>>rather than the major acceleration that Democrats have advanced.
unfortunately, republicans, with a few exceptions, have just as bad a track record. The record acceleration in the deficit and debt under Obama only masks the previous record spending and debt under Bush....I honestly don’t think there are more than 5-10 people in all of congress that a) care b) are willing to do anything about it or c) even understand why it matters.
Get elected, and then use taxpayer money to do or say ANYTHING to get reelected by spending money we don’t have is the name of the game...until the money actually runs out, nobody is going to do anything about it.
Hell, under Bush you had many prominent Republicans arguing with a straight face that the debt and the deficit don’t matter (or at least it didn’t matter when they were doing it)....
This debt/deficit/spending problem is shaping up just exactly like the housing/mortgage/subprime bubble...we all know its going to end badly, we just don’t know when exactly.
We can think Cheney for this gem:
“You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”
and now Republicans want to be taken seriously on deficit reduction.