the cost of a US census

@wildgrass said
I'm not saying Biden did good, but trump and all the other Republicans have done much worse.

Name a republican president in the last 45 years who has left office with less deficit spending than when they started. There is none.

But Clinton, Obama and Biden all did that.

Obama and Biden entered office under very unusual circumstances; Obama right after the crash of 2008 and Biden after covid (not coincidently; as these sorts of circumstances can cause parties to lose elections). Both lowered deficit spending from the "emergency" year, sure. But both also left with deficits much higher than a baseline of the average under the previous administration before the emergency.

Clinton is a different story. He was the last US President to take fiscal policy seriously.

@sh76 said
Obama and Biden entered office under very unusual circumstances; Obama right after the crash of 2008 and Biden after covid (not coincidently; as these sorts of circumstances can cause parties to lose elections). Both lowered deficit spending from the "emergency" year, sure. But both also left with deficits much higher than a baseline of the average under the previous administrat ...[text shortened]... ency.

Clinton is a different story. He was the last US President to take fiscal policy seriously.

No President in recent memory has been willing to both significantly increase taxes and slash military spending (including ending our military adventures) enough to make a serious dent in the deficit.

@no1marauder said
No President in recent memory has been willing to both significantly increase taxes and slash military spending (including ending our military adventures) enough to make a serious dent in the deficit.

I would agree, provided that recent memory starts in 2000.

Clinton was generally pretty sound on fiscal policy.

Edit: With one caveat - I think you can balance the budget without "slashing" military spending. Modest decreases may be needed, but there's plenty of room to the left of the Laffer curve to increase taxation without hurting the economy.

Further welfare and other spending reforms (another Clinton agenda) would also help.

@sh76 said
I would agree, provided that recent memory starts in 2000.

Clinton was generally pretty sound on fiscal policy.

Edit: With one caveat - I think you can balance the budget without "slashing" military spending. Modest decreases may be needed, but there's plenty of room to the left of the Laffer curve to increase taxation without hurting the economy.

Further welfare and other spending reforms (another Clinton agenda) would also help.

I see you quoted "slashing" military so your reference for this statement is probably a military contractor.

The Cold War ended. Decreasing the Pentagon budget was the right move.

Base Realignment and Closure was a bipartisan commission that spent a year studying waste in the pentagon budget and identified 33 bases that were not necessary. The military was part of the conversation and agreed that they did not need these bases. The Chair was Republican and the Commissioner had 30 years of military service.

Clinton took a 1,775,000 person standing army - fighting no wars - and said maybe 108,000 of you can go home. It amazes me that so-called fiscal conservatives see these numbers and say that Clinton "slashed" the military.

The harder part of what Clinton did and deserves credit for was the welfare reform, as you noted.

@sh76 said
Obama and Biden entered office under very unusual circumstances; Obama right after the crash of 2008 and Biden after covid (not coincidently; as these sorts of circumstances can cause parties to lose elections). Both lowered deficit spending from the "emergency" year, sure. But both also left with deficits much higher than a baseline of the average under the previous administrat ...[text shortened]... ency.

Clinton is a different story. He was the last US President to take fiscal policy seriously.

I grew up in a house where Republicans were government minimalists and that was a fact. I had to grow up to find out that was completely BS.

@wildgrass said
I see you quoted "slashing" military so your reference for this statement is probably a military contractor.

The Cold War ended. Decreasing the Pentagon budget was the right move.

Base Realignment and Closure was a bipartisan commission that spent a year studying waste in the pentagon budget and identified 33 bases that were not necessary. The military was part of the ...[text shortened]...

The harder part of what Clinton did and deserves credit for was the welfare reform, as you noted.

OBRA '93 was the last common sense tax bill this country passed.

@wildgrass said
I see you quoted "slashing" military so your reference for this statement is probably a military contractor.

The Cold War ended. Decreasing the Pentagon budget was the right move.

Base Realignment and Closure was a bipartisan commission that spent a year studying waste in the pentagon budget and identified 33 bases that were not necessary. The military was part of the ...[text shortened]...

The harder part of what Clinton did and deserves credit for was the welfare reform, as you noted.

I was quoting No1's use of the word "slash" and was simply saying that while some cuts may make sense, I don't think "slashing" is necessary.

@sh76 said
I was quoting No1's use of the word "slash" and was simply saying that while some cuts may make sense, I don't think "slashing" is necessary.

Yeah but Clinton didn't slash.

It was a drawdown, and a consolidation. The military budget was lower because they were doing fewer things.

@sh76 said
I was quoting No1's use of the word "slash" and was simply saying that while some cuts may make sense, I don't think "slashing" is necessary.

$1 trillion a year shouldn't be "slashed"?

@sh76 said
OBRA '93 was the last common sense tax bill this country passed.

Both of you are ignoring that the biggest reason for the temporary surplus was extra tax revenue from the dot.com bubble. This was surely not going to last as capitalism goes through predictable boom and bust cycles.

Clinton, like most Presidents, gets too much credit for good economic times like they get too much blame for bad ones.

@no1marauder said
Both of you are ignoring that the biggest reason for the temporary surplus was extra tax revenue from the dot.com bubble. This was surely not going to last as capitalism goes through predictable boom and bust cycles.

Clinton, like most Presidents, gets too much credit for good economic times like they get too much blame for bad ones.

There were 3-4 bills passed through Congress with broad bipartisan support on this. Clinton spearheaded the whole thing. There was a lot of debate on the floor, restructuring, etc., the type of politics that doesn't happen anymore.

Clinton deserves more credit for this, making fiscal responsibility a central issue of his whole presidency. Of course deficits started ticking up again after he left office and George Bush loved the new government programs that were never paid for. He never looked back.

@wildgrass said
$15 billion

Remember that the next time you try to make an argument that Republicans care about reducing the cost of government.

Wouldn't be a need for a new census if the Dems hadn't allowed 12+ million illegals in the country and counted them as voters.

@Cliff-Mashburn said
Wouldn't be a need for a new census if the Dems hadn't allowed 12+ million illegals in the country and counted them as voters.

Explain what you mean by this and why a mid decade census will help Americans, not politicians.