Overspending is not something that can be solely attributed to an individual party. The one thing that one can do to determine spending thrift of a ruling party is to compare it with the former administration. Through the observation of different restraints during each administration, one can tell the Party that is best when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

These days, U.S.A has greatly become divided. Americans will try and differentiate themselves in any possible way. When it comes to monetary issues, there is only one party that is normally allied with economic responsibility.

Republican era

Since the presidency era of 1980, the Republicans have not put their faith in fiscal responsibility. During this period, the presidential candidate was ridiculed by the public and other leaders. This is because he had the intention of balancing the budget, cutting taxes and building the military. After winning, Ronald Reagan proved his critics correct when he cut taxes and built the military. During his time, he had the leading budget debt in history.

After the 1988 elections, the elected Republican presidential candidate George Bush had to raise taxes. This was to reduce the accumulated deficit. He demonstrated more fiscal responsibility, regardless of the Republicans terming him a traitor and turning against him.

Democrats’ era

After the defeat of the Republican, it was a Democrat Bill Clinton who took over the running of the damaged economy. The Democratic presidential candidate that took over after him demonstrated more fiscal responsibility. After his term, the economy was in surplus and this was happening for the first time in many decades.

Year 2000-Republican era

After this, it is a Republican George Bush who took over the presidency in the year 2000 again. During this time, he demonstrated that he did not care about fiscal responsibility. At one point, his vice president reported that the budget deficits did not matter anymore. He cut an expensive tax cut and also involved the country in a war. Again, these led the country to the biggest deficit.

His total ignorance for fiscal responsibility was among the contributing factors to the failure of his presidency. At the end of his term, the economy collapsed and this lead to the further rise in the deficit.

Democrats’ era- the year 2008-2016

Although the reigning during this time president Barack Obama seemed less bothered by fiscal responsibility than George Bush, he had more interest compared to any Republican. Initially, he had a package that leads to the rising of the deficit but revised it later on. During this era, the desperately needed fiscal stimulus was stalled by economic concerns.

A commission was formed which was to give recommendations on debt reduction but the Republicans rejected its recommendations. This blocked the recommendations from the congressional vote. Later on, sharp limitations on unrestricted spending were adopted. The adopted packaged reversed some of the previous tax cuts.  At the end of his term, Obama had a lesser deficit than the one he had started with.

Conclusion

From the discussion, Democrats are not spendthrifts. They have consistently shown devotion to fiscal responsibility and the reduction of federal debt. Even though the Democrats’ debt reduction has never given them any political deficit, it has always helped in the shaping of the economy.

There are a lot of underlying principles for why they appear to be good in their budgetary trail record compared to the Republicans. The Medicare and social security programs have contributed greatly towards this.

For the Republicans, they have time and again increased the deficit. This is despite them campaigning for debt reduction and balanced budgets. One major thing that has always contributed to this is their increased expenditure and less revenue generation. Consistently, they have reduced taxation while increasing the government’s expenditure.

Over the last three decades, the Republican Party has preached fiscal responsibility as a strategy of getting them elected to the executive office. After they are elected, they neglect their fiscal responsibilities and a Democrat has to come to clean up the mess. The Republicans have never suffered any political consequence due to their disregard for fiscal discipline.