ECONOMIC CYCLE

The Republican party claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but are they? Under the Republicans we saw the overheated economy of the roaring Twenties ending with the Great Depression beginning in 1929. Roosevelt and the Democrats came in 1933 and over the following years built the American economy back up. That growth continued during the post war years under both Republican and Democratic administrations, but eventually inevitably stopped. Bill Clinton brought in a Democratic economic policy of enough income tax that was able to balance the budget and maintain social policies. During the Republican Bush administration taxes were lowered to benefit the richest people while an expensive war was conducted on borrowed money in order to keep the low taxes low. This resulted in a collapse of the economy at the end of that administration. Then the Obama Democratic administration started the slow process of rebuilding the economy and reinstituting social justice. Now the Trump Republican administration has taken credit for the economic growth begun by Obama while instituting a tax policy which will rob our treasury and while creating isolationist tariffs against our allies which will adversely affect trade. The effects of economic policies take time to to take effect. After Trump is out of office and the damage becomes obvious, Trump will then blame anyone but himself.
So in summary, the cycles have been short term economic gains at the expense of the middle class and social programs until the economy collapses. The Democrats then come in to clean up the mess, but the results are often too slow for the public which then elects another Republican government, and the cycle starts all over again. To make matters worse, this time we have Trumpism mixed in the soup which brings in dishonesty, tribalism, bigotry, alienation of our allies, opposition to immigration, collusion with a foreign dictator, corruption, and attacks on American justice to protect that corruption. We have survived the economic cycles in the past. Let us hope that Trump's attacks on American norms and America's allies are also correctable.