If, as some suggest, politics runs in waves, the intervals aren’t calculable like sine waves but are more like radio waves, the frequency (wavelength) and amplitude of which vary.
Political frequency is increasing. For example, in 1994, an electoral tsunami washed House Democrats out of the majority for the first time in forty years. The runoff returned them in twelve. Four years later, in 2010, another Republican wave washed over Washington. Democrats took over again in eight.
Political amplitude changes, too. Once large, the Democrats’ House majority is now extraordinarily narrow. The Senate is 50-50.
America is ripe for change, so 2022 represents a Republican opportunity, because, in a two-party system, the “out” party is the only refuge for an alarmed citizenry.
In that context, voters may prefer Republicans, but, due to shortened frequency cycles, memories of GOP excesses remain fresh.
Informed voters prefer politicians who never lost a sense of fiscal responsibility, but few could be found among Capitol Hill Club Republicans during the Bush II or Trump years.
One wonders if the GOP’s most recent loss brought an epiphany, or if their sudden sense of fiscal responsibility is merely a proxy for opposing the Democrats’ agenda that’s subject to revision when Republicans retake congressional majorities.
Granted, Democrats discarded any semblance of fiscal restraint by pushing through multiple COVID “relief” bills (one “bipartisan”) that, cumulatively, are far larger than their failed Obama-era “stimulus,” and, adjusted for inflation and population, are more expensive than former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s entire New Deal.
Flooding the economy with imaginary $trillions while suppressing economic activity is a recipe for fiscal disaster. Nonetheless, Democrats propose spending an additional $4 trillion-plus.
Major proposals include multi-year “infrastructure” and “family” plans, each costing about $2 trillion. Their “infrastructure” plan includes very little actual infrastructure, and the “family” plan, among other disincentives, would worsen existing problems in the welfare state by undermining work and marriage.
There is no simple context in which people can easily understand massive numbers like “trillions.” Nonetheless, let’s try:
Sadly, $1 trillion has become Washington’s chump change. Before the first of the massive COVID-19 “stimulus” bills was passed, America’s debt already exceeded $1 trillion by twenty-three times.
Democrats blame “tax cuts.”
But America’s economy flourished following the 2017 tax rate reductions. According to Congressional Budget Office data, before COVID hit, U.S Treasury tax receipts increased each fiscal year, setting records.
Unfortunately, revenue growth was outpaced by federal spending driven primarily by spikes in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security costs, an increase in defense spending — and escalating interest payments on the mushrooming national debt for which Americans receive exactly … nothing.
America’s debt is money the government must repay (or refinance) at specified future dates. Each time the government borrows and spends more money, the nation as a whole becomes poorer. Inflation, perceived by some as an “easy” way to retire debt, would destroy millions of lives.
America sorely needs a course correction.
There is plenty of fat to cut: America’s Founders didn’t foresee a permanent political class and huge bureaucracies. That America has them doesn’t indict the Founders’ judgment, but ours for permitting them.
One worries, though, does America have the will to address the nation’s debt crisis by electing leaders who will at least try?
If America does, and voters award them another majority (or majorities) in 2022, Republicans should understand that they’re running out of chances. The Democrats who have been most recently responsible for the massive debt accumulation that threatens our way of life and the lives of future generations may have already exhausted theirs.
Accordingly, if successful, how congressional Republicans perform fiscally will determine the future, not only of the GOP but of the nation.
Contact columnist Jerry Shenk at jshenk2010@gmail.com
- Daily Local News
- Updated
https://www.dailylocal.com/opinion/jerry-shenk-political-cycles-spending-and-debt/article_dd1cbaf6-5041-54eb-afdd-229b936b39cf.html
