There's a strong case to be made for deficit spending during a weak economy, but it's still a choice. We did the same thing in the 80s when the economy was horrible, but that didn't stop people from blaming Reagan for those deficits.
LOL! The economy was not horrible when Reagan was inaugurated. We were dealing with the tail end of an oil-price shock. We had been there and done that just six years earlier. What knocked the economy down was Reagan's own voodoo economic policies, specifically tight money that in the name of (unnecessary) inflation-fighting, slammed the door on growth and often much-needed investment, particularly in such industries as steel and autos. Conservatives are such goobers when it comes to economics.
We have of course always relied upon debt in times of national crisis. The Revolution, the Civil War, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and now the Great Bush Recession. What grave crisis was imperiling the nation in the 1980's? How about in 2000, when we were actually enjoying one of the great economic pinnacles in our history? There were in fact no reasons or justifications for the fiscal malfeasance of Reagan/Bush-41 or Bush-43. It was as if they had deliberately intended to harm the financial condition of the country.
The main issue with the OP is the way that debt is calculated. % GDP is the conventional way to measure deficits because it makes sense.
Many people just don't understand the difference between debt and deficits. Surpluses and deficits are conventionally stated in dollars and as the simple result of subtracting outlays from receipts. Debt is most often stated in simple dollars as well. There seem to be right-wingers loose and roaming the streets who think that percentages are just a statistical trick to hide what the real numbers are saying.
Debt-to-GDP ratios are commonly used by those who first understand and second are interested in a measure of the affordability of a given debt burden. Similar debt-to-income ratios are of course commonly used in mortgage underwriting. In the case of the US, one must first decide whether to include intragovernmental holdings in the calculation. Most other countries do not have such a category with 100% of their debt being held by the public. Depending on context, either including or exclduing intragovernmental holdings can be a dishonest ploy.
Reagan's deficits were ~4% GDP while Obama's are ~10% GDP.
Your claim is implicitly dishonest in that it seeks to charge Obama for declining receipts, declining GDP, and rising emergency support payments that were not the consequence of any Obama policy at all. Such dire conditions and many more were rather a direct consequence of the disastrous policies of Obama's miserably failed predecessor. Credit -- or in this case, blame -- where it is due.
Reagan and Bush-43 both accelerated base federal spending at rates approaching and at times exceeding 7% per annum. Obama has been at about half that. Reagan and Bush-43 both attempted to conjoin such enhanced spending with major tax cuts. Reagan at least awoke to the folly of his ways and reversed course in 1982, cancelling the final portion of his original tax cuts and then signing futher tax increases in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987. It was thus with President Read-My-Lips that deficits once again spun out of control.
The mess that Obama is cleaning up is bigger, but not that much bigger, not even close.
More horrible history. The underlying economic conditions that Obama was left to deal with were grave and entirely unprecedented. The nation had never been in such a situation before. Reagan inherited fallout from a garden-variety commodity shortage that had principally been resolved by the time he took office. There is no comparison at all between 1981 and 2009. The latter was by orders of magnitude more serious.
Reagan was far more fiscally responsible than Obama.
LOL! Reagan was a budget profligate who had to be taught the error of his ways. Cut taxes, ramp up the military, and balance the budget in three years??? I don't think so. But he still did boost spending at near-record rates. Billions for Star Wars but not much for AIDS. Obama has meanwhile been trying to restore fiscal eqilibirium since the recession offiially ended. He has repeatedly over the past 18 months put packages on the table that would achieve a minimum of $4 trillion in deficit reductions over ten years. Republicans can't/won't touch them because they include modest tax increases. Who's the problem here, again?
