I am writing this ostensibly as a response to an earlier diary because when I read the linked Politico article, I also felt angry.
However, my anger was directed at Politico for perpetuating the false meme that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility, not at "DC Democrats" for encouraging Democrats to talk about balanced budgets.
What jumped out at me first was this line:
Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, who’s running in a district that Obama won in 2012 and 2008, has started airing a commercial that strikes a tea party theme. It highlights his record as speaker of the state House of Representatives when, he says, he helped balance the state’s budget.
Follow me below the fold
The premise of the article is that Democrats who talk about the budget deficit are just trying to sound like Republicans. In the quote above, they even credit balanced budget as a Tea Party issue, not a Democratic one.
This is patently false, and destroys the entire premise of the article.
Tea Partiers care about eliminating government, leaving poor people to suffer on their own, and tax cuts for rich people - not the deficit.
Think about it this way, if there were a vote on extending the Bush tax cuts or balancing the budget, which would the Tea Party vote? Obviously, they would go with tax cuts because, to paraphrase Atrios, they don't give a shit about the deficit. It's just a convenient means to an end.
But don't take my word for it - there was a vote in 2012 on extending the Bush tax cuts at the expense of the deficitand every single Republican except one voted for it.
But what about Democrats? Are they just trying to sound like imaginary budget-balancing Republicans or are they sincere?
I would say they are probably sincere. My evidence: 3 decades of exploding deficits under Republicans and shrinking deficits under Democratic Presidents.
- Reagan nearly tripled the deficit.
- George H W Bush grew the deficit from $152 Billion to $255 Billion, though to his credit he raised taxes to address the soaring deficit. That made him a pariah among movement conservatives and marked the last time any Republican seriously tried to address the deficit in a serious way.
-Bill Clinton turned a big deficit into a surplus.
- George W. Bush squandered the surplus on wars, tax cuts for the rich, and destructive financial policies - and turned the surplus into a massive deficit again.
- Now, under Obama, the deficit is shrinking once again. Even according to Politico.
And for good measure, for those who conflate deficit and debt, here's Snopes showing that Democrats have added much less to our debt than Republicans since 1980 with St. Ronald Reagan as the worst of all.
So here's the problem -
despite all evidence to the contrary, Politico and the traditional media just can't quit the meme that Republicans are the party of balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility.
Even though it hasn't been true since about 1980.
If you want to know why voters are so fed up with politics, this is a perfect example - the media sticks to their story lines as they want them to be, not as they are. And that makes impossible for voters to know what they are voting for, who to believe, or who to hold accountable.