My Favorite Palinisms

Now that Fox News fired her, before she exits stage right - far right - Sarah Palin deserves a review of her Greatest Hits - my favorite Palinisms:

On Death Panels:  "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." 8/7/09

On free-riding a socialist healthcare system:  "We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn't that ironic?"  You betcha! - 3/6/10

On President Obama the Troop Hater:  “Our opponent voted to cut off funding for our troops.  He did this even after saying that he wouldn’t do such a thing. And he said, too, that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, ‘air-raiding villages and killing civilians.’ I hope Americans know that is not what our brave men and women are doing in Afghanistan.” - 10/7/08
  ... and Terrorist Buddy:  "[President Obama was] paling around with terrorists." - multiple campaign appearances 2008.
  ... and Communist:  The "Left" and President Obama believe that "if we all just magically had the same number of material possessions, we'd all be happy.   And their preferred way of bringing about this magical situation is by redistributing income.  During the campaign, Obama called it 'spreading the wealth.'  Whatever the term, it means government taking from some and giving to others." (America by Heart)
  ... and America-basher: His trip abroad was a "global apology tour."
  ... and Fetus-Hater-Child-Exploiter:  "Using kids as the backdrop for his gun control speech, the President claimed his commitment to young ones'.  She added that 'the hypocrisy of it all, however, is that while the President publicly acknowledged the value of "even one life", he has failed to acknowledge as much when it comes to 'protecting the lives of children soon to be born.'" 1/23/12
  ... who did not deserve being named Time's Man of the Year:  "What has he done?  For the life of me, I don't know."

On Gun Control:  “The bad guys, the criminals, don’t follow laws and restricting more of America’s freedoms when it comes to self-defense isn’t the answer.” -7/26/12 following the Aurora shooting.

On Animal Rights:  "Some of these animal activists are just...crazy," she said. "They think we're killing Bambi's mother. I love animals, but in Alaska, Bambi's mother is dinner." - 2010 NRA Convention
   "If a caribou needs to be sacrificed for the sake of energy independence," she adds, "I say, 'Mr. Caribou, maybe you need to take one for the team.'" 1/30/11

On the Evils of Medicare:  "Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction" a quotation of Ronald Reagan when the B Actor had been hired to campaign against Medicare which if passed would extinguish freedom in America and leave "children and our children's children" sitting around lamenting "what is once like in the United States when men were free"

On Social Justice:  It's not really necessary since the "Left" and the "mainstream media" are "dwelling on scars" and wrong when they "think America ... is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country" (America by Heart).

On the Newspapers She Reads Regularly: "All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years." She was unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

On her favorite Supreme Court Ruling:  "Well, let's see. There's -- of course -- in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings." She was unable to name a Supreme Court decision other than Roe vs. Wade, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

On naming children:  Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, Trig.   These are the actual names she gave her five children.  Her explanation:   "Piper was named after Todd's airplane, the Piper Cub, which gets us to the hunting grounds," she explains. "Bristol, Bristol Bay fishing grounds. Willow, a local sport-fishing stream. Trig, I pull the TRIG-ger. Track ... I remember when we told my dad that his grandson was named Track, he said, 'Like TRACKing an elephant?'" -1/30/11

On dead Civil War generals commenting on American foreign policy today:  "First, McClellan did not say definitively that the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. Certain accounting for different conditions in that country and conditions are certainly different."  (The commanding general in Afghanistan at the time was General McKiernan, not General McClellan, who had commanded the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War.)

On energy independence:  "Drill, baby drill!"

On global warming:  "[I am not] an Al Gore doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."  9/13/08

On Europeans' Laziness:  Europeans "have an easier time stirring up class envy to justify redistributing wealth through higher taxes."   Here in America, "we are not obsessed with class differences... that's the reason we work so hard."  (America by Heart)

On Theocracy:   "God is the source of our rights, not government."  (America by Heart).

On Egypt (I think):  “And nobody yet has, nobody yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak and no, not, not real enthused about what it is that that’s being done on a national level and from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt. And, in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it’s not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House. We need to know what it is that America stands for so we know who it is that America will stand with. And, we do not have all that information yet.” 2/5/11

The Poetry of Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin's run-on sentences are longer than mine (but reach no conclusion).  They make excellent poetry however.  Consider the following based on a completely unedited, straight-up Palinism:


My name? Like me -- I had known what I was doing
  by
Sarah Palin

I think
   he diminished himself by
     even mentioning
       my name.
How does he even know
       my name?
I mean
   aren’t these guys
      supposed to be these
         big
         wig elites
            who don’t waste their time on
the little people
        like me --
me
   representing the
      average American who,
   yeah
      I did say
         in Alaska you can see Russia
             from our land
                base and
      I was making
          the point that
             we are strategically located
             on the globe and when it comes to
                   transportation corridors and
                   resources that are
                        shared and
                        fought over [in] Alaska and
      I as the governor
          had known what I was doing in
             dealing with
                 some
                     international issues that
                     had to do with our
                           resources that
                               could
                                  help
                                     secure
                                        the nation.

If fundamentalists are right, then we are all in deep, deep trouble... especially fundamentalists!

If the vision of god depicted by modern Christian fundamentalists is correct, we are all truly hosed. 
Jesus said a camel could get through the eye of a needle easier than the rich could get into heaven and by world standards, certainly by historical standards, even the poorest of us in the West is very, very rich. We wear mixed cotton-polyester blends and all enjoy vegetables, whether we realize it or not, that have been raised using biblically forbidden methods such as crop rotation and not observing every seventh year of letting fields lie idle. Some of us eat shellfish, even rabbit, and don't get me started about bacon and pork. We work on Saturday (a capital offense - try explaining to Yahweh that we changed the Sabbath on him) and have abolished slavery without compensating the slave-owner, two biblical offenses. 
We allow women not only to enter a temple while menstruating (we don't even ask anymore) and to argue with her husband (both explicitly forbidden in the Bible) but to own property and vote. (The whole idea of voting and limited government has no basis or precedent in biblical teachings.)  Fathers who beat their children as the Bible commands are now prosecuted, not praised, and parents no longer have the biblically-guaranteed right to kill their children or sell them into slavery if they talk back or if  father, who is, as the Bible tells us, lord of the home in the same way god is lord of the world, thinks it best.  
Yes, our penal code has become more compassionate, but in doing so, it has deviated dangerously from biblical teachings.  We do not stone adulterers or cut off the hand of thieves.  We no longer pull out people's tongues for saying religiously offensive things as the Bible commands, nor do we pour molten liquid down their throats.  
We no longer practice animal sacrifice, the heart of religious service in the time of Jesus;  I honestly can't remember the last time I made a burnt offering to the Lord. 
Since Jesus said we should not just forgive our enemies but love them, I imagine that excluded pre-emptive war and torture, so anyone who participated or supported those un-Christian activities might have a lot of explaining to do. 
Many of Jesus's followers were quite confident they were following his teachings but again and again he reminded them that 
  a.) they were coming up short and 
  b.) that god, not they, would be the judge of that, and that some of them would be in for a nasty surprise, especially those - surprise, surprise! - who had abandoned the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, and by so doing had abandoned Jesus. 
Now I'm not saying that I endorse this belief system but if I became "born again" tomorrow unless I suffered a head injury that made me incapable of reading or thinking, I would be filled with dread and humility, not joy and self-congratulatory pride.  Accepting the "many are called but few are chosen" view of reality is dark enough; why rub it in by going around telling everyone that you are among the few (and by implication everyone else is going to hell forever and ever, amen)?  
Accepting the Christian world view as it is understood by fundamentalists of the American variety would be like accepting that you are enrolled in a course set up so that most people will fail, with a cranky professor prone to fits of homicidal rage who never directly tells you what you have to do (he doesn't even bother to make his presence known) to pass the course ready not just to fail you but to torture you for failing.
I just don't see how this could be comforting to anyone and doubt anyone who has really thought it through could either (which is why I believe most fundamentalists have not done much thinking).  There is a reason generations of Christians described themselves as god-fearing instead of the current batch of god-gloaters. 
If Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and Glenn Beck are all going to heaven because they have decided they are, then I am not all that sure I would want to go there anyway.

Slave Talk: Tennessee Tea Party Move to Purge Slavery From History Books Reminds me of a 2007 Visit to Magnolia Plantation Outside of Charleston, South Carolina

After reading that the Tennessee Tea Party would like to revise history taught to children to downplay slavery and the struggle of minorities (so as not to detract from the revolutionary if imperfect progress of our founders), I was reminded of a 2007 visit our family made to the Magnolia Plantation outside Charleston, where a descendant of the original owner came to give a "slave talk" at one of the restored slave cabins. He went on to deliver a series of platitudes, half-truths, and some fabrications created during the Lost Cause era when revisionists wanted us to remember that the South fought for states rights but to forget that the right in question was the  right to own slaves. 

He said that no one was ever beaten to death.  He was confident of this because there are no records indicating any slave was ever beaten to death on the plantation. Slavery was not the great "atrocity" some people might want you to believe it was, he reassured the all-white crowd who had come for a Magnolia Plantation Gone With the Wind experience devoid of any nagging reminders of who drained the swamps and tilled the grounds and created the wealth that allowed the plantation they could never enter to be erected. Why, did we know that slaves were allowed to leave the plantation and go into Charleston to buy things for their masters and they all returned?  Now if slavery was such a hell on earth, why did they all come back to it?

I had heard enough at that point.  Trying to sound polite, probably without success, I asked, "Where exactly could they have gone?"

He looked at me a little puzzled by the question. 

"I mean," I continued.  "They were deep in slave territory.  A slave owner had every legal right to beat a runaway slave to death as an example to other slaves.  Not only that, by law anyone who caught a runaway slave had a duty to return that slave to his owner.  After the Dred Scott Decision, this was true even if the slave managed to make it all the way to the North.  The Fugitive Slave Act made it a felony not to return a slave to its rightful owner, even if the slave escaped to a free state." 

About this time, there was a whole lot of uncomfortable shifting going on.   The guy talking repeated that there were no records of anyone being beaten or whipped to death on the plantation. 

"Yes," I countered. "There were no records that Thomas Jefferson had sex with his slaves - and he gave his word of honor that he had not when allegations came up in the campaign of 1800 - but we now know from DNA evidence that he was lying. The absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence." 

He puzzled over this a bit, then took a different tack, claiming that the South probably would have given up slavery if the North had just left them alone and let them do it on their own time. To which I countered that there was a fire-breathing South Carolinian named John C. Calhoun - he might have heard of him since he has a huge statue and several streets and a square in Charleston named after him - said just the opposite, stating that slavery was a "positive good" the South should not just defend but should never apologize for.   

About this time, my family was mad enough at me for spoiling everyone's fun that I decided I had had enough of this slave talk, so decided to leave, but it reminded me that there is a huge chunk of our population that simply wants to pretend this horror never happened.  There is something disturbing (or should be) about the fact that one out of five Americans were in bondage at the time of the founding of the Land of the Free. If we don't know our history, we are doomed to repeat it, and if we really think that slavery wasn't a great trans-generational crime, as Sarah Palin and Glenn Bleck seem to think, then what followed, including a century of slave-cropping, Jim Crow, and use of the southern penal system as a de facto source of compulsory, uncompensated labor (read Douglas Blackmon's Pulitzer Prize winner Slavery by Another Name for details), makes no sense. It's just "dwelling on scars" to talk about slavery according to these folks. Which is why these folks scare me so much.

If This Were Fiction, No One Would Believe It...

If events in Washington were fictional (sometimes we all wish they were), and we were all part of some screenplay, the first thing a good editor would tell us is to rewrite the whole damn thing, starting with the names.  The conversation might run something like this...


Now you've got to change the names here. You can't have a president who has the middle name Hussein and use that name for your villain in Iraq. And what are the odds that his last name - Obama - shares every letter but one with the other bad guy's first name - Osama? It's weird. 
You're already asking the reader to buy the idea that Americans would vote for a black man after a century of owning them and another century fighting like hell to keep them from voting.   IF that would ever happen, you've got to make it believable, starting with the name.  Only in a novel would more Americans vote for a guy with a name like Barack Hussein Obama than for any presidential candidate ever. Right.  
And it just doesn't seem plausible that this pointy-headed academic Constitutional law professor named Obama would nail Osama in only 2 years when his predecessor - the one with the custom-made flight suit and the Mission Accomplished banner who kept falling off the bike - couldn't do it in 8.   Why build this Bush character up to be a man's man, a brush-clearing, smoke-'em-out, dead-or-alive sort of tough guy only to make him look so ineffective by comparison?    
But that's just the beginning.  Who is this guy Boehner. Really?  Don't tell me how it's SUPPOSED to be pronounced; readers are going to pronounce it as they see it and they will think of what it sounds like.  And this after an administration run by two guys named Dick and Bush?   Right.  
Then you have these shadowy billionaires financing the Tea Party and you just had to call them Koch... no, no, stop telling me how it's SUPPOSED to be pronounced; no reader will look at that name and think of COKE.   And he has to start a party of mostly white guys running around getting all excited and calling each other tea-baggers?   You've managed to take an explicit gay sexual act and turn it into something disgusting. 
And what's the name of this minor character from the Dick and Bush era who gets convicted of obstruction of justice but pardoned by the guy he lied for? Scooter?  You're pulling my leg, right?  I have never met an adult named Scooter.  I don't care if it's a nickname, it's weird.  Next you'll be saying there's a Newt in there... 
Oh, you've got to be kidding me! And this Newt fellow goes after a president for adultery in Act 1, Scene 1, impeaches the guy, but we learn in Act 2 that Newt was committing adultery during the impeachment process?  
And at the end of the book, the guy he went after is more popular than god, touring the world wiping out hunger with a rock star named... Bono; and this same rock star was giving advice to a Republican Treasury secretary about alleviating poverty in Africa and this Republican guy listened?   C'mon.  It's just not believable. 
OK, so Newt gets voted out of office, but makes a come back after writing a series of books on Saving America from - is this right? - a "Right Wing Secular Liberal Machine"?  Those are really his words?   So he's not just a hypocrite, but a nut job.  Readers will feel insulted, especially Republican readers.   The Party of Lincoln, even in a novel, would not stoop that low.  You have to make him likable at some level. 
And you' can't have a bad guy who made off with everyone's money named Madoff, and if you do, you can't have it pronounced that way. It's just way too heavy-handed. And if you're going to have another bad guy caught up in another massive scandal, do you have to call him Abramoff. What is this, Dr. Seuss?
And this Palin lady - at least her name doesn't sound like a body part - but you're seriously going to have her quit halfway through her term in Alaska, sign a multi-million dollar book deal, then claim to be a moose-hunting hockey mom?  She can't have her employer build a sophisticated sound studio in the basement of her house then claim that the "lamestream media" is trying to shut her up because she is conservative.  And lose the "lamestream" part - there is no way a woman with a disabled child would use a word like "lame" in that way.  If we want to like her, she has to have some sensitivity or compassion.
It's way too ironic having her teenage daughter get pregnant after she advocated  abstinence-only education while governor of Alaska. It's like you're making fun of these guys.  Do you think the Republicans would be so dumb as to run her if they knew what a mess her family was.  And no kids - none - are ever REALLY called Track, Trig, Willow, or Piper.  Bristol, fine, that's cute, but then you get her knocked up.  

You just can't make her so dumb.  What person with a pulse, much less one who wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, couldn't name a single supreme court decision or newspaper she reads, or thinks Africa is a country?   If you're going to have her talk about death panels why immediately alert the reader to the fact that they don't exist?   It kills the plot; once again we have a bunch of crazy people talking about things that they should know aren't real and why? 

Why not tease the reader along, or write some actual death panels into the plot.  This Obama fellow seems a bit too perfect, too polished, too likable.  If he had some sort of dark secret, this could be it.  But then you have to ask why he would be so stupid as to sneak something into a bill that he himself is signing, not writing. 

Oh, and don't have Palin put cross hairs over a likable Congresswoman whose husband is an ASTRONAUT no less (who just happens to have an identical astronaut twin (right!) who is in charge of the space station) then have this lady get shot.  It's too ironic and heavy-handed.   If you do carry out this ridiculous subplot, at least give Palin some capacity for introspection or remorse.  She can't go comparing herself to victims of the Holocaust or pogroms against Jews.  She sounds not just dumb and irony-challenged, but whiny.  I don't like her and I'll bet most readers won't either.  At least most readers have to be given some reason as to why intelligent voters would ever find such a person appealing. 

And if you're going to have an Axis of Evil introduced in Chapter 2, follow up.  You can't have one country invaded and the other two sort of fizzle out.  I like that phrase, by the way, it's got a nice zing to it, but do two of the countries have to share 3 out of 4 letters - you're asking a lot of American readers not to confuse  Iraq and Iran.  Why not fictionalize one, call it Iraqistan or something, or make the other one Canada?  

And this Birther subplot sounds bizarre.  Why are all these Tea Party guys so convinced the president, the first African American president, is really only African?  And everyone who obsesses over this mysterious birth certificate that you tell the reader in Chapter Three was never in doubt and in fact had been released just happens to be white?  Come on.   Readers do not like racist characters, even crafty villain types and these guys aren't even crafty.  
Readers are going to lose patience with these guys.  I know I did.  Move on already. 
And you can't have these Republicans threatening to go after Medicare, Social Security, Head Start, healthcare for poor children - poor children! - AND help for 9-11 volunteers.  We're talking VOLUNTEERS!  On 9-11!   People would be on the streets if this really happened.  And why?  You're trying to make the case that this party is smart but crafty, but here they just seem dumb, trying to plug a trillion dollar hole with a few pennies.  
I like this Rose character who goes into women's healthcare clinics with a hidden camera to nail workers saying stupid things; you have the beginnings of a likable anti-hero, a single issue woman out to single handedly take on this evil organization, but there has to be more.   The organization has to be evil, or she just looks like another nut.   You can't have her going after a group that mostly provides cancer screening and medical care to poor women and girls.   Again, it sounds mean-spirited.  Why not have her infiltrate a hedge fund or oil company?  
You have all these random characters running around with their pet issues and none of them make any sense at the end of the day.  But you could work with her.  I would make her a former porn star or stripper, someone who maybe felt pressured to have an abortion when she was working her way through college, doing tricks on the side, that sort of thing.  Gets real mad, maybe work in a feminist angle.  Abortion as the subjugation of women or something.  It would be unexpected, counter-stereotypical, and might just work. 
But she has to really find a real scandal, otherwise she just looks like another nutty character pursuing her pet issue.   How about something along the lines of higher ups in this evil organization selling fetal body parts on ebay to a diabolical Chinese manufacturer of puppy dog chow?  Now THAT would be a scandal.   This stuff about a bonehead employee counseling fake pimps about dodging reporting requirements does nothing for me.  It's not the sort of stuff Republican lawmakers would present as evidence on the floor of Congress.  
And lose this white loser side kick who dresses up as the world's most unconvincing pimp and goes after all these black organizations like Acorn and what not.  He's too overtly racist, too much of a scumbag.   I'm telling you, most readers are going to feel that you're mocking them and some do care about these issues.  
That Trump character - Trump is the best you could do? - comes across as an evil megalomaniac with an obsession for birth certificates everyone in the book has seen but him.  How can a guy have a helicopter but not an internet connection?  He looks thoroughly moronic sending his "people" off to Hawaii to look for a birth certificate while the president is busy producing Osama's death certificate.  Readers don't like stupid characters, even villains.  And all this stuff about his hair is gratuitous.  Give him some off-setting virtue, maybe make him a really good juggler or something.  
And I guess that's my biggest problem with the book:  why do all these white people think this Obama guy is so bad?   You've got to make the economy heading toward a depression, not on the mend.  The stock market should be crashing, not double what it was 2 months after he took office.  If he lowered taxes for the very rich and everyone else, but they keep calling him a socialist, after awhile these white guys just look angry and kind of dumb.  It makes no sense.  
Where's the catastrophe?   Where is the deep, dark secret that he is desperately trying to hide?  Look, if you want to make this guy into a disaster, bring some of that bad stuff the Bush and Dick people did, like have Obama be the one deregulate the financial industry, watch it blow up as a result, then turn around and hit up the tax payers for $700 billion to fix his mess.    Can't you move this Hurricane Katrina - the only name I like in the book - to Obama's watch?   Having all these poor black people abandoned by a black president would be a twist; having a rich white guy do it is a stereotype.  Too much.  
I like the oil spill, thought you were going somewhere with that, but it sort of made all those Republicans chanting "Drill, baby, drill!" or whatever sound massively discredited.  Again.  C'mon, they have to do something right. 
Have Bush and Dick find something in Iraq, some suspicious powder, a suicide goat stuffed with plutonium, a diabolical anthrax lab.  They can't go charging in and find nothing; hell, at least have them plant something.  
You can't have all this bad stuff happening on his predecessor's watch, then have him look so good by comparison.
And I've got problems with these other names.  
Like Huckabee. Why not just call him Aw-Shucks-abee? When I hear Huckabee, I think of a barefoot guy on a raft drifting down the Mississippi River with a straw hat and a runaway slave.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not very presidential.
Mitt Romney - is a name maybe we can work with but why not give him a real name like Mitchel or Michael or something. Mitt is something you use in baseball to catch balls.  And frankly, we don't need any images that can be worked into a crude joke, even indirectly.
And you can't have Mitt running against his own healthcare reform plan.  It's just too sloppy, too ironic, plot-wise. 
I guess you have to ask if you're writing farce or fiction.  If it's fiction, it's got to be believable.  Even a farce has to give the Mitts and Newts and Kochs and Boehners some redeeming qualities, starting with their names.  You can't have all these angry white guys with bad names reflexively hating the first African American president for the flimsiest and weirdest of reasons.  There is no way the press in a free country would let them get away with that sort of crap.  No one would ever believe it.  

History versus the Tea Party: Why Most of the Tea Party's Economic Claims are Simply Not True

Debt v. GDP:  Are High Levels of Government Debt Harmful to Economic Growth?

It has become such a Tea Party axiom that high levels of government debt crush economic growth that you think the two must be strongly inversely correlated, that periods of high government debt are followed by periods of lower economic growth and vice versa.

Although there is a relationship, it is not nearly this simple.  

First, of course, the two variables are not independent.  As economic growth declines, government debt increases as tax revenues of a slower national income stream dry up while more people require expensive government programs from unemployment benefits to Medicaid.  Conversely, when economic growth picks up, so does government revenue, while demand for government services drops as fewer people require public assistance.  

Table One:  Debt Versus GDP and Next Year's GDP Growth 1977-2010:

Budget Year:	Pres:	Debt:	GDP:	dGDP+%
1977	Carter	0.699	1.974	12.4%
1978	Carter	0.772	2.218	12.8%
1979	Carter	0.827	2.502	8.9%
1980	Carter	0.908	2.725	12.3%
1981	Reagan	0.994	3.059	5.5%
1982	Reagan	1.137	3.226	6.7%
1983	Reagan	1.371	3.443	11.7%
1984	Reagan	1.564	3.847	7.9%
1985	Reagan	1.817	4.149	6.2%
1986	Reagan	2.120	4.407	5.6%
1987	Reagan	2.345	4.654	7.7%
1988	Reagan	2.601	5.012	7.8%
1989	Bush	2.867	5.402	6.2%
1990	Bush	3.206	5.737	3.4%
1991	Bush	3.598	5.934	5.2%
1992	Bush	4.001	6.241	5.4%
1993	Clinton	4.351	6.578	5.9%
1994	Clinton	4.643	6.964	5.2%
1995	Clinton	4.920	7.325	5.1%
1996	Clinton	5.181	7.697	6.4%
1997	Clinton	5.369	8.187	5.4%
1998	Clinton	5.478	8.626	5.8%
1999	Clinton	5.605	9.127	6.4%
2000	Clinton	5.628	9.708	3.6%
2001	Bush	5.769	10.060	3.2%
2002	Bush	6.198	10.378	4.1%
2003	Bush	6.760	10.804	6.5%
2004	Bush	7.354	11.504	6.4%
2005	Bush	7.905	12.235	6.3%
2006	Bush	8.451	13.010	4.9%
2007	Bush	8.951	13.642	4.3%
2008	Bush	9.654	14.222	5.7%
2009	Obama	10.413	15.027	5.1%
2010	Obama	13.954	15.792	3.0%

Note that both debt and GDP have increased every year in this particular time series, but it's the one most often used by the Tea Party to make their case.

Table 1b.  Debt as a Percentage of GDP Versus Subsequent 12-Month Change in GDP:

Budget Year:	Pres:	Debt as % of GDP:	dGDP+%
1977	Carter	35.4%	12.4%
1978	Carter	34.8%	12.8%
1979	Carter	33.0%	8.9%
1980	Carter	33.3%	12.3%
1981	Reagan	32.5%	5.5%
1982	Reagan	35.2%	6.7%
1983	Reagan	39.8%	11.7%
1984	Reagan	40.7%	7.9%
1985	Reagan	43.8%	6.2%
1986	Reagan	48.1%	5.6%
1987	Reagan	50.4%	7.7%
1988	Reagan	51.9%	7.8%
1989	Bush	53.1%	6.2%
1990	Bush	55.9%	3.4%
1991	Bush	60.6%	5.2%
1992	Bush	64.1%	5.4%
1993	Clinton	66.1%	5.9%
1994	Clinton	66.7%	5.2%
1995	Clinton	67.2%	5.1%
1996	Clinton	67.3%	6.4%
1997	Clinton	65.6%	5.4%
1998	Clinton	63.5%	5.8%
1999	Clinton	61.4%	6.4%
2000	Clinton	58.0%	3.6%
2001	Bush	57.3%	3.2%
2002	Bush	59.7%	4.1%
2003	Bush	62.6%	6.5%
2004	Bush	63.9%	6.4%
2005	Bush	64.6%	6.3%
2006	Bush	65.0%	4.9%
2007	Bush	65.6%	4.3%
2008	Bush	67.9%	5.7%
2009	Obama	69.3%	5.1%
2010	Obama	88.4%	3.0%

If debt were inversely correlated with GDP growth, you would expect to see this from a simple correlation of the two variables, as indeed you do:
The correlation coefficient between the two is -.612 indicating a modest inverse relationship but the R2, a measure of how well the data points fit a line, is a weak .375 (normal for noisy economic time series, however).

When debt ranged from $700 billion to $930 trillion, the average growth in GDP was 11.6% the next year*.  As debt increased, average growth in GDP dropped, with the exception of the 75th-90th percentile of debt (6.09-8.80 trillion) which was followed by a higher after GDP growth rate (5.6%) than the stratum below (5.1% for debt ranging from $4.50 to $6.09 trillion).  

When adjusted for size of the economy, the debt relationship was a bit stronger, with a -.697 correlation coefficient and a .485 R2 (1.0 would indicate a perfect fit with a straight line).

Table Two:  Starting Debt level versus subsequent 12-month change in GDP, 1977-2009:

Sliced data:			Debt
		n:	From:	To:	GDP growth:
	Min-10%	4	0.70	0.93	11.6%
	10-25%	5	0.93	1.89	7.6%
	25-50%	8	1.89	4.50	6.4%
	50-75%	8	4.50	6.09	5.1%
	75-90%	5	6.09	8.80	5.6%
	90-Max	4	8.80	13.95	4.5%
		34
In fourths:
		n:	From:	To:	GDP growth:
	Min-25%	9	0.70	1.89	9.4%
	25-50%	8	1.89	4.50	5.9%
	50-75%	8	4.50	6.09	5.1%
	75-Max	9	6.09	13.95	5.1%
		34
In thirds:
		n:	From:	To:	GDP Growth:
	Bottom	11	0.70	2.57	8.9%
	Middle	11	2.57	5.58	5.6%
	Top	12	5.58	13.95	4.9%
		34

The economy did seem to grow fastest when the debt was in the lowest quartile, but the strength of the correlation weakened as the debt increased.   In other words, average growth almost halved from the lowest quartile to the second highest quartile of debt (from 9.4% to 5.1%) but this decrease did not continue into the highest quartile which was roughly equal to the penultimate quartile and only marginally lower than the second quartile (5.1% v. 5.9%). 

Debt versus GDP year-over-year change following each debt observation 1977-2010 divided into strata by starting debt with subsequent average GDP growth.  While very low debt levels were followed by strong growth, the inverse trend flattened out with only slightly below average growth for above average debt.
 * the reason these GDP growth numbers are much higher than the headline GDP growth numbers reported is because they are nominal, using raw GDP, rather than inflation-adjusted (real) using GDP adjusted for inflation.

When debt is expressed as a percentage of GDP, the relationship becomes a bit clearer - lower levels of debt are followed by higher levels of GDP growth.  However, the highest levels of debt, those in the top decile, are followed by faster growth than those in the 75th-90th percentiles.  

Change in debt versus GDP Growth

Fair enough.  The absolute level of debt does seem to have some inverse correlation with subsequent economic growth, but what about changes in the debt level (or the deficit)?   Do markets respond better when the government is running a surplus than a deficit, and worse when the deficits are very large?  

Table Three:  Changes in Debt Year-Over-Year Versus Next 12 Months Change in GDP, 1977-2010:

Budget Year:	Pres:	dDebt%	dGDP+%
1978	Carter	10.4%	12.8%
1979	Carter	7.1%	8.9%
1980	Carter	9.8%	12.3%
1981	Reagan	9.5%	5.5%
1982	Reagan	14.4%	6.7%
1983	Reagan	20.6%	11.7%
1984	Reagan	14.1%	7.9%
1985	Reagan	16.2%	6.2%
1986	Reagan	16.7%	5.6%
1987	Reagan	10.6%	7.7%
1988	Reagan	10.9%	7.8%
1989	Bush	10.2%	6.2%
1990	Bush	11.8%	3.4%
1991	Bush	12.2%	5.2%
1992	Bush	11.2%	5.4%
1993	Clinton	8.7%	5.9%
1994	Clinton	6.7%	5.2%
1995	Clinton	6.0%	5.1%
1996	Clinton	5.3%	6.4%
1997	Clinton	3.6%	5.4%
1998	Clinton	2.0%	5.8%
1999	Clinton	2.3%	6.4%
2000	Clinton	0.4%	3.6%
2001	Bush	2.5%	3.2%
2002	Bush	7.4%	4.1%
2003	Bush	9.1%	6.5%
2004	Bush	8.8%	6.4%
2005	Bush	7.5%	6.3%
2006	Bush	6.9%	4.9%
2007	Bush	5.9%	4.3%
2008	Bush	7.9%	5.7%
2009	Obama	7.9%	5.1%
2010	Obama	34.0%	3.0%

The answer here seems to be a resounding Not Really.

First, the correlation coefficient is a positive .12, meaning that increases in debt are correlated, but very weakly, with growth in GDP.   The higher the percentage increase in debt, the higher the growth you can expect next year.  However, the R2 is .015, telling us the fit to a straight line is very poor.    At the very best, this tells us the Tea Party claim that increases in debt tend to be followed by poor economic growth is not true.  The fairest reading of these data is that there is no real correlation at all.  

It's quite clear that this relationship is neither linear nor inverse.   The economy performed weakly following periods of very low increases in debt, strongest when debt was increasing in the second quartile (50th-75th percentile) and actually performed second-strongest of all when debt was increasing maximally on a year-over-year basis (in the top decile).

If the Tea Party thesis were correct, then you would see tall bars on the left and shorter bars on the right.  You don't, so the Tea Party is wrong on this point. 

Now, this is not to argue that we should increase debt to goose the economy; there are many reasons not to increase debt and to balance your budget.  It just turns out that over the past 40 years, avoiding an economic slowdown has not been one of them. 

Does High Government Spending Lead to Slower Economic Growth? 

This is the next Tea Party thesis, that unless we shrink government spending, economic growth will be slow.  Since government spending relative to the economy has swung from a low of 18.4% under Clinton to a high of 23.5% under Reagan, it seems we might be able to answer this question. 

Table Four:  Government Spending as a % of GDP versus next 12 months change in GDP.

Budget Year:	Pres:	Expenses as a % of GDP:	dGDP+%
1977	Carter	20.7%	12.4%
1978	Carter	20.7%	12.8%
1979	Carter	20.1%	8.9%
1980	Carter	21.7%	12.3%
1981	Reagan	22.2%	5.5%
1982	Reagan	23.1%	6.7%
1983	Reagan	23.5%	11.7%
1984	Reagan	22.1%	7.9%
1985	Reagan	22.8%	6.2%
1986	Reagan	22.5%	5.6%
1987	Reagan	21.6%	7.7%
1988	Reagan	21.2%	7.8%
1989	Bush	21.2%	6.2%
1990	Bush	21.8%	3.4%
1991	Bush	22.3%	5.2%
1992	Bush	22.1%	5.4%
1993	Clinton	21.4%	5.9%
1994	Clinton	21.0%	5.2%
1995	Clinton	20.7%	5.1%
1996	Clinton	20.3%	6.4%
1997	Clinton	19.6%	5.4%
1998	Clinton	19.2%	5.8%
1999	Clinton	18.6%	6.4%
2000	Clinton	18.4%	3.6%
2001	Bush	18.5%	3.2%
2002	Bush	19.4%	4.1%
2003	Bush	20.0%	6.5%
2004	Bush	19.9%	6.4%
2005	Bush	20.2%	6.3%
2006	Bush	20.4%	4.9%
2007	Bush	20.0%	4.3%
2008	Bush	20.9%	5.7%
2009	Obama	20.7%	5.1%
2010	Obama	22.5%	3.0%

Once again, the Tea Party has got this relationship wrong.  Now it maybe that values extremely above or below the relatively narrow range of government spending we have seen in this time period may produce different results, or a different mix of government spending (more on education, research and development, less on defense, let's say) might yield different results, but if one simply looks at the aggregate size of government spending relative to the economy, government spending is positively correlated with changes in GDP:  the more government spending, the higher the economic growth the next year.   Now the relatively weak correlation coefficient of 0.25 and paltry .06 R2 means we should not base policy on this correlation, but if the Tea Party were correct, we would have a strong negative correlation coefficient and a much larger R2.

The linear equation from these data would be: 

  GDP Growth = .47 x government spending (as a % of GDP) + 3%

Again, given the very low R2, these data points do not fit a line, so it's dangerous even making such an equation, but if we had to, that is the best fit line we would make. 

Note that the highest level of government spending as a percentage of GDP led to the highest subsequent growth in GDP.  In this respect, the Keynesians are right and the Tea Party is wrong:  government spending, all things being equal, does seem to stimulate subsequent economic growth.

The sliced data tables follow:

Table Five:  Stratified Data showing various average GDP Growth Rates  for ranges of  government spending as a % of GDP:

Sliced data:			Government         Spending as a % of GDP:
		n:	From:	To:	dGDP:
	Min-10%	4	18.4%	19.2%	4.7%
	10-25%	5	19.2%	20.0%	5.3%
	25-50%	8	20.0%	20.8%	6.4%
	50-75%	8	20.8%	22.1%	6.8%
	75-90%	5	22.1%	22.5%	5.9%
	90-Max	4	22.5%	23.5%	6.9%
		34
In fourths:
		n:	From:	To:	dGDP:
	Min-25%	9	18.4%	20.0%	5.1%
	25-50%	8	20.0%	20.8%	7.7%
	50-75%	8	20.8%	22.1%	6.8%
	75-Max	9	22.1%	23.5%	6.4%
		34
In thirds:
		n:	From:	To:	dGDP:
	Bottom	11	18.4%	20.3%	5.5%
	Middle	11	20.3%	21.5%	7.0%
	Top	12	21.5%	23.5%	6.7%
		34

Do Tax Cuts Stimulate Economic Growth?

There are many ways to answer this question, but because of complexities in our tax code, the easiest way to address this question is to measure the individual income taxes collected relative to the size of the economy and see if the economy grows stronger when less is collected.   

Let's start though with all taxes collected, including individual income, corporate, estate, and excise taxes:

Table Six:  Taxes (Revenue) Collected as a Percentage of GDP versus subsequent GDP Growth:

Budget Year:	Pres:	Revenue as % of GDP:	dGDP+%
1977	Carter	18.0%	12.4%
1978	Carter	18.0%	12.8%
1979	Carter	18.5%	8.9%
1980	Carter	19.0%	12.3%
1981	Reagan	19.6%	5.5%
1982	Reagan	19.2%	6.7%
1983	Reagan	17.4%	11.7%
1984	Reagan	17.3%	7.9%
1985	Reagan	17.7%	6.2%
1986	Reagan	17.5%	5.6%
1987	Reagan	18.4%	7.7%
1988	Reagan	18.1%	7.8%
1989	Bush	18.3%	6.2%
1990	Bush	18.0%	3.4%
1991	Bush	17.8%	5.2%
1992	Bush	17.5%	5.4%
1993	Clinton	17.5%	5.9%
1994	Clinton	18.1%	5.2%
1995	Clinton	18.5%	5.1%
1996	Clinton	18.9%	6.4%
1997	Clinton	19.3%	5.4%
1998	Clinton	20.0%	5.8%
1999	Clinton	20.0%	6.4%
2000	Clinton	20.9%	3.6%
2001	Bush	19.8%	3.2%
2002	Bush	17.9%	4.1%
2003	Bush	16.5%	6.5%
2004	Bush	16.3%	6.4%
2005	Bush	17.6%	6.3%
2006	Bush	18.5%	4.9%
2007	Bush	18.8%	4.3%
2008	Bush	17.7%	5.7%
2009	Obama	14.0%	5.1%
2010	Obama	13.7%	3.0%

These numbers ranged from a high of 20.9% under Clinton's final year in office to a low of 13.7% in 2010 under President Obama.   How have they correlated with next year's growth in GDP?

Answer:  not at all.  The correlation coefficient is statistically zero (.04) indicating a small but positive correlation (higher tax collections leading to greater subsequent growth rates).  But the teeny .002 R2 indicates these numbers are all over the place, linear-speaking.  

Table Seven:  Revenues collected as a percentage of GDP versus next 12 Months Change in GDP.

Sliced data:
		n:	From:	To:	y:
	Min-10%	4	13.7%	16.7%	5.2%
	10-25%	5	16.7%	17.6%	7.3%
	25-50%	8	17.6%	18.0%	6.4%
	50-75%	8	18.0%	18.9%	6.2%
	75-90%	5	18.9%	19.7%	7.2%
	90-Max	3	19.7%	20.9%	5.1%
		33
In fourths:
		n:	From:	To:	y:
	Min-25%	9	13.7%	17.6%	6.4%
	25-50%	8	17.6%	18.0%	7.0%
	50-75%	8	18.0%	18.9%	6.2%
	75-Max	9	18.9%	20.9%	6.1%
		34
In thirds:
		n:	From:	To:	y:
	Bottom	11	13.7%	17.7%	6.4%
	Middle	11	17.7%	18.5%	6.9%
	Top	12	18.5%	20.9%	6.1%
		34

A picture is worth a thousand sound bites; if you can see a pattern in here, you're a better person than I am:

Extremely low or high tax collections are associated with weaker growth but beyond that, nothing much can be said.  The economy grows with all different rates of taxation, although admittedly the band of collection has been narrow.  Whenever total tax collection stays near 20%, taxes tend to get cut.

Do individual income tax collections inhibit economic growth?
Finally, I addressed what could be a quibble with the idea of looking at total government revenue; suppose the economy were very sensitive to changes in individual income tax collections?  If so, doing the same analysis as we did with the other variables should lead to an inverse correlation (as collections drop, the GDP grows faster).  As it turns out, more bad news for one of the Tea Party's pet theories:  the "burden" of individual income taxes holds back economic growth and lowering those taxes (which if done correctly should be reflected in lower government collection of income taxes) should lead to higher subsequent GDP growth.  It doesn't.

Table Eight:  Individual Income Tax Collections as a Percentage of GDP versus Subsequent Growth in GDP:

Budget Year:	Pres:	Individual Income taxes as % of GDP:	dGDP+%
1977	Carter	8.0%	12.4%
1978	Carter	8.2%	12.8%
1979	Carter	8.7%	8.9%
1980	Carter	9.0%	12.3%
1981	Reagan	9.3%	5.5%
1982	Reagan	9.2%	6.7%
1983	Reagan	8.4%	11.7%
1984	Reagan	7.8%	7.9%
1985	Reagan	8.1%	6.2%
1986	Reagan	7.9%	5.6%
1987	Reagan	8.4%	7.7%
1988	Reagan	8.0%	7.8%
1989	Bush	8.3%	6.2%
1990	Bush	8.1%	3.4%
1991	Bush	7.9%	5.2%
1992	Bush	7.6%	5.4%
1993	Clinton	7.7%	5.9%
1994	Clinton	7.8%	5.2%
1995	Clinton	8.1%	5.1%
1996	Clinton	8.5%	6.4%
1997	Clinton	9.0%	5.4%
1998	Clinton	9.6%	5.8%
1999	Clinton	9.6%	6.4%
2000	Clinton	10.3%	3.6%
2001	Bush	9.9%	3.2%
2002	Bush	8.3%	4.1%
2003	Bush	7.3%	6.5%
2004	Bush	7.0%	6.4%
2005	Bush	7.6%	6.3%
2006	Bush	8.0%	4.9%
2007	Bush	8.5%	4.3%
2008	Bush	8.1%	5.7%
2009	Obama	6.1%	5.1%
2010	Obama	5.7%	3.0%

The correlation between the two is very weak (.05) but positive, indicating there really is no relationship.  R2 is a paltry .002.    The stratified data show no clear overall trend, except for a counter-Tea Party one:  from the minimum to the top decile, as you increase individual income tax collection, you get a higher subsequent GDP growth until the very highest rates of individual income tax collections 9.5-10.3% of the economy, which had the lowest growth rates of all.  So perhaps the Tea Party is correct that there is a sweet spot beyond which taxation leads to slower rates of economic growth, but there was no tax rate in this range that led to negative growth and it is unclear what to make of this single slice, or whether higher rates of tax collection would have resumed the positive trend in economic growth.  

Table Nine:  Stratified data showing different ranges of individual income tax collection as a percentage of GDP versus subsequent 12-month change in GDP, 1977-2010:

Sliced data:
		n:	From:	To:	y:
	Min-10%	4	5.7%	7.4%	5.2%
	10-25%	5	7.4%	7.8%	6.1%
	25-50%	8	7.8%	8.1%	6.4%
	50-75%	8	8.1%	8.7%	7.1%
	75-90%	5	8.7%	9.5%	7.7%
	90-Max	3	9.5%	10.3%	5.1%
		33
In fourths:
		n:	From:	To:	y:
	Min-25%	9	5.7%	7.8%	5.7%
	25-50%	8	7.8%	8.1%	6.6%
	50-75%	8	8.1%	8.7%	7.1%
	75-Max	9	8.7%	10.3%	6.4%
		34
In thirds:
		n:	From:	To:	y:
	Bottom	11	5.7%	8.0%	5.7%
	Middle	11	8.0%	8.4%	7.3%
	Top	12	8.4%	10.3%	6.3%
		34

Individual income tax collections arranged by percentile bins versus average GDP growth in each bin.  Note that GDP growth INCREASES as individual income tax collections as a percentage of GDP increase until beyond the 90th percentile, when subsequent economic growth slows to about the same rate as at the lowest individual income tax collection rates.  

Summary
Although the Tea Party is correct that very high levels of debt are correlated, although not always, with slower rates of subsequent GDP growth, beyond the highest extremes, this relationship is weak and quickly flattens out.  Periods of very low debt have been correlated with stronger economic growth than periods of extremely high debt.

However, no other Tea Party talking points are supported by vigorous historical analysis.  

Changes in debt from year to year, the size of government spending, government tax collection, or individual income tax collection are either not correlated at all with subsequent growth in GDP or are slightly positively correlated.  There are many reasons to decrease the size of the government and its level of tax collection, but stimulating economic growth does not seem to be one of them, if the last 40 years are any guide.  And unfortunately for the Tea Party, these data are the only guide we have.