
    - sbohacek 19d ago
      Maybe you mean something different, but not every recent president has "run an increasing deficit" Reagan: +74B Bush: +103B Clinton: -382B Bush: +1.5T Obama: -747B Trump: +2.1T Biden: -1T Where change in deficit is the final budget deficit - starting budget deficit So, every Republican president runs an increasing deficit and every Democrat president runs a decreasing deficit.
      - jameslk 19d ago
        Congress is the one that largely makes the fiscal policy choices. For example, during Clinton’s second term when the deficit was almost eliminated (some claim there was a surplus, but there wasn’t because of social security liabilities), you had a republican controlled congress who were pushing for cuts and fiscal tightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America
        cbolton 18d ago
        The republican program was in large part vetoed by Clinton though and the spending cuts that passed were largely offset by the tax cuts. From what I read the reduction in deficit is mostly due to the dot-com boom, helped with the "deficit reduction act" of 1993 that was pushed by Clinton and happened to hike taxes at the right time to tax the boom.
    - carefree-bob 19d ago
- matteoraso 19d ago
  I'm a lot more sympathetic to Joe Biden temporarily causing a spike in inflation while helping America recover from a horrible pandemic than Republicans habitually running the country off of debt.
  - jameslk 19d ago
    Joe Biden didn’t cause a spike in inflation, congress did. And the policies that caused it wasn’t under Joe Biden’s term Also, inflation wasn’t temporary
- throw0101a 19d ago
  > The high inflation since Covid and $40 trillion in debt didn’t happen under one party Between his first term and his second term to date (2+ more years to go), Trump is responsible for more that one quarter (29%) of US debt (USD 11.6T / 40T): * https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-biden/ https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-bide... There was a bit of a mitigating circumstance of COVID (for Trump and Biden), which caused the debt to jump for many countries as well (and not just the US), but it's not like Trump et co are helping the math along with all the tax cuts and asking for a US$ >1T military budget. But I would say a large reason why the US is in the fiscal position it is now in is because of Trump and a GOP Congress. (See also tax cuts under Bush 43 and Reagan; Bush 41 raised them a bit.)
DoesntMatter22 19d ago
Partly it doesn't happen because you can't really get much done even if you have a majority. You really end up needing a super majority. The one thing both parties agree on though is running up a massive deficit
- disgruntledphd2 18d ago
  > You really end up needing a super majority. Assuming you're talking about the Senate filibuster, then this can be changed or removed by simple majority vote. It's not in the Constitution, just a rule that the Senate adopted. Like, personally I think that even sans filibuster, the Senate would move much slower than the House, because of election cycles.

jameslk 19d ago

The high inflation since Covid and $40 trillion in debt didn’t happen under one party

owebmaster 19d ago
But just one wins elections promising they will reducing it
- jameslk 19d ago
  Neither party has realistic plans to reduce the debt. It’s been that way for decades. Kicking the can down the road gets more votes
  - watwut 19d ago
    It was democrat who ended with surplus. This is not both sides issue. This very much "conservatives make things worst and hide behind both sides".
- chucksta 19d ago
  What's the other promising to do with it?
atmavatar 19d ago
The (vast?) majority of the debt happened as the result of the Republican party both increasing spending and cutting taxes every time it lands someone in the White House and before midterms flip the House back to Democrats. There's a fair argument to be made that the Democrats could/should have reversed these disastrous fiscal policies when they gained power, but it's important to be wary of Murc's Law while also acknowledging doing so would also burn a lot of political capital Democrats never seem to have much of. The American electorate is a grade school child constantly evaluating which parent it likes the most. One tells you that you can eat as much candy as you like and play video games all night (neither of which hit you until the following day), while the other occasionally tells you to eat your vegetables, do your homework, and clean your room.
- jameslk 19d ago
  > The (vast?) majority of the debt happened as the result of the Republican party both increasing spending and cutting taxes every time it lands someone in the White House and before midterms flip the House back to Democrats. Both parties have run an increasing deficit, with the only outlier being a small amount of time in the late 90s. The deficit is largely caused by social security outlays, medicare/medicaid outlays, and military spending, none of which are going to meaningfully change under either party
  - sbohacek 19d ago
    Maybe you mean something different, but not every recent president has "run an increasing deficit" Reagan: +74B Bush: +103B Clinton: -382B Bush: +1.5T Obama: -747B Trump: +2.1T Biden: -1T Where change in deficit is the final budget deficit - starting budget deficit So, every Republican president runs an increasing deficit and every Democrat president runs a decreasing deficit.
    - jameslk 19d ago
      Congress is the one that largely makes the fiscal policy choices. For example, during Clinton’s second term when the deficit was almost eliminated (some claim there was a surplus, but there wasn’t because of social security liabilities), you had a republican controlled congress who were pushing for cuts and fiscal tightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America
      - cbolton 18d ago
        The republican program was in large part vetoed by Clinton though and the spending cuts that passed were largely offset by the tax cuts. From what I read the reduction in deficit is mostly due to the dot-com boom, helped with the "deficit reduction act" of 1993 that was pushed by Clinton and happened to hike taxes at the right time to tax the boom.
  - carefree-bob 19d ago
matteoraso 19d ago
I'm a lot more sympathetic to Joe Biden temporarily causing a spike in inflation while helping America recover from a horrible pandemic than Republicans habitually running the country off of debt.
- jameslk 19d ago
  Joe Biden didn’t cause a spike in inflation, congress did. And the policies that caused it wasn’t under Joe Biden’s term Also, inflation wasn’t temporary
throw0101a 19d ago
> The high inflation since Covid and $40 trillion in debt didn’t happen under one party Between his first term and his second term to date (2+ more years to go), Trump is responsible for more that one quarter (29%) of US debt (USD 11.6T / 40T): * https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-biden/ https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-bide... There was a bit of a mitigating circumstance of COVID (for Trump and Biden), which caused the debt to jump for many countries as well (and not just the US), but it's not like Trump et co are helping the math along with all the tax cuts and asking for a US$ >1T military budget. But I would say a large reason why the US is in the fiscal position it is now in is because of Trump and a GOP Congress. (See also tax cuts under Bush 43 and Reagan; Bush 41 raised them a bit.)

DoesntMatter22 19d ago

Partly it doesn't happen because you can't really get much done even if you have a majority. You really end up needing a super majority. The one thing both parties agree on though is running up a massive deficit

disgruntledphd2 18d ago
> You really end up needing a super majority. Assuming you're talking about the Senate filibuster, then this can be changed or removed by simple majority vote. It's not in the Constitution, just a rule that the Senate adopted. Like, personally I think that even sans filibuster, the Senate would move much slower than the House, because of election cycles.