[lionhearted]

> We as voters let this happen in not opposing the interests of the Military-Industrial-Financial complex with real votes on the issues..

It's not that simple - one thing people to fail to realize is that when you authorize extraordinary powers for your own favorite causes, they'll inevitably be used for other worse causes as well.

It's not military/industrial/financial - even things as simple as letting the government take a driver's license for not paying child support means that there's now a precedent for denying someone's right to mobility for punitive reasons unrelated to actually operating a car. People support this when it's to get those no-good child support dodgers, but then they're shocked when this is broadly expanded to other civil offenses where they wouldn't support it.

People are naive. They think, "Oh, the Democrats will reverse the Republican's terrible policies when they get in." No they won't. They'll co-opt the power for their causes, and vice-versa. It's not clear which party is responsible for starting the reckless deficit spending, but now they both do it. They both give employment and money to sectors that support them. (Republicans in military, Democrats in social causes)

But don't be fooled for a minute that the excessive powers the Republicans authorize for the first time won't be taken up by the Democrats. And the excessive powers the Democrats take up will be used by Republicans.

It's not any one sector. Excessive government powers anywhere leads to excessive government power everywhere.

(And note - the Democrats are the banner-leaders in censoring and spying on the internet - I don't think that's because the Democrats are worse, but rather because I don't think the Republicans understand the internet. So it's not exactly military/financial/industrial that's doing this one)

[jbooth]

Oh, geez. Give me a break. One party is responsible for deficit spending, it's the party that supported Reagan and Bush. Look at a chart. (in between, Clinton balanced the budget by cutting the military and raising taxes)

And ditto for military/industrial/financial. Every time those industries come up, conservatives are all rah rah go america and the liberals are derided as hippies.

If you feel a certain way, fine, I'm not even motivated to argue, really. Just don't give us the false equivalency stuff.. there's a pretty recent and pretty obvious historical record here.

[loewenskind]

There's truth to that, but don't forget that NAFTA and "house for every family" also came from Clinton. Obama has done a few things differently than Bush to be sure, but not as much I think most would have suspected given a majority in the House and Senate.

[lionhearted]

The last time the U.S. had no deficit was 1845. The largest rampup of government spending and deficit spending was under FDR.

The most responsible presidents post-WWII seem to be Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Clinton. I've got LBJ pegged as the least responsible, with no one else coming even close. Carter didn't run much of a deficit, but caused a lot of problems with price controls.

I'm much less of an admirer of Reagan than most people. He did some important consolidation and his tax cuts seemed to fuel a lot of the money that then went into the tech boom in the 1990's, but I agree his domestic policies were so-so. The first Bush seems like he was a decent president. Clinton had a good run. G.W. Bush had a mix of good and bad policies. The book's still open on his foreign policy, and will be for 10-20 years. If Iraq and Afghanistan become allies of the USA the way West Germany, Taiwan, and Japan became following WWII, and South Korea became following the Korean War, then we might look much for favorably upon him later. (Remember, Truman was despised following his leaving office, about as much as Bush. Now he's generally regarded favorably)

Obama's presidency seems like a mess to me, but I think McCain's would've been a mess too.

I think it's fair to say that Republicans tend to make larger short term deficit expenditures for war, but create less permanent structural spending. Even that's not entirely true though, since Eisenhower went isolationist, and LBJ greatly ramped up America's military involvement following Kennedy's assassination.

This is before even getting in Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, etc. Jackson was a Democrat, but I think you'd consider him an ancestor of the modern Republican Party. Theodore Roosevelt was a Republican, then a Progressive, but I think it'd be fair to say he was an ancestor of the modern Democrats.

Anyways, it's complicated. I'm not in love with either of the parties. I was originally happy with Obama winning, but I hope he's defeated next run by a government that focuses on consolidation, investing, cutting/paying off bad debts, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, along with no moral/social controls or social engineering.

I'm not sure how likely that is to happen, but one can hope.