Anyone who hasn't already recognized this as the GOP's end-game strategy: running up the federal debt as an excuse to gut the social safety net and then turn over the proceeds to the corporate oligarchy; simply hasn't been paying attention - or worse, has been willfully nescient - for the past 30 some-odd years.

@ 1, At least now all of the kleptocracy and white trash supremacy is undeniable and out in the open. There's no longer any question that the GOPKKK is a corrupt, lying, blatantly racist criminal conspiracy to rape our nation and kill us.

They're the party of treason, Tdumbp, and tax cut$ for the rich.

The resistance fights back.

LMFAO

I don't eat clams that much so we can deport all the clam harvesters. Don't deport the oyster harvesters, though. I eat oysters.

Oh, and I like peaches. Keep the peach harvesters, but deport the quince and plum harvesters.

The FBI and the CIA were feared and revered for over half a century. Now they're a sick joke after allowing the Kremlin, the GOPKKK, and Tdumbp nazi voters to carry out a decapitation strike against our own country.

I doubt anyone can really can lay claim to being knowledgeable about discussing budgets when most readers here probably can’t or even live within a budget themselves. But not to worry everyone! There will be plenty of pot to smoke and happy hours to attend once the tax plan goes into effect. And hey! You may be pleasantly surprised when the world doesn’t implode and you see more money next year to afford the excessive cost of living.

@1: Perhaps, but it's more comforting just to discount what you're saying as hyperbole.

@1: Do democrats run up the national debt for the same reason, or do they have their own evil conspiracy?

@Teddy
Is giving poor children healthcare and evil conspiracy?

An.
Speech-to-text sucks, and my fingers are too big for the tiny keyboard on this phone.

#9 National Debt usually goes down in Democratic administrations, especially so when the Dems control the legislature as well. It usually spikes on the GOP's watch because they give the wealthy excessive tax cuts, and then put wars on the National credit card. The economy grows under Democrats, because they put money into the hands of people who spend that money, and stimulate the economy.

@12: Nice boilerplate, but it is woefully inaccurate. You can't just state obvious inaccuracies in your first sentence and have people take you seriously.

Personally, I think it's time Seattle starts building a guillotine for the rich. Then send it on a nation-wide tour. I hear they drew huge crowds in the French Revolution!

@13

Good to know that you don't expect people to take you seriously.

@9: Clinton was running a Surplus at the end of his term. Bush the War Criminal put the Iraq Debacle on a credit card. Obama's Stimulus bill was half tax-cuts.

and so on. fuck your Both-Sides-Do-Itism.

@14: But not Barbra Streisand, right?

@15: What was I wrong about?

@16: You know, you can just Google the goddamn chart.

But you won't, so I'll summarize. I can go back to Woodrow Wilson, but I don't think it is totally necessary. It is also a bit misleading to go into the war years for various economic reasons, so let's start in post-war America. All figures are from the Treasury Dept.:

Eisenhower (R) Added $23 billion to the debt, an increase of 9%.
John F Kennedy (D) Added $23 billion, an increase of 8%.
Lyndon Johnson (D) Added $42 billion, an increase of 13%
Richard Nixon (R) Added $121 billion, an increase of 34%
Gerald Ford (R) Added $224 billion, an increase of 47%
Jimmy Carter (D) Added $229 billion, an increase of 43%
Ronald Reagan (R) Added $1.86 trillion, an increase of 186% (Yow!)
George H.W. Bush (R) Added $1.554 trillion, an increase of 54%.
Bill Clinton (D) Added $1.36 trillion, an increase of 32%.
George W. Bush (R) Added $5.849 trillion, an increase of 101%.
Barack Obama (D) Added $7.917 trillion, an increase of 68%.

You may notice that no one has ever lowered the national debt, something I thought was common knowledge. So fuck your general ignorance, I guess?

The fact that folks would take a pu$$y grabbing President, and a child molester congress person over a Democrat speaks more to the pathetic shambles the Progressive Movement has found itself. Progressives have created this crisis. And Republicans are simply capitalizing on it.

@18 So you've proved the previous point, republicans increase the debt and deficit like mad, and then a democrat has to come in and rein in their spending. Just look at your own data, every single time a D follows an R the deficit is decreased.

@20: I was not arguing that republicans do not tend to increase debt at higher rates, the incorrect point I was addressing is that republicans raise the debt, and democrats do not. The deficit and the debt are two different things.

Ridiculous that this has to be "proven" when all the data is a click away, but here we are.

@18: yeah, I knew that no admin has ever lowered it, Ted. I didn't claim what you're saying it did. it's hard to do when no pol can touch the DoD budget, and the GOP is always there to be utter cunts about it.

so fuck your putting-words-in-my-mouthism.

@21:

The actual amount is closer to 66%, but regardless, when taking into account the more than $2T of SS reserves invested in government securities, plus the interest those bonds generate, there's plenty of money available to keep the system solvent for decades.

"the money changers on Wall Street"

It's disgusting that The Stranger would use such an outrageously anti-semitic slur in a story about tax cuts. Shame, shame, shame on you.

#21 Millennials are the US's largest generation (Pew 2016). Where's that smaller generations BS you're claiming coming from?

#19 Those to the left of center (including living fossil liberals like Sanders) would much rather go after each other with sharpened blades over political and philosophical correctness than go after Republicans. They simply are unable to unite and continue to view those a few degrees on either side of their viewpoint as enemies, or maybe just easier targets than the Republican power structure. This has been happening for decades and shows no signs of abating. When it comes to elections, Republican unite, hold their noses, and vote for the party's candidates. That's why the GOP keeps winning, you leftist dolts. Stop trying to emulate the era of Lenin and Trotsky. It wasn't glamorous (it was a bloody mess), led to over a half century of repressive, brutal regimes that imprisoned and killed millions, and you're not even being original in your pseudo-leftist posing.

@ 32, or just raise the cap

Purris: Well said. The only difference between the far right and the far left is that the lefties are generally the good guys in that contest. But both extremes are equally rigid ideologically, and I've found, impervious to reason. And because most left of center urbanites are smarter than the venal and frightened throwbacks who vote god, guns, gays and abortion, there's a lot more nuance and substance in the ideas we come up with, offering room for argument, like smart people invariably do.

But the Republicans vote rock solid stupid every fucking time. There's no nuance in their little corner of hell. And the most maddening part is that the only reason these neanderthals are in power is because the ideologues on the left continue to believe that voting is an expression of ones personal feelings rather than serious responsibility with real consequences. Ask anyone who's about to kicked out of the country because of todays Supreme Court ruling.

I know, you hate Wall Street, etc. Who doesn't? But you know what I really hate? What our country has turned into because the intellectually pompous and self-centered left let an ugly minority take over, and that they bought into all the crap being fed to them by foreign trolls, and other fringies. And I hate that they'll probably do it again.

You know what I also hate? What a dreadful, poorly managed piece of dreck The Stranger has turned into - terrible layout that also takes forever to load (newish MacBook pro here), more ad bots than you could shake a used car salesman at, 1990's quality comment section, no editorial direction, let alone proof reading (all of the typos are, frankly, pathetic), ads mixed with content in a way that even the National Enquirer wouldn't stoop to, tolerance of amateurish content (no doubt a business decision), which cancels out the few good stories, and the 'nobody around here gives a shit' vibe that seems to get stronger every ad cycle. Craigslist. Get over it. Move on. Dan has.

#30 You obviously have me mistaken for someone else. I don't support political ideologies that are responsible for the slaughter of 100,000,000+ people. Communism, Socialism, and everything in between is a complete failure. It has never ended well.