Democrats' blockbuster spending and wacky economic views mean we're in the age of the new abnormal
Democrats once believed in lower taxes and smaller government. Now, no one is interested in reining in runaway spending
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It used to be that the Democratic Party was about economic growth, lower taxes and smaller government. Here’s what their platforms said starting with JFK:
"Our economy can and must grow at an average rate of 5% annually, almost twice as fast as our average annual rate since 1953. We shall expand the economy itself." -- 1960 Democratic Party Platform
"Maintain steady economic growth by helping through tax reduction to stimulate the economy when it is sluggish." – 1968 Democratic Party Platform
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CONGRESS' $1.7 TRILLION SPENDING BILL INCLUDES MILLIONS FOR GENDER, EQUITY AND CLIMATE INITIATIVES
"We reject the big government theory that says we can tax and spend our way to prosperity. We honor business as a noble endeavor." -- 1992 Democratic Party Platform
"Today's Democratic Party knows that the era of big government is over. Big bureaucracies and Washington solutions are not the real answers to today's challenges. We need a smaller government." – 1996 Democratic Party Platform
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We have ended the era of big government. Democrats believe in supporting the startups, the small businesses, and the entrepreneurs that are making the New Economy go."-- 2000 Democratic Party Platform
"We promise to cut taxes for 98% of Americans. We believe the private sector, not government, is the engine of economic growth and job creation." -- 2004 Democratic Party Platform
"The American people do not want government to solve all our problems. We will shine a light on government spending." -- 2008 Democratic Party Platform
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Those were the Democrat party platforms from JFK through 2008 when President Obama won his first term.
JFK’s tax cuts and smaller government. Bill Clinton’s "the era of Big Government is over," Al Gore’s "reinventing and downsizing the government" campaign. You can’t tax and spend your way to prosperity. Unleash the private sector for job creation and growth. Words like tax cuts, smaller government and growth in their platforms.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So, were JFK, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama radical? Extreme? Tea Partiers?
But something happened after 2008.
By President Obama’s second term, Democrats began to prioritize redistribution for income inequality at the expense of growth and ended up getting neither.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This cannot be blamed on the 2008 financial crisis. There were massive bailouts and still lukewarm growth. From June 2009 and through 2016, GDP grew an average of just 2.1 percent annually, the lowest rate among expansion periods since 1949.
Today, Democrats demand every American report $600 phone app transactions to the IRS after Congress passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus package without fully reading the bill.
We are living in the age of the New Abnormal.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO VOTE ON BILL ABOLISHING IRS, ELIMINATING INCOME TAX
This is the era of misbegotten media and Democrat attacks on any good faith effort to rein in blockbuster government spending.
What’s alarming D.C. watchers is the fact that Congress has whooped through even more government debt spending with little oversight. Since the pandemic, the U.S. Congress has approved debt spending that is the equivalent of the GDP of Germany, France and Italy combined.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FDR’s New Deal spending is loose change under the sofa cushions compared to what’s happening now.
Do you see now how easy it was to slide into the era of the New Abnormal under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer?
The two leaders did it by passing trillion-dollar spending packages at the 11th hour with no hearings, no debate.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sources tell "The Evening Edit," that Pelosi reportedly pushed her caucus into submission, with threats of withholding committee assignments, campaign funds, and appropriations for lawmakers’ districts.
And then there’s this: Democrats and the media also call the new GOP House Rules package to curtail government spending "radical" and "extreme" because it now has requirements like a 72-hour rule to read legislation before it is passed.
GOP CHAIR STEFANIK PUSHES BILL TO REIN IN BIDEN POLICIES FUELING INFLATION ‘FIRE’
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Plus, House GOP has abolished Congress voting via proxy, where they could vote remotely without being present in the chamber. It was meant to stop COVID infections, but was still in place three years after the pandemic. At one point 80% of House Democrats voted via proxy, not showing up for their jobs, says the Brookings Institution.
Do Democrats call that "extreme"? And who can accurately review and fact-check 4,000 pages in 72 hours?
No one. And no one did. That’s likely why this spending flew under the radar and included the ‘Monuments to Me,’ goodies. There’s the new "Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building" in San Francisco, the new "Nancy Pelosi Fellowship Program" at the State Department." There’s also the "Senator Patrick Leahy Lake Champlain Basin Program" in Vermont, and the "Senator Richard Shelby FBI Training Center" in Alabama.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Also crammed into the bill were personal drivers for government employees. It turns out that dozens of government agencies got taxpayers to pay for their own limo drivers. "Personal drivers for hire" (Ubers?) for even the Office of Government Ethics, the IRS commissioner, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, the FTC, the CFTC, the SBA, one and on, even for something called the National Cemetery Administration – perhaps where Congressional oversight is entombed and goes to die?
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And the mere talk of a southern border security plan is called "radical." That’s in an administration with a president who signed more than 300 executive actions and policy changes on the border. Biden revoked Trump’s orders and collapsed things to the point where the equivalent of the population of nearly three Nebraskas has been caught trying to cross our border if we include the "gotaways."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Since Biden’s border policies took effect, there have been nearly a million gotaways, 98 terrorists on the FBI watch list have been apprehended along with all the MS-13 and gang members caught crossing. There were more than 380 encounters with terrorists at our southern border last fiscal year, which includes multiple contacts. Just a generation after 9/11.
Full disclosure: A family member, a New York City fireman, was killed in the 9/11 Twin Tower terror attacks. Still hurts.
My family, like so many, wants to serve and help. We’re not special. We just connect with families who’ve lost loved ones. That’s all.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Like so many families, we’ve got loved ones who fought in virtually every war since the Civil War, for the Union Army.
My mother never knew her father, he died when she was just one year old from mustard gas attacks in WWI. Never knew her uncle, also a New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighter who died from pneumonia a year later.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}My great-grandfather who ran the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) lost two sons in a year during the Great Depression (he was friends with the Roebling family who built the Brooklyn Bridge, we can only hope they were a comfort for him). Again, not special. Just know the pain.
So yes, the New Abnormal.