How big an issue is the deficit and "big-spending" Repubs?

Just as Pat Buchanan stated this AM on C-SPAN, these people in ppower are not "real" conservatives. How powerful is that message? They have outspent Bill Clinton, their favorite "liberal", by 4 t 1. These are some pretty potent figures.

Anybody can borrow money and spur the economy or give tax breaks to their favorite friends, but everybody has to pay it back. These huge deficits are going to be a millstone around our nation's neck for generations to come. Your childrens' children will be paying for this debt when they could be paying for something to make their lives better. That is the price of these "conservative" deficits.

It's the one thing that will alienate their base.

Repeat after me: borrow and spend corpocrats.

I expect him to use the figures that Buchanan cited, daily, on the campaign trail.

This needs to be pounded again and again and again...

...but it needs to be accompanied by a concrete message of "...and here is how I would do it differently."

I am a traditional tax n spend socialist liberal, and even I am shocked by the money this admin has run through!!

Wish they'da nominated McCain. If he'd been elected we at least would not have this unbelievably ballooning deficit.

Bush'll come out next year talking about cutting spending, do a little cut here and there (watch out social programs!) and his base'll be peachy keen with him again.

Sorry for the negativism, not enough sunlight for me in the winter.

...but I can't see the average voter caring about deficits. They don't seem to have the attention span to listen to the explanation of why it should be important to them and..hence...won't.

Goddess I hope I'm wrong...but that is my feeling. :(

The deficits are a SERIOUS problem due to negative leverage they exert on future investment and the overal macroeconomic condition.

But, people don't care. And, the explanation of what i said above is too complicated to put in a soundbite. So, they will grow until the problem is so big that drastic fiscal actions have to be taken. Then, they'll pay attention.
The Professor

And IMHO, the frame should be "stop spending our children's money". The Republicans are spending much of our children's pay before they even earn it. And they are spending it on Lies (the Iraq war), and to enrich the already wealthy.

If interest rates rise, as classic economic theory says they should, then it will be easy to sell the financial irresponsiblity of the administration (since higher interest rates will impact directly on peoples lifes.)
In the absence of higher interst rates this is a "What me Worry" issue. As important as it might be, you'll never be able to convince people of its importance.

That is the soundbite that anyone can understand. If George Bush and the big-spending Repubs think they can borrow until eternity, they are sadly mistaken. Every dollar borrowed is a tax - not only on us but on our children. And it is a tax that we get nothing for in return. This year it is a tax of $320 billion - almost as much as the defense budget. Tht is the interest alone on our debt. So what do we do when the interest gets to be $1 trillion dollars? Do we cut Sdocial Secsurity? Headstart? The Defense budget? There is no free lunch.

Even Cal Thomas, that right-wing columnist, wrote a column this week lambasting Republicans for their out of control spending.

the dollar is getting pressured against the euro, canadian dollar, japan. Foreign investors are going to need some incentive to buy American bonds

... as you pointed out. Giving away money will definitely increase spending.

But what has to get out is the danger that this deficit poses - right now, we have to borrow money to fund our shortfall from foreign sources. But because our current account deficit is so high (that's the percentage of GDP that we have to borrow from foreign sources), and interest rates are so low, we're finding it harder to attract foreign capital. The U.S. is not as seen as such a great investment anymore - in September (the last month this has been reported), foreign purchase of U.S. securities dropped from (get this) 45 to 4 billion! So now, to get that foreign money we need to fund the deficit, we're going to probably have to raise interest rates, which would put the big slamboosky on economic growth.

they have nowhere else to go, and they will not stay home just to show their dismay at bush's fiscal policies.

i consider it wishful thinking on the part of other posters on this thread that they think that people who agree with pat buchanan or ron(?) paul(tx rep) on this issue are willing to support a democrat.

talk that interest rate increases and interest on the national debt produce a drag on the american economy are fine and true as far as they go, but when the chips are down, conservatives would rather be part of the power structure yielded by a republican administration than side with democratic politicians come election day.

perhaps the democrats should do as the GOP did in 2000 when they surreptitious aided nadir's campaign to draw liberal support from gore and help pat buchanan run again as a real fiscal conservative.

i would, because such attacks on bush from the conservative right could not be parried and dismissed by the claims of sour grapes of democratic partisanship. then, the issue of the budget busting that bush and the congressional GOP has perpetrated upon america moves from partisan ideology to one of fiscal philosophies.

turned me against our current President. Even before the war.