If you're old enough to remember Count Floyd and SCTV Monster Chiller Horror
Theatre, you may also remember this 1985 commercial. It was commissioned
by an international chemical company called W.R. Grace.
Jesus, Mary and Arthur Laffer, 2017 sure looks scary, which should come as no
surprise since this bit of 60 second cinema was directed by Ridley Scott and
cost about $300,000 in 1987 dollars to produce.
Fun Fact: It was initially rejected for broadcasting by all three networks
back when such a thing was possible. The networks rejected it on the
basis of being too controversial and too one-sided, so W.R. Grace turned
around and bought time on 150 independent stations.
Then-NBC Vice President Rick Gitter was quoted as rejecting the commercial
because
"It's so well done. It expresses a view that budget cuts are a moral
imperative" and didn’t even entertain the notion that, just maybe, raising taxes is also
a valid option to pay down the deficits. The only viable
option that is ever on the table with Republicans are massive budget cuts.
Keep that top-of-mind: The only thing Conservative elites
care about is cutting taxes for the rich. At all times and under all
circumstances, there is no problem so great that they claim can’t be solved
with a big enough tax cut. Wars may come and go. And as for the
traditional battle cry of “Guns, God, Gays” those were all merely means to the
end of getting enough Republicans elected so they could have more tax
cuts.
Even during times of budget deficits, you gotta cut taxes to stimulate the
yadda yadda and you know the drill. Utter bullshit. That’s
it. Class dismissed.
However, under Bill Clinton, Republicans had the opposite problem. One
they’d never anticipated. What to do when, under a Democratic
president, the United States starts running budget surpluses and now has
enough money on-hand to fund those social programs that Democrats had always
wanted to improve, and Republicans were always demanding to be slashed
because, hey, there’s a budget deficit!
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let us go back to one of the
primary reasons George H.W. Bush lost in 1988.
If Bush the Elder is known for one phrase above all others, it's either his
stand on “prudence” --
- or "No. New. Taxes."
That was his keynote address at the Republican National Convention in 1988
where he accepted his party’s nomination. And in November of that year,
he won the election.
But he and his boss Ronald Reagan had spent the last eight years giving
massive tax cuts to the wealthy, lowering the top marginal tax rate from 73%
to 28%, which was the lowest the rate had been since 1925. They also
massively increased military spending. And by Bush’s second year in
office people were starting to freak out about the size of the federal
deficit. And so, in 1990, Bush the Elder broke his promise, and the
opposition that fired up inside the Republican party plus an insurgent 3rd
party run by H. Ross Perot pretty much doomed his presidency.
From NPR,
December 14, 2018:
6 Little Words Helped Make George H.W. Bush (A 1-Term) President
…less than two years after making the no-tax pledge, Bush found himself in
circumstances in which he no longer felt he could keep it. Locked in
budget negotiations with the majority Democrats in the House and Senate,
Bush felt he had to allow higher rates on some existing taxes or the
Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction bill would shut down important services of
the government.
So he signed off on a compromise involving revenues as well as spending
restraints. Democrats exulted at having forced him to renege.
Conservatives seethed. A young Newt Gingrich, elevated to the No. 2 spot
in the House Republican leadership the previous year, made no secret of
his displeasure. He insisted any option was preferable to any new
revenue.
That position helped inspire a major Republican challenger to Bush's
renomination in 1992. He was Patrick Buchanan, a former communications
director for Reagan and a familiar commentator on TV. He announced his
campaign for president in December 1991, saying he was running "because,
we Republicans, can no longer say it is all the liberals' fault. It was
not some liberal Democrat who said, 'Read my lips: no new taxes,' then
broke his word to cut a seedy backroom budget deal with the big spenders
on Capitol Hill."[
This was one of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign ads. Notice that the
objection isn’t about taxes per se, but about Republican unfairness and
hypocrisy. What costs more? Beer and gas. Who gets tax
cuts? Millionaires.
So, for most of the Reagan/George H. W. Bush Era the attitude was
who gives a shit about deficits? We won! Reaganomics rule! Tax cuts
rool! It's morning in Murrica! And if the deficit needs to be cut, just
slash a bunch of programs for those mooching poor and everything will balance
out.
Then Bill Clinton was elected, and overnight, the Republican talking points
about the deficit changed entirely. Holy Mother of God! In the
middle of the night while no one was looking a horde of mooching welfare
queens snuck in here and nearly destroyed Murrica with deficits!
Everyone knows deficits are worse than Hitler! We need to cut
everything -- welfare, Medicaid, Social Security, school
lunches, everything! -- in the next 60 seconds or we're all dooooomed!
Alan Greenspan let Clinton know before his inauguration, that the
situation was even worse than anyone outside Republican inner circles had let
on.
From Bob Woodward’s book "Behind the Boom":
... On the five-hour trip back to Washington, Greenspan tried to assess
what he had observed. Clinton was what Greenspan termed an "intellectual
pragmatist." The term also applied to Greenspan himself. Clinton's
campaign promises included tax increases on the wealthy, a violation of
Republican orthodoxy. But increasing taxes reduced the federal deficit --
and those deficits, Greenspan thought, were such a threat to the future of
the economy that it might just be worth it to support Clinton's
proposal.
One of the paradoxes, Greenspan realized, was that by running up the
federal budget deficits, Reagan had effectively borrowed from the period
that was now going to be the Clinton era. Clinton would have to pay it
back by paying down the deficit in some way. The irony was that Clinton
probably wouldn't have been elected if Reagan hadn't created the deficits.
...
Clinton was told by men like Greenspan that the markets would collapse and the
world would be plunged into a who-knows-what kind of economic apocalypse
unless he immediately put all his Liberal promises and programs on hold and
focused almost exclusively on cutting the deficit.
Which he did.
Plans for improvements to health care, Social Security, education, and poverty
programs were either shelved or greatly reduced. You will remember that
the phrase “Pay-Go” entered the political lexicon: every budget
item had to be accounted for with a matching revenue source, and any new
spending would have to be offset with matching cuts to other spending.
Clinton reluctantly went along with all of it, but he also insisted on some
revenue increases as well. After all, if massive reckless tax cuts got
us into this mess, surely a few sensible tax increases could help get us out
of it.
And true to form, Republicans categorically rejected all of it.
According to them, any tax increase would completely
destroy the economy, and America would be reduced to nothing but a smoking
hole in the ground. Why does Bill Clinton hate America?
Clinton also proposed a modest increase in the minimum wage, which – surprise,
surprise – Republicans also categorically rejected. According to
them, any increase to the minimum wage would completely destroy
the economy, and America would be reduced to nothing but a smoking hole in the
ground. Why does Bill Clinton hate America?
The Tax Reform Act of 1993 aimed to cut the federal deficit by increasing
taxes and reducing spending. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton
in 1993.
Not a single Republican in the evenly divided Senate voted for it and it passed 51 to 50 with Vice President Al Gore casting the
tie-breaking vote.
The Act raised the top federal income tax rate to 39.6%, as well as many other
taxes including corporate taxes, fuel taxes, and more. And by 1998, it allowed
Clinton's administration to achieve – say it with me now –
the first balanced budget in three decades. And by the time
Clinton left office, the United States was running
a steadily growing, multi-billion-dollar budget surplus for the first time
in American history.
From a Clinton White House Press Release,
September 27, 2000:
Today, at the White House, President Clinton announced figures released by the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), showing that this year's budget surplus
will be at least $230 billion…
THE LARGEST UNIFIED SURPLUS EVER.
The largest unified surplus as a share of the economy since 1948;
The 3rd consecutive year with a surplus for the first time in over 50
years;
The 8th consecutive year of fiscal improvement for the first time in
American history; and
The first surplus excluding Social Security and Medicare, making it the
only on-budget surplus since Medicare was established in 1965.
From the same press release
THE LARGEST DEBT REDUCTION EVER.
As a result of the budget surplus:
The President's plan to eliminate the debt by 2012 remains on track;
The 12 cents of every federal dollar we currently spend on interest
payments would be eliminated;
The U.S. is on track to pay down more than $360 billion in debt over three
years, the largest 3-year debt pay-down in our history. Under the 12 years
of Presidents Reagan and Bush, the debt held by the public
quadrupled.
Great! Now Ridley Scott can get on with making Black Rain and Thelma & Louise and Republicans can join hands with Democrats
and celebrate the Clinton presidency as one of the most peaceful,
successful, fiscally responsible in living memory, and go on to elect
Clinton's Vice President, Al Gore, to continue Clinton's amazing legacy.
Funny story. True story. The more Clinton succeeded delivering on
the things Republicans had always said they cared about, the more they fucking
hated him. Called him everything but a Child of God. Went
after his wife. Impeached him over some bullshit. For much longer
take on this, see my post
"Like a Virgin" from 2009.
Meanwhile, from The Brookings Institute, December 1, 2000
A Surplus, If We Can Keep It: How the Federal Budget Surplus Happened
“It’s the economy, stupid.” The battle cry of Bill Clinton’s 1992
presidential campaign has been recycled to explain how a $290 billion
budget deficit has been transformed into a $100 billion surplus that is
expected to quadruple in the decade ahead.
Liquidating the deficit ranks as one of the supreme budgetary
accomplishments in American history.
If the 1989 tax structure were still in place, there would be no surplus
to discuss.
So, pretty great right? All those vital programs that Democrats were
forced to postpone or put on starvation diets so they could pay down the
Reagan/Bush deficits could now start to see some real money, right?
Well, that was one possible future for our country.
And then came the presidential campaign of 2000. From The New York
Times, June 13, 2000:
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE BUDGET ISSUE; Bush and Gore Revise Plans To Match
a Growing Surplus
By Richard W. Stevenson June 13, 2000
Projections of the federal budget surplus are likely to be revised upward
by as much as $1 trillion in coming weeks, leading Vice President Al Gore
and Gov. George W. Bush to prepare differing claims to the windfall.
For Mr. Gore, more money means new initiatives to encourage savings and
improve education, health care and environmental protection, as well as to
speed his plan to reduce the national debt, his aides said.
For Mr. Bush, it is a chance to assert that his plans for a big tax cut,
the creation of private investment accounts within Social Security and a
national missile defense program are not only affordable but would also
leave plenty of money for additional debt reduction, his aides said...
Yes indeedy, Dubya did have very different ideas about
what to do with that surplus. Note the first 60 seconds of this local
news clip:
– and on December 12, 2000, thanks to a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court’s
Conservative majority:
Just like that, the budget surplus that the Democrats had worked so hard to create,
would be handed over to a dry-drunk halfwit whose attitude was Holy Mother of
God, where did all of these terrible budget surpluses come from?!? Jesus, we need to get rid of them immediately.
Surpluses are worse than Hitler! Can you believe those craxy Libtards
are actually worried about deficits? Wheeee! Who gives a shit about deficits?
We won!
And for the record, here are a few other gifts that landed in Bush’s lap
thanks to eight years of hard work by the Clinton/Gore administration: a
3.9% unemployment rate, a robust job-growth rate and the "problem" of wage
inflation caused by too few workers available to fill all the available jobs.
And you know what comes next, right?
Read. My. Lips. Giant. Tax. Cuts.
Credible economists like Future Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman warned the
Bush administration that their policies would plunge the country right back
into deficit. But did they listen?
No they did not.
The Shrill One in The New York Times,
February 4, 2001:
Reckonings; Guns And Bitterness
…isn't the federal government awash in surpluses? Hasn't Alan Greenspan
told us that our big economic problem is how to give the money away, lest
politicians end up owning the stock market? If there's plenty of money for
tax cuts, why won't the administration give the military at least some of
what it wants and promise to keep its hand out of the Medicare cookie
jar?
Because someone in the White House is aware of the truth, which is that
there isn't plenty of money after all.
…Congress is about to go into a tax-cut feeding frenzy, adding huge tax
breaks for corporations to Mr. Bush's proposal. The spectacle will be
distressing, but it will be over quickly. Pretty soon, quite possibly as
soon as this summer, we'll be worrying about deficits, not
surpluses.
That was on the one hand.
On the other hand, smug, delusional Conservative elites like those at the of
The Weekly Standard had a lot of fun mocking Democrats as feeble-minded
alarmists for worrying about Bush blowing the surplus.
Because that would never happen. Never, ever, ever.
In fact, hey look! It's David Brooks in
The Weekly Standard in 2000, which is why we bloggers have
archives. Because The Weekly Standard doesn't exist anymore, but
my archives do.
The New Stupid Party
LONG AGO, the Republican party was nicknamed the Stupid Party, and at
times Republicans have done their best to live up to the label. But after
the past week, it is perhaps time to acknowledge that when it comes to
brainless, self-destructive behavior, the Democratic party has achieved a
level of excellence that will be unsurpassed in our lifetime.
Last week the Congressional Budget Office came out with a budget forecast.
The report immediately got submerged in a chatterstorm about whether
Congress or the White House would dip into something called the Social
Security trust fund…
The Democratic party proceeded to work itself up into a collective
aneurysm. Dick Gephardt—who, when given the chance to play the demagogue,
never goes halfway—said that the United States now faces "an alarming
fiscal crisis." Democratic national chairman Terry McAuliffe said on Face
the Nation that it had taken Bill Clinton eight years to build up the
surplus, but Bush was able to "blow it in eight months." Other Democrats
rose up en masse to declare that the Bush administration was going to
bankrupt Social Security/the federal government/western civilization
because the administration was going to have to "raid the Social Security
trust fund...
Democrats were bedwetting fools, Brooks’ assured his readers, because even
with "...the economic slowdown, the Bush tax cut, and the recent congressional
spending splurge…the surplus is still projected to grow to about $200 billion
a year in 2004 and close to $300 billion a year by 2006."
This is Brooks again, in the Weekly Standard, March 16, 2001 entitled
"Yes, There Is a New Economy – Thanks to once-in-a lifetime productivity
gains, Bush's plans are easily affordable"
It ends with this paragraph:
We are living at a once-in-a-generation moment of economic opportunity. As
productivity grows, the economy will grow. As the economy grows, revenues
will grow, maybe beyond what the CBO projects. The real question about the
Bush tax cuts, then, is not, Can we afford them? The real question is,
Why are they so small?
Make a note of that date. March 16, 2001. Because now were
going to jump ahead a little over a year later, to a conversation between
then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Vice President Dick Cheney in
November of 2002.
This was reported in the Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2004 (emphasis added):
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said he was told “deficits don’t
matter” when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.
In a new book chronicling his rocky two-year tenure and in an interview
with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, O’Neill also said President
Bush balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime because
of opposition from “the corporate crowd.”
O’Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing
budget deficits posed a threat to the economy.
Cheney cut him off, O’Neill said. “You know, Paul, Reagan proved
deficits don’t matter,” he said, according to excerpts. Cheney
continued: “We won the midterms. This is our due.”
A month later, in December 2002, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was
fired.
The vice president’s office had no immediate comment. John Snow, who
replaced O’Neill, said Bush is committed to cutting the deficits in half
over the next five years.
But… but… there weren’t supposed to be any deficits. There was going to
be plenty of money for everything and, according to Extremely Respected
Conservative Frauds, there always would be.
So, lets us review
-
Where the hell did these deficits suddenly come from? And,
-
If, according to Republicans five minutes ago during the Clinton
administration, deficits were worse than five Hitlers, how is it that now
they’re not only nothing to worry about, but they are the rightful spoils of
Republicans winning the midterms? and ,
-
“Reagan proved deficits don’t matter”? Really? Kinda
gives the game away doesn’t it?
Well, not really, since the media immediately buried that little tidbit in the
same Memory Hole where they buried the rest of the failed Bush
Administration. And for the rest of the Bush administration, the deficit
grew faster than any point in American history:
From CBS News, July 15, 2003:
Deficit Projections Soar to $455B
The Bush administration dramatically raised its budget deficit
projections on Tuesday to $455 billion for this year and $475 billion for
next, record levels fed by the limp economy, tax cuts and the battle
against terrorism.
"The deficit certainly remains a concern, but it's one that is manageable
and it's one that we are addressing," White House spokesman Scott
McClellan told reporters. "Over the next few years, we will cut this
deficit in half. It is a priority that we are addressing."
Damnit you, Ridley Scott! If only you'd have stopped
Kingdom of Heaven and gotten your ass back into the Scary Commercial
game, we wouldn't be in this mess.
So having entered office with the Clinton/Gore budget surplus gift wrapped and
waiting on his desk on the day they started office, what did the budget look
like the day Bush and Cheney left office?
Well, combined with the Bush Administration's unpaid for Medicare prescription
drug plan, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an economy deep in recession, and
several massive tax cuts, by the end of the Bush Administration, the
annual federal budget deficit had climbed to $1.4 trillion. And
instead of paying off the national debt held by the public – which was one of
the things Al Gore had proposed we do – the total national debt ballooned
from $5.7 trillion in 2001 to $10.7 trillion by the end of 2008.
Then Barack Obama was elected, and in the face of the worst economic calamity
in 75 years, the Republican party instantly flipped once again from the party
of “Deficits, who cares?” to the party of
“OMG, deficits have mysteriously appeared out of nowhere and the Kenyan
Usurper must cut every social program, forget about saving the auto
industry, forget about this crazy American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act, and pay the deficit down now!now!now!”
This was when the Republican party base passed through the
Magical Bush-Off Machine and emerged as Tea Partiers who had never supported Bush and his ruinous
policies, never been politically active, and personally hated
Barack Obama with the heat of 1000 suns and blamed him for all the nation’s
problems.
This was when the legacy media agreed to collectively forget that everything
you have read to this point ever happened, and focus exclusively on, "Why
won't Obama lead?!?"
On December 31, 2012, Mr. David Brooks – The Man Who Swore There
Would Never Be Deficits Again – used his New York Times column to
lecture All Sensible People about what everyone should agree on regarding
deficits:
...except for a few rabid debt-deniers, almost everybody agrees we have
to do something fundamental to preserve these programs (Medicare, Social
Security, etc.) The problem is that politicians have never found a
politically possible way to begin. Every time they tried to reduce debt,
they ended up borrowing more and making everything worse
So the problem is…"politicians"?
Not the Republicans who sabotaged every offer the Obama administration made to
team-up to fix our collective problems. Just…politicians
And Bush? Bush who? Never heard of him?
Another group who are to blame? “Voters”
Brooks again from December 31, 2012:
Ultimately, we should blame the American voters.... Many voters have
decided they like spending a lot on themselves and pushing costs onto their
children and grandchildren.
Anyone else? Of course! Because it wouldn't be a true David
Brooks column without the inevitable Both Siderist razor in the apple:
A large number of reactionary Democrats reject any measure...
...yadda yadda yadda
And:
A large number of impotent Republicans talk about reducing the debt, but
are incapable of...
...yadda yadda yadda,
But The Obama/Biden administration kept after it, dragging the economy back
from the brink of disaster, all while Republicans and the mainstream media
screamed that they should drop everything else and focus on nothing but
massive budget cuts.
And slowly, things got better. Even the deficit went down.
From PolitiFact,
September 5, 2014:
At a union rally on Labor Day, Obama declared "We cut our deficits by
more than half."
The numbers back up Obama’s claim: Thanks to income tax revenues
rising and spending on emergency assistance dropping, America’s deficit
has fallen by more than 50 percent, from its highest point since World War
II to a level $733 billion lower.
We rate the claim True.
Then came Trump who, despite all the shouting and snarling and whining from
the Never Trumpers, actually passes the
“Is he a True Conservative? Is he a Real Republican?” test with
flying colors.
And what is that test?
C’mon kids, we just talked about this.
The only thing True Conservatives care about is cutting taxes
for the rich. At all times and under all circumstances, there is no problem so
great that they claim can’t be solved with a big enough tax cut. Wars
may come and go. And all that blather about Abortion, Guns, the Border
and Trans Right are just a means to getting enough meathead Republican base
voters furious enough to vote enough Republicans elected so they could have
more tax cuts.
And during his first four years in office, what was Donald Trump’s only major
legislative achievement?
What was the reaction from the Republican rank and file (fink and bile?)
Rapture! The Second Coming! USA!USA!USA!
What did this do to the deficit?
Trump flacks like Steve Mnuchin were all over Fox News promising that this
massive tax cut would somehow decrease the deficit by One Trillion
Dollars.
From Fox Business, September 28, 2017:
Tax cut plan will cut deficit by $1T: Treasury Secretary Mnuchin
“We think there will be $2 trillion of growth so we think this tax plan
will cut down the deficit by a trillion dollars—that’s a large number.
We’re focused on growth. We think the 3% GDP is a very moderate aspiration
and we can do higher than that,” Mnuchin told FOX Business’ Maria
Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria.”
If all this sounds eerily familiar, it should. Once again, Trump and his
henchmen have been throwing around these same colossal lies around to, once
again, defend the indefensible.
Donald Trump, social media post, June 5, 2025:
This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record
Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given.
If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far
worse than that. I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT.
Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget,
social media post, June 4, 2025:
OMB just reviewed the new CBO score of the One Big Beautiful Bill. It
confirms what we knew about the bill at House passage. The bill REDUCES
deficits by $1.4 trillion over ten years when you adjust for CBO’s one big
gimmick — not using a realistic current policy baseline. It includes $1.7
trillion in mandatory savings, the most in history. If you care about
deficits and debt, this bill dramatically improves the fiscal picture.
But back during Trump 1.0, what was the actual effect on the deficit of
Trump's giant tax cuts for the wealthy?
From The Washington Post, January 14, 2021:
One of President Donald Trump’s lesser-known but profoundly damaging
legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on
his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will
wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt. The
national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in
office.
And the Republican party – from its leadership to the base to the
propagandists on Fox – didn’t care one little bit.
Ah, but once Joe Biden was in office?
From Bloomberg News, October 24, 2023:
Deficit Worries Making a Return as a 2024 Political Issue
After lying dormant as an issue for the past couple of elections, the
soaring US budget deficit is starting to matter again in Washington.
From the National Review, March 24, 2023:
Taxing the Rich Isn’t the Way to Reduce the Deficit
From The Cato Institute, MAY 4, 2023:
Biden's Budget Is an Unserious Attempt at Reining in Runaway Deficits
From The Heritage Foundation, Sep 27, 2023:
How Washington’s $7.5 Trillion Deficit Spending Spree Is Bankrupting
America
From the National Review, October 24, 2023:
Markets Are Sounding the Alarm on Deficits
From The Heritage Foundation yet again, November 3, 2023
The Fuse on America’s Debt Bomb Just Got Shorter
So, the question before us during this post has been,
"Is Trump a True Conservative? Is he a Real
Republican?"
And the answer, obviously, unanimously and resoundingly is, fuck yes! Of course he is.
He checks the only important box Republicans / Conservatives have ever
truly cared about.
What's more, he checks it
strongly, powerfully, hugely, and bigly.
And the party and the media are only to happy to follow his lead.
And now, for your viewing pleasure, Monster Chiller Horror Theatre presents
Tip O’Neill’s 3D House of Representatives!
I Am The Liberal Media
