Politics and Policy The "Big Lie", Parts I and II (April 2006) Step 1: Its the "big lie" we hear over and over again, one the Republicans have been preaching since the 1960's - blame the Democrats for excessive federal spending. It just isn't true. The reason the current Republican Congress hasn't reduced the domestic budget is because they know their own constituents will be affected and they will lose votes. Cutting the budget seems easy in the larger sense, but "the devil is in the details". The domestic budget has actually grown since the Republicans took over Congress. In truth, both parties adjust the budget depending upon their supporters: the Republicans give federal money to large businesses and wealthy individuals in terms of federal contracts or tax cuts, and the Democrats tend to support their constituents with direct benefits or tax credits. Neither party is blameless in this, but to continue to blame the Democrats for federal spending problems is a lie. Step 2 of the Big Lie - Republicans cut the taxes which support the budget, and then leave it to the Democrats to fix the mess. This is just an attempt to get the benefit of paying off their own supporters with tax cuts, and then transferring the political repercussions of paying for them to the other party. It doesn't matter what a fiscally responsible Democrat does to try to fix the mess, the Republicans will blame them for (a) not cutting spending, (b) raising taxes, (c) cutting benefits, or (d) not dealing with the deficit. It really hasn't changed much since David Stockman was hired as Reagan's first budget director. He thought he was being hired to cut the deficit, because Reagan had campaigned on that theme. Instead he found that he was being told to manufacture numbers to conceal the size of the budget deficit so the Republicans could protect their tax cuts for the wealthy. When he complained about this to a reporter, he was "taken to the woodshed", and fired a few months later. Six years later Bush I was caught in the "read my lips - no new taxes" campaign pledge, and the deficit continued to grow. It wasn't until Clinton became President that a bi-partisan Congressional action allowed taxes to be adjusted and the deficit to fall - but the Republicans then campaigned that Clinton engineered "the largest tax increase in history", telling the BIG LIE again. Under Clinton the deficit was finally going to be a surplus by 2001, but Bush II's first priority was to cut taxes again, and he insists on keeping the tax cuts despite the money wasted in Iraq and the expenses associated with the 2005 hurricanes. But the deficit is a problem which Bush will leave for future Presidents to handle, just as he plans to leave them with the Iraq situation. Posted by RHP6033        Copyright 2006-2007 - Brookridge Associates Inc. All rights reserved.