Paul Begala: How Republicans Screwed the Pooch

How Republicans Screwed the Pooch

Republicans say they want to save the country from Obama’s reckless spending. But as Paul Begala argues, it’s the GOP’s policies that have driven the nation into the ground.
by Paul Begala

July 30, 2011

There it sits, lonely and forlorn on my shelf. A leather-bound copy of the 1999 Budget of the United States of America. A gift from President Clinton to the folks on his team, it was the first balanced budget in decades.

But it wasn't supposed to be the last. Indeed, experts projected surpluses as far as the eye could see. $5.7 trillion in surpluses, to be exact. The surpluses were so strong that deep into the future—in 2009—the entire national debt was going to be zero. For the first time since Andy Jackson was president, the United States of America would not owe a dime.

It didn't quite work out that way, did it? As Washington seems paralyzed, our economy stagnates, and America's full faith and credit is on the brink, it is useful to recall how we got here. This was not an act of nature. There was no unforeseen earthquake, no tsunami, no hurricane that wiped out our surplus. It was instead a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president who squandered the surplus. In full possession of the federal government for the first time since Eisenhower, the GOP—with, to be fair, some help from some very foolish Democrats—systematically dismantled the economic and fiscal policies that produced the strongest economy and largest budget surplus in our history.

Specifically, they did four things: cut taxes (with a heavy tilt toward the rich), waged two wars on the national credit card (one of which was against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no serious threat to America), passed a prescription drug benefit with no pay-for (the first entitlement in American history without a revenue source), and deregulated Wall Street (which helped turn the American economy into a casino and touched off the Great Recession).

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/29/republicans-on-the-debt-ceiling-screwing-over-america.html

were passed. The former repealed Glass Stegall and the latter gave us derivatives. Too damn bad Clinton did not veto them. Dick Durbin's right when he said that, 'Frankly, banks own the place.' The place being Congress.

Of course, Bush's SEC lifted leverage requirements for Wall Street banks under Chris Cox. That was to prove disastrous.

We will never clean up Congress without public financing. Every Congress legislation calling for public financing of federal campaigns is introduced, and it goes nowhere. Congress does not want a level playing field. They'd rather sell their souls for lobbyists' holding fundraises and bundling cash for their campaign coffers.