@H2O MAN,
H2O you seem to have memorized every commie/conservative slogan published over the last 50 years and can recite them like a parrot. My wife’s parrot bit her the other day and she cried out stupid bird. The next day when she went to feed the parrot it said stupid, stupid. It only needed to hear the word once to pick it up. You pick up on commie/conservative slogans like the parrot picks up on words. The reason this slogan has been so effective is that it conjures the mental imaging of taking, taxing is fact one type of taking. The word spending mental impact is that after your money is taken, someone else will spend it or waste it.
The first thing the American people must understand is that slogans are designed as smart bombs meant to bypass the intellectual mind and explode in the emotional mind. The slogan “Tax and spend” has been used against every democrat for the last 30 years. All of the presidents from 1948 until 1981 paid the National Debt, as percentage of GNP, down. All the democrats that were president, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, and Carter paid the National Debt down. But Reagan changed all of that he did not continue to pay the National Debt down he tripled the existing National Debt. The tax and spend democrats were paying off the National Debt but Reagan tripled the National Debt.
In order for Reagan to triple the National Debt he had to borrow the money. The interest rates during Reagan term were some of the highest ever recorded. The money was borrowed on 30 year U S Treasury bonds. Those bonds were paying record interest rate of 15% for 30 years when Reagan borrowed the money to triple the national debt. Imagine loaning money to government at the interest rate charged by your credit card company. My parents did exactly that and the last bond just recently paid off.
When baby Bush was elected Vice President Cheney was quick to point out that “Reagan proved the National debt does not matter.” Since the National Debt didn’t matter baby Bush began cutting taxes for the ungodly greedy and put another $3 trillion on credit card for the Iraq oil war. If we were not paying double digit interest on the Reagan’s tripling of the national debt we would have a balanced budget. Forty percent of each tax dollar goes to pay interest on the Reagan and Bush national debt. That is the real spending.