Earlier today, I was in a facebook discussion about Republicans and Democrats. It brought up a couple of interesting points that I'd share more broadly.
First, let's all remember the difference between "debt" and "deficit".
Bush doubled the "debt" in 8 years, from 5.5T to 11T. However, if you factor in Medicare Part D, which wasn't there before, it added another $15T in unfunded liabilities (aka, more debt) which grows every single day. So really, Bush grew our country's indebtedness by at least $20T.
Many Republicans talk about Obama tripled the debt in one year. No, he did not triple the "debt" in one year; he tripled the "deficit" in one year. The last figures I saw from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) showed Obama doubling the deficit, from $11T to $22T in the next 8 years.
Now, all of this is bad! But how bad is it?
Well, adjusted for inflation, it's not quite as bad as we thought. You can check out the inflation tables here. http://oregonstate.edu/cla/polisci/individual-year-conversion-factor-tables
(You may also notice that there really wasn't any inflation until the Federal Reserve Banking Act - 1913.)
So here's the deal. Many on the right are now talking about a revitalized Republican Party. Man, where have I heard this before? For sure it was in 2000, 1994, and 1980. Each time a leader stood up and said "we're new, we're better, we have principles, and we're going to fix the government." Each time, the leader of that movement won political office. And then each time, that leader failed to fix most of the problems.
In the 1980's, Reagan lowered tax rates, which was a good thing! But he also increased military spending, and stepped up the War on Drugs. These things increased our national debt. And Bush I was nothing like Reagan at all. Reagan's era ended with Bush losing to Clinton, and Perot playing spoiler.
In the early 1990's, Republicans took over the Legislative branch, and they kept Bill Clinton in check. Ross Perot's campaigning on balanced budgets, and getting 10% - 15% of the popular vote woke up both parties. By the end of the 90's, the annual budget deficit was the smallest it had been in a very, very long time.
For Bush in the 00's, he didn't run as strong of a rhetorical campaign as did Reagan and Gingrich before - he was running against a robot, so it wasn't really required. His speaking skills were lacking, comparatively. But he promised no Nation Building, tax cuts, reductions in the size of government, etc. Instead, we saw NCLB (No Child Left Behind), which didn't increase the federal deficit, but as an unfunded mandate required states to increase their own deficits. We saw the EPA sue communities all over America under the Clean Water Act.
And McCain in 2008! He was pushing a socialized healthcare plan that was just a little "scaled-back" from Obama's plan during his 2008 presidential campaign, while saying he didn't know anything about the economy. Really? You rallied behind THAT?
(To quote McCain) "My Friends," it's time to wake up. Stop falling for this cycle of "we're going to reform the GOP" every 5 or 10 years, and then it's forgotten after 2-to-4 years after that.
I'm a car guy, so I'll use a car analogy. The Republican Party was built from spare parts (multiple 3rd parties leading up to the Civil War) and has had nagging problems, and has been nickel-and-diming us for the last 50 years. It's time to junk that clunker and find a new ride.
I left in 1998. I voted Libertarian for President in 2000. There was never a more liberating feeling that, though I lost, I voted for the best candidate instead of voting against the worst.