David Leonhardt’s opinion piece had a useful chart in it on which political party drives the deficit up more under their watch.
The one exception to Republican profligacy is the Great Recession of 20017-2011. That recession, of course, started under George W. Bush’s fiscal policies. Further, the first bank bailout bill was pushed through by the still-in-office Bush administration. Frontline’s documentary on the near collapse of our financial system in September 18, 2008 described this remarkable scene:
Hank Paulson, the rock rib conservative Republican free marketeer walked into an emergency meeting of the joint leadership of the US House and Senate, on a Thursday, asking for $700 billion of bailout authority, as the markets collapses and credit markets seized up. Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernacke told the lawmakers, “If we don’t do this tomorrow, we won’t have an economy on Monday”
This resulted in, of course, the eight year-long Obama administration easing the economy out of its nose dive and into a slow and long recovery.
And yet, somehow the Republican Party is viewed as the party of fiscal rectitude, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Source: NYT 4/16/18.