History is repeating itself

[wildfood]

The Democrats took control of congress after 8 years of Reagan and 4 years of Bush (41).



Then as now, not only did the Republicans increase the deficit to unprecedented levels when in power but then too there was the financial bailout of financial institutions necessitated by the de-regulation championed by said Republicans.



That financial crisis was called the Savings and Loan crisis, one in which John McCain was spanked by investigators for using his congressional position to unfairly help Charles Keating's Savings and Loan (Lincoln S&L) and Chip Bush was lucky not to go to jail for loaning his business partner $100 million without telling the bank he owned that the loan they were voting on was for Chip's partner. That S&L (Silverado) failed too costing the taxpayers over a billion.



Years of deficit spending followed by a very expensive bailout of Wall Street.

Sound familiar?



And what did the Democrats do when they inherited this mess?



The new Democratic Congress enacted the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990  requiring all increases in direct spending or revenue decreases to be offset by other spending decreases or revenue increases.


This somewhat capped deficit growth while the economy grew during the 1990's.


(What happened to this nice cap on deficit spending?

The (later) Republican controlled congress did not renew it in 2002 so Bush could return to  the old ways of deficit spending leading to the current mess we find ourselves in today.)

Then the Democrats also enacted the 1993  "economic package which raised taxes on upper-income Americans and cut spending as a step toward reducing budget deficits, which his economic advisers said were keeping interest rates high.

It passed Congress without a single Republican vote, and Vice President Al Gore had to break a tie in the Senate."

So Democrats have had experience cleaning up the mess Republicans have left in their wake...the extent to which the mess Bill Clinton inherited from Reagan/Bush mirrors the current mess is uncanny (years of deficits, financial meltdown and bailout costs due to deregulation).


In fact Democrats were so good at cleaning up after the Republicans that the 1990's is remembered as one of America's most prosperous eras.



My how history repeats itself.