Democrats, Stop Sharing Those 'Deficit' Charts As If They Make You Look Good 🤦♂️
Using charts and graphs, Democrats brag about becoming the new conservative party, the party of austerity, depriving us of services and currency.
Playing Your Opponents’ Game From The Beginning
Certainly, you have seen them already. Democratic partisans are fond of sharing charts and graphs showing that Republican Presidents “run up” the so-called “deficit” while Democrats, apparently responsibly, reduce the “deficit.”
Here is one of those charts.
What does this chart actually show?
nothing of which Democrats should be proud, and I am going to show you why by modifying it with relevant data that it omits and also by modifying it in a way that shows what would happen if we actually had real progressive leadership
The chart shows that Democratic Presidents starve the economy of US Dollars, making recessions more likely – and helping to cause the 2001 recession, which has not ever, at least by the end of the Obama Presidency, actually ended – and putting people into more private debt, while Republicans leave more US Dollars in the economy, but what is really funny about it is that hordes of supporters of the Democratic Party, and only supporters of the Democratic Party, very often share this graphic on social media, as if it somehow makes the Democratic Party look good!
Why could that be?
What makes them think that this chart makes the Democratic Party look good?
Look at this graph! The Y axis shows positive values going in a positive direction – up! - along the X axis when Republicans are President and in a negative direction – down! - along the X axis when Democrats are President.
So, Bush added US Dollars to the economy, and then Clinton removed US Dollars from the economy, then the next Bush added US Dollars to the US economy twice, once right after a recession, and then, long before that recession ended, Obama started taking US Dollars out of the economy, then Trump came and added US Dollars to the economy, and, now, Biden is taking US Dollars from the economy.
So, Republicans are delivering for their constituents, while Democrats deliver for . . . I guess for the financial interests who fund them, since the finance sector benefits when we pull US Dollars from the economy, because that makes us rely more in interest-bearing private credit - putting more people into debt.
Notice something else about the chart; the only event mentioned in the entire chart is the Trump tax cuts of 2017, but notice that there was no uptick in the rate of “deficit” growth until 2020, that the “deficit” started growing again before Obama left office.
So, this chart that Democrats share on social media shows that Republicans help their constituents. Who, other than the bankers, are the Democratic constituents being helped with these consistent reductions in net spending during Democratic administrations?
I want to repeat something that I just said, but I want you to take your pens and write it in big, bold print in your notebooks, then take your highlighter and highlight this.
THIS GRAPH SHOWS THAT REPUBLICANS HELP THEIR CONSTITUENTS.
Now, here's what's really weird about this graph! Look at the title of it! Even though the bars show positive values on the Y axis, indicating an addition of US Dollars into the economy, the title of this chart calls this . . . a "Deficit"???
WTF?
What does that mean?
Why is it called a "deficit"?
a deficit of what???
Look, even the part that slips below zero is called a "surplus"! A surplus of what?
Also, look at the last year of the Trump Presidency! It shows a drastic increase in net spending from the first three years of the Trump Presidency, the year that we needed plenty of - and got a fair amount of - help with the coronavirus relief; it "hugely increased," as the chart said, but it calls it a "deficit"?? Why is that?
This chart shows the number of US Dollars in the economy going up when Republicans are President and down when Democrats are President.
Why do Democrats brag about starving the economy of US Dollars?
The reason is that they dignify the horrid conservative-libertarian premise that money currency is something external even to an entire society, as if it is naturally created, along with the lie that “deficits” are the cause of price inflation and the lie that the national debt somehow is a bad thing (to fully appreciate and understand the arguments made in this essay, it’s important to read the other three essays linked in this paragraph), and, once you concede those premises, you’re going nowhere good – and you help to enable fascism.
Yes, when Republicans are making unabashed defenses of white patriarchy, putting targets on transgender people and women, it might be difficult to see the ways in which Democrats are enabling this, but see them we must.
That Is What Democrats Have Been Doing Since The Carter Presidency
Despite how much some Democrats like to pin everything bad on Ronald Reagan, the neoliberal era of austerity, with the obsession over “the deficit,” started with President Jimmy Carter, including the deregulation of the railroad industry that has recently somewhat come back into focus and including the insistence that we rely on education to solve poverty.
Let’s focus on the chart in question again. I modified it to show factors that are relevant to the “deficit,” including eliminating the note about the Trump tax cuts in 2017, even though space constraints did not allow me to mention everything, like a few wars, but I will mention them shortly. Note, please, that the Trump tax cuts came in 2017 but that the rate of increase of the “deficit” did not change until 2020.
For all but the first two years of the Clinton Presidency, the Republican Party controlled the House Of Representatives, where all appropriations bills start. This was the Gingrich Revolution. Clinton worked with Gingrich to reduce spending, slashing plenty of welfare programs. This was also right after both the Persian Gulf War and the end of the Cold War, when even Republicans were reducing military spending.
For the last two years of the Trump Presidency, Democrats controlled Congress. That last bar, the really tall red bar that jumps from the year that preceded it, includes plenty of the coronavirus relief that Pelosi, Schumer, and company thankfully helped shepherd through Congress, but, because the premise of the original chart is that “the deficit” is a bad thing, the original chart makes it seem as though those relief measures are bad!
Those relief measures, as needed as they were, were, many of us thing, still insufficient. Had we gotten a better amount of relief, that “deficit” bar would be even higher.
"but if there is nothing wrong with the deficit, then why do Republicans always complain about it?"
to get you to do exactly this!!! HELLO!!! to get you to be a pathetic sap and to agree that government spending is bad, an idea that will never hurt anyone more than it hurts the most marginalized people.
It does not matter how you play their game.
Once you agree to play their game at all, we have already lost.
George H. W. Bush was the last Republican President to actually care about the “deficit,” and it’s also not a coincidence that he was the last Republican President of a certain kind of ‘moderate’ Republican. Part of the reason that he lost his reelection bid in 1992 is that he broke his campaign promise of “no new taxes,” and he did so because of a perceived need to “balance the budget” – and because the Democratic-controlled Congress did not give him much of a choice.
That plus the demobilization from the Persian Gulf War are why “deficit” growth was flattening by the time that Clinton took office, and Clinton teamed up with, after 1994, Newt Gingrich to keep the trend going, increasing poverty and misery.
How This “Deficit” Obsession Literally Kills People
There is a reason that some of us harbor a serious ire at Democrats who promote this deadly myth: it’s literally deadly, it’s literally killing people.
Especially because this “deficit” mythology is largely comorbid with the awful tax-to-spend mythology that nearly all liberal people also dignify, it makes fighting fascism, enacting universal healthcare, decarbonizing the economy, enacting universal childcare, canceling student debt, and reining in oligarchy much more difficult if not impossible. It’s a self-imposed impediment to saving lives.
Now, let’s do a thought experiment to drive home this point.
Imagine that the Republican Party was a progressive party.
Imagine that progressive Republican President Rashida Tlaib and progressive Republican Speaker Of The House Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez get universal healthcare enacted.
Imagine that they also start the building of a high-speed passenger-rail system.
Imagine, too, that they take steps to break up highly-concentrated wealth in such a manner that it actually works, meaning that both the consumption done by and, critically, the tax payments made by very well-to-do people is reduced.
Imagine, too, that a national job guarantee program is enacted.
Imagine, then, that when Democrats come to power, they try to thwart these measures. They block universal healthcare and a high-speed passenger-rail system, and, then, when they retake power after Republicans enact those measures, they don't give healthcare workers and rail-system workers adequate pay raises, and they slow down projects to build more hospitals and rail systems.
Imagine, then, that when Republicans take back power, they give nurses who haven't had a pay raise in at least four years pay raises including back pay, and they get those passenger-rail projects moving again.
Do you see where this is going?
My question is, in the hypothetical scenario that I just described, wouldn't it be well within the realm of possibility that, minus the names of the Republican Presidents, this chart – specifically, the changing heights of the bars – would look roughly the same?
I left the bars, the years, and the names of the Democratic Presidents there, and I changed only the names of the Republican Presidents and some hypothetical policy moves.
Republicans would be increasing the "deficit" by getting everyone free healthcare and reducing their reliance on fossil fuels and automobiles and airplanes by building a high-speed passenger-rail system; in other words, Republicans would be increasing the “deficit” by SAVING LIVES and IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE! Democrats would decrease the "deficit" by opposing and retarding such measures and by taxing the super-rich only for the purpose of raising revenue, which requires keeping them rich!
The only thing that the stupid original infographic shows that is remotely policy related is the note of when the Trump tax cuts were, but, if you wanted to show a chart that showed changing tax rates over time, or a chart that showed changing wealth inequality over time, or a chart showing changing income inequality over time (whether pre-tax or post-tax), you could just do that!
Why don’t Democrats just do that? Why don’t they show charts that show changing income inequality over time? Why don’t they show charts that show changing wealthy inequality over time?
probably because it would not really reflect well on them!
The tax cuts for the super-wealthy were bad because they were for the super wealthy, because they added to income inequality and wealth inequality, not because they added to the “deficit.” This “deficit” focus is a way for Democratic leaders to distinguish themselves from Republicans with whom they have been complicit in major problems.
It is a sign of a real poverty of imagination - or complicity by their own rich donors - that Democrats cannot articulate any reason that tax cuts for the wealthy are bad beyond that they added to the "deficit" and the national debt. They always do this. They can almost never say that tax cuts for the wealthy are bad without mentioning that they add to the "deficit" and the national debt, implying that that - and not something more important - is why tax cuts for the wealthy are bad.
And, by promoting this idea that adding to the "deficit" and the national debt are the worst sin here, because that is exactly what Democrats are doing, they are foreclosing upon emancipatory life-saving spending for the public good, like universal healthcare and a high-speed passenger-rail system – because those things, too, would add to the deficit, and the lack of those things harms far more people than “deficit reduction” targeting rich people does. This “deficit” cudgel is always far more deadly when it is used to punch downward – and that’s by design.
"But much of the deficit increase was due to the Trump tax cut for the wealthy!!!"
Okay??? So what even if that is true? Why not just talk about why the Trump tax cut for the wealthy was bad??? Why mention the so-called “deficit” at all? The deficit would increase just as much if we helped people.
Actually, look at this stupid infographic again.
It shows that the Trump tax cuts happened in 2017, but it also showed that the "deficit" had been increasing at that rate before the Obama Presidency ended! and it continued at that same rate only until 2020 when all of the coronavirus relief - shepherded through Congress by Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi - was paid out to entities all across the economy and when revenues plummeted due to social-distancing measures!
So, even by the original chart, the "deficit" is being used to help vulnerable people.
Using the "deficit" myth against rich people will do nothing more than ultimately harm everyone else; it might make rich people less rich in a country that still leaves them dominant due to the absence of universal healthcare and a national job guarantee. Using the "deficit" myth against poor people kills poor people and helps rich people. No matter which direction you use it, it ultimately helps the rich and harms the poor.
Bragging that you are better than Republicans at their own ideology of austerity accomplishes nothing but the promotion of austerity, classism, and oligarchy.
You're not progressive if you take the thing that Republicans use to promote austerity and think "we should try to achieve that goal; I bet we could do it! Look, we did it!"
"Deficit" reduction ultimately harms the already marginalized, just as it is doing this year as millions of people will get kicked off of Medicaid and millions of people will get kicked off of SNAP benefits. Democrats basically can’t even try to enact universal healthcare, cancel all student debt, and do other desperately-needed progressive things, because they’ve spent years backing themselves into a corner by criticizing Trump and Republicans for “the deficit.”
No matter if you are punching upward with this "deficit" weapon, you're ultimately punching downward.
If you still don't understand - or still don't want to admit, because you're a classist centrist who wants to hide your antipathy to actual progressive policies and worldviews - the problem with this Cult Of The "Deficit", again, imagine what could happen if we had real progressive people in charge.
What would the enactment of a progressive vision of society, including taxing the super-rich to actually reduce their power, not "get their money," do for the "deficit"?
It might do something like what you see here.
What would all those years of Democrats screaming about Republicans "blowing up the deficit" have accomplished?
What it is accomplishing is preventing us from getting desperately-needed social-welfare policy, like universal healthcare, tuition-free higher education, canceling all student debt, building a high-speed passenger-rail system, and breaking up highly-concentrated wealth (which taxing for maximum revenue does not do.)
Now do you see why Republicans scream so loudly about "the deficit" even when they themselves obviously don't care about it?
Now do you see why the corporate-funded centrist Democratic elected officials who really don’t want universal healthcare and a national job guarantee – but who want to look like they are making a meaningful defense against the fascists and who want to look like they would be in favor of social-welfare measures if only we could “pay for” them – are happy to play along?
Except Republicans don't actually "leave money in the economy", because their tax cuts essentially only help their plutocrat friends hoard more and more of it, and put very little into the overall economy. I agree about the chart, but letting the above statement stand without context is just a tad misleading, don't you think?