Are you seriously arguing that Reagan and Bush 2 were on the brink of a major depression? You need to check your history books (or look up what a depression is).
Let me tell you a story about an America that decided to balance the budget instead of deficit spending to prevent economic disaster. The banks begin to fail, people begin to panic and create a run on the banks. Now banks that were perfectly responsible prior to the collapse are in crisis and possibly failure. This creates a feedback loop. The housing market plummets many times lower than we saw it dip, because even qualified buyers with plenty of collateral won’t be able to secure loans. This results in more foreclosures. As banks fail, the Government is forced to pay out trillions in FDIC payments.
Because of the financial turmoil, the dollar looses it’s status as the safest world currency and, as a result, it’s value plummets. Foreign investment pulls out of otherwise healthy companies. They are forced to lay off workers. Once healthy businesses are now being bought out by foreigners for a pittance due to the devaluation. Unemployment skyrockets. The American auto industry collapses. The supporting industries then fall with it (everything from parts, to software companies). Tax revenues plummet due to massive failures in the private sector, and rampant unemployment. The Government wants to borrow money, but can’t due to the massive devaluation of the dollar. It’s only choice is to abandon social security, medicare, fire-sale assets (military). There is no money for any social safety net, so crime skyrockets as desperate people are left with no alternative to feed their families. Riots and looting ensue. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. This is what I mean by what could have been the worst financial crisis in the history of mankind.
The scale of what was averted was nothing at all like what Reagan and Bush faced. Sure, they had some rough patches economically, but they weren’t facing anything close to total collapse. There is a very big difference between a recession (which is a normal and healthy part of the economic cycle) and a depression.
“What democrats will never understand, is that government extracts their money from the economy. What they take does not not circulate back into the economy at any reasonable rate.”
This is false. GOVERNMENT SPENDING IS PART OF GDP!!! if the private sector is in freefall, the government can spend money to keep it from coming to a complete standstill. I would never advocate having the government replace the private sector, but in times of crisis, it can and should be used as a stopgap measure until the economy can pull itself together.
It’s the Republican trickle-down theory that’s broken. Give a billionaire a massive tax credit for a stimulus, and most of them are going to buy Swiss Franc ETF’s with it (especially when the US economy is in crisis). That doesn’t stimulate a fucking thing domestically. If the US builds a high-speed train, then there’s engineers that get paid, software guys, the crews that manufacture the train, the parts, the track, the supporting staff, then all of the secondary companies that work or provide services for those primary companies get a boost such as the staffing companies, the payroll companies, the landscaping, etc, and then you factor in the local businesses that can stay above water because they have workers who are buying meals at their restaurants, or gas at their gas stations and you’ve got a lot of stimulus for your dollar. Not to mention that all of those people/companies then pay taxes back to the government. It does a hell of a lot more to stimulate the economy than tax cuts.
“As for your tax brackets they are a joke and would send the country into a full fledged depression or worse full bankruptcy.”
Please explain how that would happen. Are you referring to the great depression of the 1950’s when the highest tax bracket was in the high 87–88% range. Oh wait, that was called the post war economic boom, where the government actually payed down it’s debt. Huh, that’s funny, because it’s nothing at all like what you’re describing.
As far as the healthcare stuff is concerned, you’re forgetting the fact that we already have universal healthcare in this country (the emergency room). Our version of it produces the most wasteful and expensive care on the planet. You’re conveniently ignoring the alternative costs of no plan, or even worse, the cost of allowing the fucking insurance companies to cross state lines—ever notice how all credit cards are from Delaware? We would see all heath insurance sold from whatever redneck state ended up removing the most patient protections (Texas? Alaska?).
What Republicans will never understand is that it often makes more fiscal sense to invest in things now, to prevent paying a fuckload more later. For example, it’s a hell-of-a-lot cheaper to pay for an after-school program that keeps Johnny off of the streets than it is to lock him in jail after he murders someone else. Not just because of the expense of prosecution/incarceration, but also the lifetime of lost tax revenue from the guy that died, plus potential taxes the shooter would have generated had he had more opportunities.
I don’t believe in pissing money away, and I get as infuriated as the next guy when I hear of gross waste. A lot of it isn’t really waste though, and the “savings” you get by slashing the fuck out of the budget, ends up costing a hell of a lot more down the road.
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