It's helpful to avoid "both sides"-ing, or abandoning all hope.
Clinton through 2001 - ended with a 1.2% GDP surplus
Bush through 2009 - ended with a 9.8% GDP deficit
Obama through 2017 - ended with a 3.4% GDP deficit
Trump through 2021 - ended with a 12.3% GDP deficit
Biden through 2025 - ended with a 5.9% GDP deficit
Trump now - running even higher, though final data isn't yet available.
There's a clear pattern available, where one party reliably leaves makes the situation worse, and the other party reliably makes the situation better. The fact that Democrats cannot undo all of the massive damage done by each Republican administration does not mean "both sides" are the same.
If you want third parties to win, they realistically need to start with local elections, so they can gain momentum and take the spot of one of the majors. (also helpful to get rid of FTTP voting in as many elections as possible).
We're seeing great success with local democratic socialists, who keep showing that government can be a force for good, it can be improved, and it can be done without blowing budgets. It's a promising start, and it's clearly threatening Dems and the GOP alike.
"Abandoning" all hope implies a choice. I never chose to have every last shred of hope and optimism I had forcibly ripped from me and stomped into the dirt by these scumbags we call "leaders" (and their idiot cultists). When will humanity learn that the types of people who become billionaires and trillionaires literally want us all dead? At this point they appear to also want themselves dead too, but it's all gonna be okay in the end, because one of them gets to die last with all the money, thereby "winning" the game.
I mean, there's fiscally responsible but the welfare department is never gonna make money at the end of the day spending is a political football. Trump's ICE got $10 billion, because what? So now in addition to DEA we have ICE and the TSA, and well, we can't un spend that money and shut them down so, well, shit.
> the welfare department is never gonna make money
No, but taxes make money and if you just stop spending on things like ICE and their concentration camps or overpriced and ineffective military action and equipment, you’ll see there is a lot of money left for giving everyone healthcare and a college education.
As an engineer, things like the F-35 are beautiful, and I want them to be developed - but war is changing fast and what was effective a generation ago is now vulnerable to cheap drones.
ICE got $75 billion, with $45 billion of that allocated for concentration camps. And somebody's got to build those camps and supply them, and their CEOs are all buddies with Trump.
Financially ledger is just a social construct; the IOUs of the past are never paid off as they never mattered.
Finance shit just keeps innumerates and those ignorant of physics believing wild end of the universe theories.
For more look up Debt jubilee's; humans wiped the debt of the dead off the books and no black holes opened within the sun, no gods descended from Olympus and slaughtered the children
Fucking mesmerizing how its not just MAGA nutters obsessed with old spoken and written finance traditions; different semantics than religion but same goal of kowtowing the proletariat.
This site helps propagate such paranoias with the tilt it has towards startup funding and yada yada. Smartest engineers I have ever worked with earned PhDs designing experiments for Tevatron and working on NASA satellites. We often had a laugh at how such social hacks dupe so many wannabe smart and educated people.
On the contrary startup genius software engineers are easily duped by social hacks.
What's the difference? Everyone involved has been completely reckless with the debt. You think a democrat will somehow stop spending? Both parties are super happy to drive the car off the cliff
The big difference is that, at the current rate, economic collapse of the US will happen in my lifetime, and I’m almost 60. I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of planetary upheaval for my retirement.
Well, the last president to steer the car away from the cliff came from one party, the other is currently mashing the accelerator toward it.
And that is without considering things like invading Iraq and Afghanistan, creating the global financial crisis, or turning on the money printer at the start of covid.
If you look at this information and say, "no difference" I don't think anyone here can help you.
The difference is that this administration is running at double the rate of the previous ones, and George Bush oversaw both two wars and the global financial crisis in 2007.
Your argument "since you're already over the speed limit, 200 or 300 miles per hour don't matter". Sounds asinine.
In any case I didn't say anything about democrats, but for sure, this administration with large tax cuts and increased spending is speeding US into very dangerous territory.
Well all the other administrations were driving 200 or 300 miles over, now we are driving 500 over. It doesn't matter really, if we hit anything (like Japan dumping US treasuries) we may be dead.
The democrats thing was what I had originally replied to. My whole point is that it really doesn't matter who is in the White House really, both sides seem determined to rack up as much debt as possible and it'll probably spiral out of control.
Neither side wants to cut costs (not really), in fact many want to spend more.
This is true globally, not just in the US, and that's why global debt keeps spiralling.
But I still find the argument "it doesn't matter if you're going 200 or 300 or 500 mph" completely asinine. It does, and it makes an enormous difference when the debt is so big in absolute terms.
You keep forcing an equality that's not there.
At the end of the day it's one specific administration that brought the largest tax cuts in history since 1981's Reagan (another republican) ones while increasing spending.
Yes, but if the dollar collapses and is replaced by a new reserve currency while other countries have debts in dollars, they win and the US loses. Only the US loses, keep in mind. It’ll be the first time the US experiences that side of the stick.
If the US suffers severely the rest of the world will collapse. There's no scenario in which that doesn't happen. Everything is interdepedant and many non US countries (like Europe, Japan, China) depend heavily on the US.
Don't bother, Republicans are the only ones that care about the debt and their ideology makes them incapable of realizing there very choice of candidates is the exact problem
> Republican presidents added about $1.4 trillion per four-year term, compared to $1.2 trillion added by Democrats since 1913.
> Democratic presidents have added a total of $18 trillion to the national debt since 1913 (adjusted for inflation), while Republicans have added $17.3 trillion
So everyone downvoting and flagging people saying it's a problem with both parties should be ashamed. Tribalism is stupid.
No, republicans have always raised spending more than democrats. They just have no impulse control, and only worry about the budget when a Democrat is in charge.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen this time.