[wimzkl]

If historic additions to the national debt by the party in power are an indication of that party’s conservatism, then both parties are liberal and the Republicans are by far the most liberal.:mad:
What exactly are the conservatives trying to conserve? The inequities found in any democratic and capitalist system are essential to making the system fluid and stable. The inequities found in the more mature such systems, like the aged’s hardening of the arteries, can inhibit the fluidity and destabilize the capitalism and, thus, the democracy.
All administrations over the last 53 years have added significantly to the nation’s debt. Eisenhower took office with the National Debt around $275 billion. Most of this debt had been incurred during the Civil War, the First World War, the Great Depression and World War II. At present the National Debt is almost $8 trillion more than that.
Our conservative Republican administrations have added $6,022 billion in the 33 years they occupied the White House, while our spendthrift liberal Democrats have added $1,955 billion in their 20 years. The Republicans share represents an average gain of 8.01% or $182.5 billion per year. Democratic administrations have added $80.5 billion average or about 4.64% per year. If you take Eisenhower’s $24 billion addition over eight years out of the above equation, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the two Bush’s have added almost $6 trillion to our national debt - representing a rate of $239.92 billion or 10.22% per year.
Our 2006 national budget of over $2.77 trillion will add almost another $400 billion to our National Debt. The interest this year alone on the debt will exceed $350 billion. That is almost 14% of the total budget and almost 90% of this year’s deficit itself, and will come very close to exceeding the total of the national debt when Nixon was elected.
It should seem evident that our conservative administrations have interests other than reducing the size of our government and balancing the budget. We are building a debt that our children will eventually have to pay. We should try to make sure that they pay on an “equality of sacrifice” basis since our budget deficits reflect the significant tax breaks given to those in the highest earning households and reflect the wasteful spending programs that benefit those in our highest earning households. Our budget deficits also reflect the deception of our conservative administrations when they claim allegiance to the conservative values of smaller and more efficient government.
Should we all, including the rich and powerful (RAP,) be concerned? Absolutely! The field of inequities needs to be leveled out. Those at the top need to remember who it is that shoulders the greatest hardships in wars protecting their assets; needs to remember where they came from; and needs to remember that we Americans are all in this together. Even more, they need to recognize that the American consumer is the key to both economic prosperity and political security. Over and over the conservative leadership mouth allegiance to smaller government, meaningful tax cuts and deregulation. Their actions belie their words.
:thumbup:

[Jane of Arc]

A BIG Welcome aboard Wimzkl!!!! Wow! What an awesome first contribution. I absolutely loved it. And I hope you stay and continue with us as we wrestle with our shared American problems.

I also love the fact that you're a "very conservative" Democrat, basing it on the true definition of what conservativism really means.

[wimzkl]

Thanks Jane,

I read with great interest your thread on facism and made a post. I have studied the subject in depth and especially Hitler. There are many similarities between our system and theirs that allowed him to come to power. I strongly feel that our liberties are threatened to the point that I have written a short book on the subject. I have no hope of getting a major book publisher to print it because I am nobody by their standards. The book is titled "Political Fabrications" and the following comes from it:

My many conservative friends sit in echoes bouncing off each other in an unending stream of pathetic platitudes: “Corporate America is the engine that makes us great.” “Those bleeding heart liberals never worked a day in their lives.” “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant: It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” “The government is the problem.” Those bed wetting liberals, blah, blah, blah …”

Platitudes and name calling constitutes their political position and most of their argument. Well, the trouble with our conservative friends isn’t that they know so much that isn’t so; it is that they don’t know much history. Dangers that our Founding Fathers recognized have been forgotten and have re-emerged. The life accident that is the hallowed history for some becomes solidified to the point of birthing discrimination.

Many voters today are cosmetic conservatives (CosCons) because they have forgotten or are unaware of key points of history. They are asking the wrong questions and coming up with the wrong answers. Politics is the main stream of history. It follows that political judgments demand historical knowledge. The goal of this book is to satisfy that demand because the conservative leaders of this nation have fabricated their political position from two big lies.

The first of the two lies is that our conservative leadership wants a smaller, more efficient government. A politician’s fiscal conservatism is unsustainable over time and becomes liberal because of career motivated public spending. Campaign contribution quid pro quo inevitably produces legislation specifically benefiting the rich and powerful to the detriment of the public interest.

The second is that the great burden of taxation on our middle class is the responsibility of the liberal governments of the past. The recent increases in this burden can be laid directly to the enactment of Reagan’s “supply-side” tax reforms. Those reforms shifted the tax burden down the social scale while adding income share to the top 20% of American households concurrently lowering the share of the lower 80%. This is a dangerous concentration of wealth.
Conservatives will continue to doubt that these are lies.

“The government is the problem!” Well, duh, it has always been thus!

[FDRfollower]

I read with great interest your thread on facism and made a post. I have studied the subject in depth and especially Hitler. There are many similarities between our system and theirs that allowed him to come to power. I strongly feel that our liberties are threatened to the point that I have written a short book on the subject. I have no hope of getting a major book publisher to print it because I am nobody by their standards. The book is titled "Political Fabrications" and the following comes from it:

Greetings wimzkl. Welcome to the discussion, please have a seat, here's some tea for you. *slurp*

I'm wondering, is the last post all that you've written?? That wouldn't exactly make up a book. :)

[wimzkl]

Thanks, FDR follower

I am also a great fan of FDR and quote him in my book - Political Fabrications. It is 108 pages mostly about democracy, liberty and capitalism - the three greatest systems of history. The book is really a history book with some significant economic analysis tossed in for good measure to debunk the position of most conservatives. I think it is conservative to advocate democracy, liberty and capitalism in addition to being fiscally cautious. The subtitle of my book is: "What Exactly do Conservative Want to Conserve." If you go to the POL thread on Fascism, you will find more of my writing.