In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican ticket and permitted Democrats under Woodrow Wilson to take the White House and Congress. In the prior century, Republicans dominated America’s government. Democrats were lucky to have one term. A few conservatives like Jackson and Cleveland had two. While corruption was always a problem, under Republicans it was controlled, slaves were freed, and taxes were kept low. Whenever Democrats instituted their statist policies, they were quickly ousted.
But most people are as ignorant of the facts of history as they are of our government, how it works, who is running it, and what their agenda is. Fully 85% of Americans cannot name the Speaker of the House. As third in line for the presidency and responsible for the federal budget, the second leg of the government tripod is just as important as the presidency. So long as conservatives ran government the economy prospered.
Presidents of the United States
Speakers of the House
Not so once liberal Democrats attained power in 1912. With their philosophy of tax the rich and spending more than they take in, Democrats have continuously damaged the most robust economy in the history of the world, putting the squeeze on the goose that lays the golden egg. To pay for U.S. involvement in WWI, Wilson raised the upper income tax rate to 70% plunging the country into a depression by 1920. When Republicans lowered the rate, the economy boomed to give us the Roaring Twenties.
Economics has ups and downs and what rises fast also falls quickly as the rapidly rising economic bubble burst. But it is what government did that changed the Crash of ’29 from a major recession into the disaster of the Great Depression. While Republicans held the White House under Hoover, Democrats convinced the people to put them in power in congress and, rather than allow the economy to adjust, they convinced Hoover to raise the tax rates again.
Federal Income Tax Rates 1912-2012
When the economy tanked even more, they blamed the Republican president and FDR was elected with a Democrat Supermajority, thereby assuring that Democrats could make whatever laws they wanted. They raised taxes, increased spending, and told the people government would take care of them with government jobs and Social Security. The nation suffered horribly as Democrats insured their own re-elections and power for decades to come, continuing to spread the propaganda that the free market was the cause of their woes.
With the upper tax rate at 70%, the country entered a depression that would last until after WWII when America would emerge as the only intact industrialized power. As in WWI, after WWII the U.S. debt was sky high and taxes were raised to 90% to pay the debt. Still the economy took off, not because of free enterprise, not because war is profitable, but because, in spite of oppressive government taxes, the rest of the free world had to spend years rebuilding from war’s devastation while America produced goods to sell.
But Democrat spending continued unabated. Only under Truman in the late forties and again under Eisenhower in the late fifties did Republicans manage to take temporary control of congress and lower spending to balance the budget. They would not do so again until the late nineties.
When JFK was elected in 1961 he became the only Democrat to lower taxes and spending. Of all the presidents that have been shot, he was the only Democrat. When Lyndon Johnson took control, he escalated the Vietnam War and instituted Medicare, then raided the Social Security Fund to pay for them. Now it survives as “retirement insurance” and part of a growing debt as Democrats keep the raiding of Social Security and filibuster any attempt to stop the theft. Seniors live on a pittance of what they would have had were the Social Security fund left untouched.
After Nixon resigned, the Democrat congress began spending at will with massive deficits causing the economy to lag. After hanging the economic malaise on Ford, Carter was elected and Democrats again had a Supermajority reinstituting the policies of FDR. The resulting unemployment and inflation brought America close to another depression resulting in a great president stepping up in Ronald Reagan, winning the presidency with a senate majority. He got the tax cuts he wanted, dropping the top income rate from 70% down to 28%. But, with a Democrat House, he had to accept Democrat spending along with it, and they spent big.
But with low taxes, the economy again rose quickly. Revenue increased until the bubble burst in ’87. But after a short downturn, the country kept on growing. Still, Democrats convinced Americans to put them in charge of congress again when Bush 41 was elected, and in 1989 they convinced Bush to renege on his promise of no new taxes and raise them. This resulted in a new recession and a challenge by Ross Perot that split the Republican ticket putting Bill Clinton in the White House.
When Democrat spending and tax increases made the economy worse, Reagan acolyte Newt Gingrich stepped up to the plate and convinced the American people that he could get congress under control. Republicans took congress and within two years balanced the budget for the next four years. Clinton claims credit for the economic boom of the nineties.
Barack Obama credits Clinton’s taxes with creating prosperity. But the truth is it was the Republican congress which took the government boot off the throats of entrepreneurs and they did what they do best, grow companies and create jobs. Unfortunately, moderates in the Republican Party didn’t like being shackled to a budget. They wanted their chance to spend more money and ousted Gingrich.
This is what Barack Obama calls “trickle-down fairy dust.” When the bubble burst and the economy went into recession in the late nineties, people put Democrats in charge of the senate and spending went up. But George W. Bush had won the White House and lowered taxes. For the next six years the economy grew sluggishly.
Democrat economics destroy the economy
Republicans retook the senate in 2002 to bring spending back under control as America went to war and natural disasters of hurricane summer 2005 devastated much of the economy. People remember Katrina, but forget that Florida was hit by five major hurricanes in a single season. But by 2006 their ears were being filled with propaganda that people were suffering and Bush didn’t care.
Liberal media waged a propaganda war against Republicans for the first six years of the Bush presidency and convinced Americans that, despite unemployment being below 5%, the economy was terrible and Republicans were ruining the country. They elected Democrats to control congress in 2006 and, as usual, their policies immediately began to have a detrimental effect on the economy. The mortgage banks they had been running at a loss for years brought the economy crashing down and they successfully made Bush and the Republicans the scapegoats.
Barack Obama was elected with a Supermajority and again the same policies that Democrats have used to lay waste to the economy were instigated, all the while blaming Bush. With deficit spending ten times the last Republican budget in 2007, media helped the president spin the facts to blame Bush as president during that time rather than accepting responsibility as the congress that controls spending. Many people, being as ignorant as ever, accept this claim.
But with the advent of free media markets, the people were informed and Republicans won a greater landslide in 2010 than they had in 1994. While they control the House and the budget process, the Democrat controlled senate has not passed a budget during the Obama presidency. They continue the humongous deficits year after year through continuing resolutions, spending without accounting for where that money is going, all the while blaming Republicans for the gridlock in Washington.
Obama’s idea of economics has been to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up unsuccessful businesses and punish the successful ones of political opponents. Oil, coal, and natural gas are being suppressed under the myth of man-made global warming to make them so costly that more expensive “green energy” becomes affordable. GM investors’ money is stolen and given to the unions as the company is downsized saving it from bankruptcy amidst claims that it was saved from “liquidation.” Companies like GE, whose CEO is a friend and supporter of Obama, pay no taxes. And green companies like Solyndra go bankrupt taking billions of taxpayer dollars with them. Americans are told that high unemployment and dependency on government charity is the new normal.
With the advent of this election, Americans are faced with a future of dependency on a corrupt government with Democrats stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, after first lining their own pockets with the lion’s share to leave scraps for the beggars, or Republicans taking government’s boot off the throats of businesses again to let them do what they do best. Democrats say this will destroy the economy and culture. Republicans say this will grow the economy, with the ups and downs, and restore the promise of the American Dream.
It is up to Americans to learn the history of their nation and understand the lessons learned rather than be told by propaganda meisters what to believe. As more working age Americans are on food stamps, unemployment compensation, and Social Security disability than ever before, America is at a crossroads. Does America choose to continue on this road with Democrats of dependency on government, or will we return to our roots and allow businesses to thrive and give people the ability to work toward prosperity and end the Democrat century?
Media propaganda paints Republicans to be as bad as Democrats
Liberals Backwards Think 