> Republicans did not lower the debt when they had house and senate and President. <
Bingo. The years 2017 and 2018 were golden years. The GOP had it all. But as far as spending went, it was business as usual. Borrow more, spend more. Even Trump (whom I admire) did not veto a single major spending bill. Shame on him for that.
As you noted, it’s the Uniparty vs. the rest of us. Where Trump fits in, I’m not sure. But one thing is for sure. We are driving right off of a deficit cliff. Our children and our grandchildren will suffer greatly.
But no one in DC cares. After all, their pensions are secure, and indexed for inflation.
Because that's what the voters want!
That’s what’s so frustrating about this, even when we have all the cards and advantages they just get squandered and do nothing. Not only was the debt ceiling also raised without budget balancing in 2017 and 2018, like you said those were golden years, but even basic things like fighting the invasion of illegals and stopping the H1B “American replacements” visa weren’t done. Even Ted Cruz had been pushing for a massive increase in H1B visas to kick Americans to the curb, until he got his clock cleaned for such open RINO shilling.
I still think Trump was and is sincere about fighting these swamp thieves, but he was taking on a whole deep state conglomerate, and just didn’t have enough experience or knowledge in his first term to know how to work the system to bring the crooks down. That’s why the oligarchs tolerated Trump in his first term but they were determined to do everything, including exaggerating the plandemic to wreck the economy and rigging the 2020 election to make sure Biden took the reigns, they knew Trump had learned their weak points and how better to fight them at that point.
And a lot of the frustration about the missed opportunities in 2017 and 2018 is that Trump had so much trouble getting allies and advisers who would support MAGA and not back-stab him for their own ambitions. Some of this was his own fault for not having good judgement in character for his Cabinet and advisors, some of the betrayals were hard to anticipate. It was probably evident early on that Bill Barr, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Marco Rubio and of course Ron Desantis were back-stabbers already with the knives out, other cases it was maybe not so clear. Another thing he appears to have learned a significant amount from. And some of the more reliable supporters of traditional conservatism, even if flawed—Jeff Sessions comes to mind—were back-stabbed and tricked into being removed, by the same sort of rumors the crooked Roman Senators used to remove good, trusted advisors, then go replace them with corrupt enemies of the people.
And right now we’re seeing it again with McCarthy. He has all the cards and advantages going into these negotiations. And yet he’s just squandering them without a fight. It’s no accident and he’s clearly taking orders from someone without the interests of the American heartland in mind, on that not any doubt.