FW: Deficits

Hank Greely says: "I think the most interesting result of the recent Republican domination of the federal government, in the field of political science, is its demonstration that overspending is not a problem for Democrats - it is a problem for whichever party is in power. Each party has political supporters it wants to reward - through subsidies, contracts, welfare, or tax cuts - and, given the power to do so, the result is big deficits. Only when the President and the Congress are of different parties or when the Congress is divided, it seems to me, is this impulse resisted. And, of course, it is exacerbated by the costs of wars. This pattern is not eternal - before the expansion of the federal government's reach with the New Deal and World War II, and the extended experience of budget deficits, the perceived opportunities for spending were smaller - but I think it holds pretty true for the last fifty years. A Congress in Republican hands is just as happy to have deficits as a Congress in Democratic hands and, with a President of its own party, just as unconstrained. We just hadn't seen the former as often as the latter". RH: This is a basic weakness of our system. To get votes and raise money, candidates make promises and commitments (sometimes just implied) which then they have to keep. It is almost as bad as bribing a judge.