The Republican Lie That Won’t Die
Because of the Great Depression, WWII and the subsequent rebuilding of Europe, the US National Debt exploded to about 120% of GDP in 1946. After 1946, the National Debt had been steadily declining for 35 years. Ronald Reagan’s irresponsible fiscal policies ended that and the National Debt began to increase rapidly. That’s the part of Reagan’s legacy that seems to have been forgotten by today’s GOP.
The Republican party has been the bigger spenders ever since, as Ron Paul prophetically said in his 1987 resignation letter from the GOP.
If Ronald Reagan couldn’t or wouldn’t balance the budget, which Republican leader on the horizon can we possibly expect to do so? There is no credibility left for the Republican Party as a force to reduce the size of government. That is the message of the Reagan years.
And yet, how many times have Republicans accused the Democrats of increasing spending and deficits? And worse, how many people accept this Republican myth as fact? The actual fact is that – for at least 30 years – Democrats have been much more frugal than Republicans. Here are the actual spending numbers for each Fiscal Year since 1981 showing total spending increases for each four year Presidential term. The three smallest increases were Bill Clinton’s two terms and Obama’s first.
Factcheck.org has performed a thorough analysis of FY2009 spending and has concluded that $203B of 2009 spending was the responsibility of President Obama. The numbers in this table have been updated to reflect that fact.
As Mitt Romney said during the recent debate:
Look, I got five boys. I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it — but that — that is not the case, all right?
Unfortunately, in this case it is true. Republicans have been repeating the “big spending liberal” lie for so long that most people do believe it.
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EconoPolitics 
Maybe republicans will start to see the light. Their budget and policies are not very popular.
Funny. You conveniently ignore the fact that congress controls the purse. Yet you point to whom the President was as evidence that Republicans spend more than Democrats. If you it in you to do a true, honest analysis, you’d demonstrate that in most cases when Republicans controlled congress…spending went down. And when Democrats controlled congress…spending went up.
You’re the epitome of someone with a political agenda deciding what they want the numbers to show….then going out and looking until you find data that, although it doesn’t tell the whole story, supports your flawed thesis.
Your type makes me laugh because of your partisan transparency…under the guise of objective analysis. But then…when did the truth matter to leftists?
Let’s look at spending between 1996 and 2007. Over that 12 year period, we had 6 years of Clinton with a GOP congress followed by 6 years of Bush with a GOP congress.
In the 6 Clinton/GOP years, spending went up 22.9%
In the 6 Bush/GOP years, spending went up 46.5%
Bush increased spending twice as much as Clinton.
We can also compare Clinton’s first 2 years with a Democratic congress to the 6 years that the GOP controlled congress. Spending increases were almost the same: 3.7%/year with the Dems and 3.5%/year with the GOP.
The guys over at zFacts have also proven this claim false. During the 20 Reagan/Bush/Bush years, congress actually approved less than those three Presidents requested – even when you only look at the years the Democrats controlled congress.
http://zfacts.com/p/57.html