This page was last updated on February 2, 2010.
Blame Republicans for today’s messes; William A. Alexander; Beaver County Times; January 31, 2010.
Mr. Alexander has written at least 30 letters (See the archives for more examples.) since December 2004, and all but three (one fawning over Rep. Jason Altmire [D-PA], one critical of local funding for JROTC, and another upset about the Air Force awarding a contract to Airbus instead of Boeing) bashed Republicans for something. Despite this record, Mr. Alexander is a Democrat/leftist who wants us to believe he’s really a disenchanted Republican. In “Can’t wait for Hart to lose,” Mr. Alexander told us he was a “registered Republican.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“In response to Tuesday letter to the editor ‘Democrats must fix mess they created:’”
[RWC] In my critique of the subject letter I disagreed with the author’s premise. Despite the 30+ letters Mr. Alexander wrote from 2004 through mid-2008, this appears to be the first letter of note from him since July 2008.
“Please review a graph of the deficit increases as a percent of the GDP since 1939. After the spike for World War II, it decreased during every presidency, Republican or Democrat, until 1980.”
[RWC] I don’t know where Mr. Alexander got his info, but this assertion is false. The source of my data is the Historical Tables document that accompanied the 2006 federal budget.
“The GOP conservatives got control with big deficit increases for Reagan and Big Bush. Clinton decreased the deficit and left a $5-plus billion surplus for Little Bush. Little Bush breezed through the surplus and left huge deficits.”
[RWC] “GOP conservatives got control with big deficit increases for Reagan and Big Bush?” Again, where does Mr. Alexander get his info? Presidents can propose any budget they want, but all appropriation bills start in the House and Democrats were the majority in the House all during the Reagan and Bush #1 administrations. In the Senate, Democrats were the majority party for the last two years of the Reagan administration and for all of the Bush #1 administration. Even when Democrats were the minority party, they could have filibustered spending bills and there’s nothing Republicans could have done because they were never close to a filibuster-proof majority (60) in the Senate.
There are two other things President Bush inherited that Mr. Alexander failed to mention. First, the surpluses had already peaked and were headed down during the final Clinton budgets. Second, and perhaps more important, Mr. Bush inherited a recession. Recessions and surpluses aren’t on speaking terms. The letter also failed to note the effects on the economy of the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks, and the accounting scandals of Enron, et al. Mr. Alexander also failed to note Republicans were the majority in Congress for the last six years of the Clinton administration. I suspect the better budget picture was really the result of a growing economy and the check-and-balance between two branches of government controlled by different parties.
Also note how Mr. Alexander appears to treat Republican and conservative as synonyms. Two names, Sen. Arlen Specter and Mr. Alexander among many others, would appear to show this position is wrong.
“The Democrats inherited two wars, the big one unnecessary, with no end in sight, the economy in free fall and the TARP bailout already in play.”
[RWC] Mr. Alexander appears to forget Democrats were the majority party in both houses of Congress after the 2006 election and they did nothing about deficit cutting. As for TARP, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted for it (172-63) while more Republicans voted against (108) it than for (91). In the Senate, both parties voted for TARP though more Republicans voted against it than Democrats.
“… with no end in sight?” Mr. Alexander doesn’t appear to know the Bush administration (right or wrong) negotiated a pull-out schedule with the Iraqi government in 2008 and it’s the one President Obama is following.
“I believe history will show the economy’s meltdown resulted from the GOP-controlled Congress’ banking deregulation and lax enforcement of regulations during Little Bush’s reign.”
[RWC] You have to love Mr. Alexander’s name-calling.
Public Law 106-102 repealed the “Glass-Steagall Act” (“banking deregulation”) in 1999 when Bill Clinton was President. 75% of House Democrats, 98% of House Republicans, 84% of Senate Democrats, and 94% of Senate Republicans voted for the repeal and then-President Clinton signed the bill. I don’t buy into the “banking deregulation” theory for our current economic problems, but even if you do it’s kind of hard to blame it all on Republicans with the Democrats’ overwhelming support of the repeal.
As for “lax enforcement of regulations during” the Bush administration, you can read my comments in this critique from 2008. In summary, the Bush administration raised numerous alarms beginning with its first budget in 2001. Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, claimed nothing was wrong, attacked regulators during hearings, and played the race card to silence those raising the alarms.
“The extensive list of spending to fix problems listed in Tuesday’s letter was all to fix problems left by Little Bush. Shrub put in place big tax cuts for the rich, borrowed from the Chinese to cover the shortfalls and left the mess for the next president.”
[RWC] The idea you reduce deficits and debt by increasing government spending makes no sense and has never worked. If you or I got into debt problems, would we try to spend our way out?
As for the myth of “big tax cuts for the rich,” there were tax RATE cuts, not tax cuts, and they went to everyone. As you can read in my critique of “Lottery winners” (7/25/06), “these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers.” Further, the rate cuts ultimately resulted in record tax revenue, not a cut.
“How after analysis of this anyone can conclude the Democrats created this mess in one year is ridiculous.”
[RWC] As noted above, Democrats have been the majority party in both houses of Congress for the last three years.
© 2004-2010 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.