And the Republican president SIGNED the spending bills- they could have vetoed the bills.
Graphs are good for a quick illustration but using them with simplistic analysis is a poor approach. Dylan is exactly right- No GOP president has ever pushed back on any spending bills or deficits when in office regardless of who controls the "power of the purse." And even now, the GOP has control and their preliminary budget calls for extending the poorly designed 2017 tax cuts which will increase the deficit in addition to their spending.
I personally don't think the debt or deficit is a real problem. The problem will be HOW we created it and what the money went to.
GOP tax cuts are the economic equivalent of a sugar high with no sustainability. Not all debt is the same. Going into debt to fix your car so you can get to work is qualitatively different than going into debt for a week in Cancun.
The pattern for GOP is to CUT taxes which mostly benefit the wealthy and corporations on the theory it will "trickle down." It won't and never has. GOP presidents have been signing tax cuts for several presidencies in this vein and all failed to really stimulate the economy. Meanwhile since 1981, income inequality in this country has exploded and will be exacerbated by moron Musk and his DOGE team slashing left and right with no understanding of what they are doing. Educated idiots as my dad used to say.
Biden and Democratic legislation such as CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act also increased spending and the deficit, but did so with job-stimulating legislation. Trump's tax cuts simply enabled stock buy backs and other such meaningless actions which did not benefit working people.
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First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible.
This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”
Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money.
This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face.
And, sure enough, here we are now with a Democrat in the White House. Following their Two Santas strategy, Republicans are again squealing about the national debt and refusing to raise the debt ceiling, imperiling Biden’s economic recovery as well as his Build Back Better plans.
And, once again, the media is covering it as a “Biden Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s and 1990s, and rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.
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