A repeated assertion made by
Chris on
this blog - and made many other liberal
(1) diarists on other liberal blogs - is that despite claims of fiscal stewardship, the Republican Party has a horrible record during the modern periods when they have held the majority.
My reaction: I agree. With apologies to Churchill, no one should pretend that Republicans have been perfect or even good. Indeed, it could be said that Republicans demonstrate the worst form of spending discipline except the form practiced by Democrats.
The purpose of this diary is to give legs to that position and demonstrate that by any reasonable measure the Democrats are worse on spending than Republicans.
It is important to mention up front that I maintain that the primary responsibility for federal spending - as a matter of process and in practice - is
held by the Congress and not the executive. This is not to argue that a president has no role or responsibility, but rather that the legislative actions play a far greater role in determining the condition of our ledgers. From the budget resolution, to revenue policy to the annual appropriations, and perhaps most critically regarding mandatory spending, the Congressional power is supreme. This analysis and argumentation is built upon that premise
(2).
My source data comes from the Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits, 1789–2015 on the OMB website.
It's a downloadable excel file.
For this review, I've chosen to examine the outcomes from 1953 forward. I've chosen 1953 because in that year the GOP took over the
House and
Senate after a period of Democratic control, so it's a fresh start. And prior to 1953, the presence of other political parties (
see Strom Thurmond, Independent Democrat) confuses the apples to apples comparison and we'd have other distortions. In any case, as you'll see it doesn't really matter how far back we go since it's the more recent years driving this cart of irresponsibility. But I am happy to extend the analysis if anyone cares to make the case that I should have chosen a different starting point. And what we are looking for is a good data set for each party of unified control of Congress in the modern day.
After downloading the file and removing all rows prior to 1953, we are left with three data sets for each year. The on budget, the off budget and the combined (total) budget. One could make a case for using the on budget data only, since that reflects the annual spending choices made by Congress. Or one could also argue that including mandatory spending is more responsible since not the act of not changing a program's trajectory is as much a decision as the annual outlays - either way laws are being passed. Given the manner in which the Congress has operated, I think going with the total budget is more honest and reflects the true degree of profligation relative to receipts and obligations. But I'll run the numbers both ways and people can draw their own conclusions from them. And I am including the estimate for FY2010 since we are already 3/4th through it.
My next action is to calculate the percent of surplus or deficit in a given year for both data sets. This is simply the supply or deficit column over the outlays column. This percent can be described as being the level of spending that is out of balance in the case of a deficit. Doing a year by year calculation gives us weighted numbers in that year's since we all know that a billion dollar deficit in 1953 is much more important that that same value today. But being almost 10% out of balance translates in any age.
Then, we need to assign the party of leadership in each year. The data doesn't line up 100% because the annual budget runs October 1 through September 31, while the Congress runs on a biennial schedule that begins in the January of the even numbered years. Nevertheless, I will consistently use the party in power at the start of the fiscal year (October) for that fiscal year's decision making
(3). And in practice even if a majority switch does happen, the major planning tends to be forward looking and not towards the current year's policies with respect to spending, but we can keep an eye on these transition years to see if it matters. For example, the 2006 elections resulted in Democratic majorities in both chambers starting in January 2007. But I assign FY2007 responsibility to the GOP because the budget for the year was passed in 2006 and several of the annual spending bills were passed that year as well. The balance of the FY2007 levels were set by a continuing resolution that largely carried over the FY2006 levels. Again, if there is a major objection to this rough justice workout of this alignment and adoption of my analysis hinges on it, I can break spending down in those transition years. Please just be sincere in your willingness to accept the outcomes before asking me to do it. :)
Next we need only add an if function that checks that the majority party in both chambers is the same in order to give us a sortable variable. As it turns out, since the election of 1953, both chambers of Congress have been not unified for only 7 years (FY82-87 & FY02). Which leaves the GOP with 13 years of full Congressional authority and the Democrats with 38 such years.
Now we are left to compare the percentages we calculated during the periods of GOP control vs periods of Democrat control. First things first: all 5 of the 5 worst years came during unified Congressional control of the Democrats (in order 2010 est., 2009, 1992, 1991, 1976). You'll notice that the current year's estimate is included. If you think that is unfair, have no fear since the 6th worst year is also the Democrat controlled year of 1993. In fact, of the worst ten years, the Democrats held full sway in 8 of them. Only the GOP years of 2003 & 2004 crack the list at #7 and 9, respectively. Further, of the worst 20 years, 17 were run by Democrats (2005 comes in at #19 for the GOP) and they held control in all but 4 years of worst quarter century of responsibility (2006 comes in right at #25 for the GOP).
You may click on the sheet above to download the file with the calculation columns already entered.If you average the GOP held percents of balance, you get -3.6% and you want to remove 1954&1955, leaving only the most recent 11 (FY96-07) GOP years, you still get -4.0% as the figure. If you do the same for the entire period going back to the early 1950s for the Democrats you get -10.8%.. If you only include the same number of total years (13) as we included for the GOP, you get -19.3% and if you use only the most recent 11 years, you get -20.6%.
So depending on how you want to frame this, it's either 3.6% in the red for the average GOP controlled year over the last half century and 10.6% negative for the Democrats or it's 4% red for the GOP during the very recent period while it was a about 20% negative for the current majority.
Let me clear: Democrats have spent at least three times as many proportional deficit dollars while in charge of Congress as the Republicans have since 1953.Everything else aside, I believe this is why it is critical for the GOP to regain control of at least one Congressional body this November. As it happens, at -18.9% the years of divided Congressional control still are better than keeping it in the hands of Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid.
Let me conclude this diary by thanking Chris and the Fold Blog for giving the opportunity to make my arguments in a more salient and visually appreciably manner.
Notes:- I generally dislike the labels liberal and conservative and in a later post I'll expand on my reasons why as well as propose some new ways to describe political thought that is more relevant in today's dynamic reality.
- I recognize that many will dispute the primacy of Congress in setting spending and the budget. It's something I feel strongly about, so it's also on a short list of future post topics. Let me add here though that while the executive may have strong influence regarding the distribution of the total spending - where it goes - it's the 302(b) allocation totals by Congress that sets the top line numbers. And hey just for fun for you Fold footnote readers, if you pull the two Bush years out of the Democratic controlled Congressional total, you still get 16.7% in the red.
- I recognize that there are a few factors that keep my analysis from being perfect. The lack of lining up of the periods, although not a factor in the most irresponsible years, is certainly one. So too is that you simply can't control for things such as a 9/11 type event or the sort of fiscal meltdown that began in 2008/2009. Plus this analysis ignores revenue policy. Even a Congress that spent 'responsibly' could run massive deficits if it didn't collect tax dollars responsibly. For example, a Congress which actually cut spending by 5% but also reduced tax revenue by 10% would look worse than a Congress which increased spending by 20% but also increased taxes by the same amount. Would that second one be more responsible? That's debatable. But they would for certain be bigger spenders, which is the title and focus of this diary.
