GOP'd

            In spite of all the good advice I have received (mostly from my wife) to write about a different topic, to write about something pleasant, something safe, something innocuous; I am going to write about the Republican National Convention.  But to demonstrate that I do not work for MSNBC, and that my first name is not Rachel, (please! I have a much nicer haircut), next week I will take to task the Democratic Convention.

            First of all, there were a few things I liked about it.  If she were running for office I would be tempted to vote for Ann Romney.  I liked her.  I also liked Clint Eastwood.  No I didn’t follow what he was trying to do, and yes, he did appear to be rambling, but, WTH, (I’m hoping that people who object to swearing will be too old to know what those letters stand for) I like Clint Eastwood.  I like Clint Eastwood movies.  I wish I were that cool, and that tough all at the same time, even as I get old.  I wouldn’t mind being that rich either.

            This is what I have against the Republicans: I just don’t believe them.  Albert Einstein defined insanity as: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  There have been six Republican presidents during my life time, but I won’t count the first, Eisenhower, because I was four when he left office.  The other five have all promised to reduce government, reduce spending, reduce the deficit and reduce taxes.  Some of them have reduced taxes, but no one, not a single Republican president, has reduced government, significantly reduced spending, and most importantly, left office before doing any meaningful damage to U.S. debt.

            A feW of you, and you knoW Who you are, dramatically, drastically and draconianly (I know it’s not a word, but I have a thing for triples) increased the debt burden during your time in office.  Now my Republican friends, (yes, I have friends) tell me that this time it is different because it has to be different.  Guess what?  No it doesn’t.

            I could go into detail about the impossibility of balancing the budget without cutting military spending, and talk about the economic definition of “stickiness”, but then I would have to wake you up at the end of the blog.  It basically comes down to this: It is easier to spend money than it is to not spend money.  This is especially true if you set your own debt limit and print your own currency, legally even.

            The individual congress members, even tea party people, are like the men in Abraham’s household when he received the commandment regarding circumcision.  No one is jumping to the front of the line to say “Cut me first!”  Everyone defends his or her own turf, (OK, it’s time to stop thinking about the circumcision metaphor) and that includes basically all the turf there is.  Congress does not have the will power to meaningfully cut spending, and therefore there is nothing the president, regardless of party, can do about it.

            So, if the Democrats are the party of “Tax and Spend” the Republicans are the party of “Borrow and Spend”.  They just spend it on different things, but it still gets spent.

            Tune in next week and I’ll tell you why the Democrats are messed up too.