Chris Hayes: GOP run huge deficits to block Democrats from expansions of social welfare programs

[muriel_volestrangler]

2 incisive tweets from Hayes:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

and also:

Link to tweet

[duforsure]

1. And add to the deficit

Millions for McConnell special interests that he was given to pass it.

[Timmygoat]

2. So called welfare programs

Why do republicans think social security and medicare are welfare? The amount someone pays in over a lifetime of work, and the interest the individual could have earned if that had been invested, I would say the program is an investment rather than a give away!

[whathehell]

8. Republicans never wanted Social Security or Medicare from the start,

calling them 'Socialism"..., Unfortunately for them, these programs proved VERY popular with the American people, including Republican voters.
That said, they've been trying to dismantle them since the beginning, and in a serious way in recent times -- They're just waiting for the right "climate".

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. USA always been progressive, liberal, until RepubliCON voter suppress., gerrymander & dirty tricks.

[whathehell]

17. Yes, FDR's New Deal policies ruled until the Reagan administration

Social Security was popularly known as "The Third Rail of Politics -- touch it and you die" -- You don't hear that anymore, especially from people like Paul Ryan.

Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controllers Union, implemented
'Trickle Down' Supply Side Economics, let the Fairness Doctrine die (along with mandatory civics classes in schools) and started the steady chipping away of the Social Contract.

[PatrickforO]

13. I consider them, and speak of them, as EARNED BENEFITS.

As in...I've paid for them, paycheck by paycheck, for over 40 years. I consider them a sacred trust - these are programs I expect and will need when I stop working.

It is just plain evil that these little men want to take them away from generations who have paid in.

[PatrickforO]

14. One other thought. The reason for the opposition from radical

libertarians and other extreme Republicans is that employers must foot half the bill. To Rand and his disgusting ilk, it is fine if I pay in and receive what I paid, but he doesn't want employers to have to pay for it.

[Hortensis]

3. Standard strategy since 1980, since conservative

ideology gained dominance among our electorate and thus most of our nation's governments. Enabled by national-size propaganda campaigns, their predatory policies and transfer of wealth upward have expanded until finally reaching this lethal explosion of greed, and contempt for the rights of 330,000,000 Americans.

Ever since the New Deal was passed, the Republican Party has pushed itself as "the party of fiscal responsibility," and everyone from high school teachers, to the media, to the citizenry bought it and also pushed that easily refuted lie. Along with its corollary that the Democracy Party was fiscally irresponsible.

So the a good thing that finally, finally will come out of this is -- busted!

The bad thing is that those weak in knowledge and spirit will tend to assume that means no good party. NO EXCUSE for that! Those who look o history for the truth will find that all our good economic eras have been directed and fueled by liberal economic policies.

[BigmanPigman]

10. Yep, Reagun was the beginning of the end of the GOP

acting somewhat rationally and with integrity. I have lived with 38 years of Trickle Down Economics, The Moral Majority, and ostentatious spending.

[Hortensis]

11. Love that way of looking at it. :)

Tragically as it turns out, most conservatives are incredibly slow learners for all the wrong reasons. The success of their manipulators is squarely their fault.

Did you think that could be in 1980? I'm afraid I spent the next 20 years sure the decency I saw in other aspects of our friends' lives would finally wise them up politically. Surely this election, well then surely this time, then...

"Then" I started reading about what was going on in their brains and finally wised up myself.

[Deb]

4. Corporate Welfare is the GOP's M.O.

They drain the working man to please large corporations, create recessions to enrich the money lenders and leave the cleanup to Democrats. How many times must it be repeated before all voters get wise to the bullsh#t?

[zaj]

5. Search: 2 Santas Theory

It's a 1976 GOP strategy paper that says

1) Dems play political Santa by spending (giving presents) to solve problems for people.
2) "Reduce spending" will always be a political loser for the GOP because... No giving presents.
3) GOP must start giving the gift of tax cuts so the can be santa too

This lead to the intentional strategy of adopting deficit inflating tax cuts when GOP are in office... and demand deficit constraining spending cuts when Dems are in office.

[TuxedoKat]

6. Here you go

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/01/26/two-santa-clauses-or-how-republican-party-has-conned-america-thirty-years

[JHB]

7. C'mon Chris! They've been doing this since, oh, ...

...about the time you stopped needing to wear diapers.

[NewJeffCT]

9. and don't forget

even with Democratic majorities, it is extremely difficult to make cuts to the defense budget. The Pentagon said they did not want or need a second engine for the F35 Fighter, but it was still very very difficult for Congress to axe the second engine.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. RepubliCONs are Borrow-and-Spend. Defense money is dead money. Rich park tax cuts in real estate/art

The old canard that Republicons use against Democrats is that they are "tax-and-spend". Republicons are of course borrow-and-spend, which is hypocritical.

You also have to factor in business cycles. Democrats tend to grow the economy and fix up deficits with a mix of fiscal prudence and some raised taxes. If they inherit a big economic problem like Obama did, they will stimulate the economy.

This is basic economics: Stimulate with government spending and some broad tax cuts during hard times, and pay down the debt during good times with raised taxes and fiscal prudence.

But there's another aspect to what the RepubliCONs did that make their willful mistake worse: Bombs and tanks do not produce more money (production). Machine tools and computers do. Building a jet fighter puts money in motion for a very limited time. Once the fighter is produced, it consumes money and doesn't make anything. Yes, defense is needed for national security, within limits.

However, it gets worse. By giving tax cuts to the rich, they do not invest in production. They are already fully invested; they need more investment opportunities. They park the money in real estate and art which inflates the prices of those two elements.

Tax cuts to the middle class and especially to the poor put money in motion. The money is quickly spend on food and housing and transportation and education. All of those are productive. Healthy people work longer hours. People with good housing are able to provide their children with better parenting and upbringing. People with cars or money to spend on public transit hold more jobs more securely and that makes the economy grow.

[DownriverDem]

16. Coming up next

The repubs will be coming after Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid next. How many folks even know that seniors in nursing homes go on Medicaid after they have spent down their assets. Are we going to see old folks kicked out of nursing homes? The visuals are frightening.