Republicans have been a dominating election winning machine.  Using a combination of gerrymandered districts, voter suppression laws and a message that resonates with bigots, they have majorities in both the House and Senate and also hold the Presidency. Sadly for the Republicans, never have so many accomplished so little.

Republicans won the presidency with the promise of bringing jobs back to the US. Yet, according to the latest quarterly report, here we are with the biggest quarterly trade deficit since George W. Bush was in office. (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 1.1, U.S. International Transactions, Line 30). After failing to overhaul the health care system, Republicans  moved on to adding $1,0 trillion in additional deficits over the next ten years with their tax cut plan. A reasonable person might ask,”What in the heck is going on here?” There are three  reasons for this unprecedented incompetence.

The first reason…

First is Donald Trump. in an earlier column written after his electoral victory , Frugal Ron wrote “Never before has such an unqualified and ill prepared president assumed office”. He’s been all of that and more.

Soon to be Ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson describes Trump as a “f____ing moron”. Although a bit course for this website, Frugal Ron finds himself at a loss to produce a more accurate, concise and eloquent description.

Besides being a moron, Trump’s biggest liability to Republicans is his inability to keep his word.  He’ll reach a deal and turn around a few days later and demand financing for his wall or some other moronic idea and halt the legislative process.

On international trade, Trump claimed he could eliminate our perpetual trade deficit by renegotiating unfair trade agreements. Not having the intellectual capability to understand that a nation’s Merchandise and Trade Balance equals a country’s Net Savings is a major limitation for Trump.

The second reason…

Although Trump is a huge liability to Republicans, the second and bigger reason for their failure to govern is an out of touch Republican establishment This includes everything from the Republican Congressional leadership, the majority of Republican office holders and  their major donors.

Republican orthodoxy calls for ending government programs and cutting taxes for the rich. Making the Affordable Care Act their first target was a huge mistake. Perhaps the most successful government program in the last 50 years, Obamacare had slashed the rate of health care increases, added 20 million more people to the ranks of insured and did all this for about the same government cost as the previous hodge podge of programs.

Polling by Hart Research Group found that 54% of Americans wanted the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) kept and fixed and only 40% want the law repealed and replaced. Faced with these numbers, what would you expect Republicans to do? Of course, they went full steam ahead to undo Obamacare.

No sane person would possibly think that pricing health insurance out of reach for 20-30 million US citizens (depending on which version of Republican dogma was being voted on) is a good thing. Besides the people priced out of the health insurance market, millions more will have to forego saving or spending money to support other parts of the economy because their health insurance costs skyrocketed.

There was a time, before Ronald Reagan, when Republicans were actually conservatives. Back then, Republicans refused to vote for bills until the repercussions of the repercussions of a specific bill were discussed and addressed. No more.

Without a thought, today’s reckless Republicans plunge ahead to jeopardize the entire healthcare industry that represents 18% of the US’s GDP. Do these fools expect the 20-30 million people that would have lost their health insurance because of Republican legislation  will all magically enjoy perfect health and never get injured or pregnant? It probably never occurred to these Republican zealots that if  people can’t afford insurance, maybe they won’t be able to pay five figure and higher medical bills if they do wind up in the hospital? I never heard one Republican in favor of repealing Obamacare  describe where the money to cover the uninsured’s medical cost was going to come from.  Before Obamacare, 30% of these costs were absorbed by Medicaid. However, Republican plans call for cutting back those funds also.

Republicans seem to be the only people with IQs over 70 that can’t grasp that if the healthcare industry is treating 20-30 million more patients that aren’t providing an insurance income flow and can’t pay for their treatment, many hospitals and clinics will close. Consequently, even wealthy Republicans will die because healthcare is too far away.

Out of touch takes on new meaning when you look at how Republicans intended to spend their ill gotten domestic savings. Savings from shutting down after school programs that allow working parents to keep their jobs while their children are safe, meals on wheels and a myriad of other programs that keep seniors alive were to go for defense spending increases. Never mind that current defense spending is higher than the next six highest defense spending countries in the world COMBINED. Other savings were pegged to go for tax cuts for the wealthy. Never mind that today’s wealth is the most concentrated in our country’s history.

The third reason…

The third reason Republicans can’t govern is because of a very small minority of their members  that throw wrenches into the party plans. While most Republicans live in their private fantasy land, a very small minority see things much more clearly. Perhaps unwilling to repeat the same mistakes when lemming like Republicans followed President George W. Bush down the path to a calamitous war and a devastating recession, Senators McCain, Collins and Murkowski stood up to the Republican establishment and their twittering president.

Republicans lie

Making governing more difficult, Republicans seem to pick up from their president. They flat-out lie when describing the tax cuts for the rich and their effects on the rest of us.

Perhaps pictures work better than words, although I expect even these will not sway Trump supporters. The proposed Republican tax cut will increase federal budget deficits an average of $100 billion per year over the next ten years over present levels.

Table 1

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 and Table 1.1.5 and Department of Labor, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Republicans claim the tax cuts will increase jobs. History tells us this simply won’t happen. The red line is the annual federal budget balance as a percent of Gross Domestic Product(GDP). The federal budget is expressed as a percent of our nation’s total economic output to eliminate inflation’s impact. Notice how job creation mimics the budget deficit. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts and huge spending increases ballooned the deficit and President Barack Obama’s even bigger tax cuts devastated job creation. As the deficit became a smaller percent of the economy, job creation increased.

Who were the winners of the Bush/Obama tax cuts? Only the rich people who got the cuts. (Note, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages only measures full time jobs, not part time.)

Table 2

Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 and Table 1.1.5

Republicans also argue that their tax cuts and associated bigger deficits will lead to more economic growth. The red line is identical to Table 1. Again, the annual percent change in GDP (economic) growth mostly mirrors the federal budget balance.

An interesting point is that after the initial Bush tax cuts in 2001, GDP grew. This is the effect of Republicans using high government spending increases combined with tax cuts paid for with government borrowing to buy prosperity. It simply doesn’t work. The Piper was paid in 2008 when the country was plunged into the deepest economic downturn in a generation.

History tends to repeat it self for those who don’t pay attention to it. Clearly, most Republicans don’t pay attention to history.

The blame game

While this column singles out most Republicans for this mess, they aren’t the real problem. If anything, Republicans are consistent. They get elected, they pass big tax cuts for the rich using the same tired trickle down economic arguments over and over, they spend money like crazy, run up huge deficits that send our net national savings (Capital Account) spiraling into an abyss, causing our Merchandise and Trade Balance (Current Account) to go into an equally huge deficit and then the whole economy goes into another boom to bust recession.

This scenario happened with Reagan and both Bush’s and will repeat itself again. Most anyone should have been able to figure this out long ago. And, this leads us to the real culprits of this mess, anyone who voted for these misfits. We didn’t get a moron for president by accident and we aren’t getting an incompetent Republican Congress more interested in following dogma and their financial backer’s wishes by accident.  There’s a lesson to be learned here.