Monday, January 21, 2008

I Think He's Right

Today the New York Times online said:

Stocks plunged worldwide on fears of a recession in the United States.

Remember 1999? Remember when we weren't in a pointless, intractable war? Remember when we had such an enormous budget surplus that economists speculated that it might take 40 years to spend it? Remember when the economy was booming so much that former welfare mothers were able to get high-risk loans to buy a home, but that didn't matter because they had good-paying jobs and could afford it? And the economy could afford it because it was doing so damned well after Bill Clinton passed a balanced budget that made it so that we weren't deficit spending, and all that money that was being used to finance deficit spending since Reagan first pulled the stunt of cutting taxes to the rich, but increasing government spending anyway, all while running on a platform of "reducing government" was suddenly available for things like home loans and business loans, rocketing our economy into the stratosphere?

And do you remember the The Onion headline the week after W. got elected? "At Last The Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity Ends."

On his blog, my son calls The Onion the only source of real news. He may just be right.

12 comments:

Toccata said...

How old is your son? I just had a look through his blog and I must say I am terribly impressed with how into politics he is for such a young age.

deadspot said...

It just goes to show that, for all their pro-business bluster, the Republicans don't know shit about the economy. The Republicans break it, the Democrats fix it.

kim said...

Fuck Gordon Gekko and fuck Wall Street.

Joe said...

I was going to do a post this morning about George W economics finally being revealed for what they are. You did it better.

Yeah, more and more talking with the Bush supporters I work with is like talking to pod people. They've become so locked in to defending him and whatever he does, and when anything happens to challenge it, they just go back to re-reading and sending the chain emails about what a bitch Hillary Clinton is.

Anonymous said...

I barely remember 1999 as we've travelled so far away from any semblance of that.

As for the Onion and your son - very smart!

SkylersDad said...

I am taking Grants advice and learning how to snort cocaine off of Darryl Hannah's ass.

Makes the most sense to me lately!

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

And just imagine, those damn Democrats want to drag us back to those bad old Clinton days.

The Idea Of Progress said...

That's what happens when reality surpasses satire.

Moderator said...

I hate young people when they're right.

Erik Donald France said...

Amen, brother. Right on.

Coaster Punchman said...

Oh I remember all right. Grrr.

dmarks said...

I've looked at the charts, and I recall that the Clinton budgets for every single year spent more than the government took in. It was always defecit spending. The thing was that the defecit was smaller during the last year or two, easily seen on the charts. All told (without googling it), the Clinton years added one or two trillion to the national debt.

Then the defecit skyrocketed afterwards....