WHY the Republicans will ALWAYS run up the National Debt

I'd like to think that I'm not one to buy into paranoid copnspiracy theories too easily.  I mean... I've said many times that the Skeptic's Dictionary is my bible.  I think Glenn Beck is a delusional loon in desperate need of medication.  So, yeah... I'd like to think I know crazy when I see it.  Also, I'd like to think that, at least in the long term, people tend to be rational.  (Or failing that, then at least in the short term!)  And that's what's so crazy about the insane idea I'm about to present: It's really, truly rational, from the point of view of those on the Right.

In my last post I think I clearly demonstrated that, despite their rhetoric, it's Republicans rather than Democrats that spend like drunken sailors and run up huge debts.  And at the end I said that I'd explain why this is the case, or at least has been since 1980.  And it sounds crazy, unless you're just predisposed to believe ANYTHING about Republican's, but I'm actually not one of those types.  In fact when I first read this from some poster on MMFA a year or two ago, I dismissed it as "liberal bullshit." (Which, as a liberal, I think I'm especially entitled to call out from time to time! LOL) But the more I think about the more I appreciate the genius of it.

One of the things that you always hear from the Right is that we've got to rein in (get rid of) entitlements.  It's a nice buzzword that you can throw out there if you want to sound intelligent to a conservative crowd. (Of course, sounding intelligent isn't the same as BEING intelligent, but you won't get along with these people using your fancy librul edukashun and yer fancy librul LOGIC and REASONIN'.)  ANYWAY "entitlements" is a fancy way of saying, "Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Food Stamps, etc..." and if you REALLY but into it you can throw in Public Schools, and just about everything else that most reasonable, moderate people have come to expect their governement to provide.  You see... the Right HATES these things.  They HATE they idea that someone might get something they didn't "earn" and that someone else (on the Right) is losing an opportunity to profit from providing it to them.  You see, in their ideal world, you'd have two classes: Company Owners and the Shleps who work for them.  One group would have pretty much EVRERYTHING and the other would have whatever the HAVES felt they were worth.  So... yeah, pretty much nothing.  It's the kind of environment revolutions spring from, but most on the Right think that little more than a bluff these days, at least in this country.  Anyway, suffice to say that ANYTHING that HELPS PEOPLE has to go.  After all, if people stay poor, then the cost of labor goes down, and it's supply-side economic heaven.  (Which is to say, HELL, but I'll save that for another post!)

So they want to kill Social Security, Medicare, etc... But the pretty much know they can't actually RUN on that platform.  President Eisenhower knew this to be true:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

(What happened to these kinds of Republicans?!)

So what to do? How do we get people on board with this?  Well, one way would be to run up huge deficits every year, and get to the point where financing the National Debt (that means the annual interest payments) would end up consuming so much of the Federal Budget that we would be left with NO CHOICE but to gut or cut these programs.  Now it's not like they can do this in just one year.  People might notice.  And congress, and the public will never go along with it, right?  But this has been going on for THIRTY YEARS now! Two or three generations of Americans have grown up knowing nothing but huge federal deficits, and have come of age to the constannt drum beat of how there's a crisis in Social Security and a crisis in Medicare... And by now, we almost take for granted that these programs are doomed.  That they won't be around by the time we retire.  And the media (all of whom are corporate owned, which means all ofwhom are Right leaning) have been very complicit in driving this message home, and in helping perpetuate the narrtive that it the spending levels of the Democrats that are the problem.

And think about it... At this point how DO we fix things?  Well... the right knows that only one or two thigns will happen: Either we cut spending, which will effect these programs.  That's fine with them, that's thei rultimate goal - to get rid of these programs.  Or we raise taxes.  And WHO will raise taxes?  Well, the DEMOCRATS of course!  Because they're the only one interested in sustainable long-term governance!  There only only ones interested in reversing this trend.  Tax-cuts and higher defiicits serve the Republican cause!  But the Right, and their lap-dogs in the media will hammer home the narritive that the Democrats are the "tax-and-spenders" and not showing "fiscal discipline."  They'll never really show you that the crisis was created entirely by Republicans, specifically so they can either gut these otherwise perfectly sustainable (and popular!) programs or be able top paint the Democrats as the party of "high taxes" and use this to win elections and get right back to their agenda of bankrupting the Government... in order to get rid of these otherwise sustainable (and popular!) programs.

At least when a Liberal runs a deficit, it with a Keynsian motive in mind: They want to help the economy, save jobs and maintain people's financial security.  And running deficits by NOT raising taxes and NOT cutting speding will do just that.  But the way these Republicans act, doing this even in boom-times, I can't see any rational outcome OTHER than bankrupting the governement.  So I ask again: WHO'S the party of fiscal responsibility?  The one who taxes and spends in a effort to improve the economy, and help improve people's standard of living, or the one who wants to bankrupt the government, get rid of all social programs, and eventually pay NO TAXES so that they can keep ALL the money, and no one else can have ANYTHING?

I realize that I'm channeling Glenn  Beck at this point, but I challenge you to come up with any other explanation that can reconcile Republican fiscal rhetoric with Republican fiscal POLICY.