The reason why everything is so expensive today is based on inflation. But what creates inflation? The simple answer is overspending. But by whom? Certainly, our government is the major reason why everything is so costly. However, don’t ignore the fact that the wild spending by business corporations also has a tremendous impact. Naturally whenever the cost of material goods goes up, products produced greatly increase, keeping profits stable. In reality profits may also increase for two reasons. The first is due to CEO’s need to show stockholders increased value and secondly, in planning against further material delivery costs.
My books on the Donald Trump Presidency explains how, since the turn of the century, America’s debt has become exponentially greater from billions to trillions of dollars. Leading up to the change into the 21st centaury, I experienced five decades of just moderate National Debt increases, which held household expenses to manageable levels. Corporate profits were controlled, and business leadership reinvested in their company’s growth by rewarding workmanship with increased benefits. This period of my seeing middle income growth concluded with the end of William Clinton’s time as President. He had budget surpluses for fiscal years 1998–2001, the only such years from 1970 to the present day.
In 1950 the National Debt was $257 billion. In 1981 it was $998 billion when President Ronald Reagan implemented his tax cut greatly favoring wealthy individuals and corporations. This philosophy repeated during the Bush and Trump administrations – GOP capitalism. In 1982 Reagan increased spending and in 1983 the Jobless rate was 10.8%. In 1984 he Increased defense spending, another rising expense that creates inflation. In 1987 the Stock Market crashed and President Ronald Reagan cited soaring federal deficits as having triggered the largest single-day Wall Street crash in U.S. history. In 1989 when Regan left office the National Debt was $2.8 trillion. Realize that since a trillion dollars is equal to a debt increase of $1,000 billions of dollars.
Then in 1991 when George H. W. Bush was President we were faced with a recession. During his term in office from 1989 through 1993 the National Debt rose at a rate of about $400 billion annually. He was a one term president when Bill Clinton won the presidency on January 20, 1993 and held office until 2001. During his eight years in office the National Debt rose from $4.41 to $5.81 trillion an average of only $175 billion per year. As one can see that even though President Clinton greatly decreased the rise in the National Debt by only $1.4 trillion over 8 years by balancing the Federal budget, the National debt still grew. From 2001 to 2022 when President Trump lost his reelection bid the National Debt rose to $29.62 trillion. Being a fiscal conservative, these annual trillion-dollar increases that we have today make me fear for our future.
Also, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, his V.P. Al Gore, was instrumental in helping to create the “Information Superhighway,” Gore was one of the first government officials to recognize that the Internet’s impact could reach beyond academia to fuel educational, as well as economic growth. This is key to understanding how the internet affected corporate growth and why the cost of living has grown so exponentially. This is also detailed throughout both books.
This brings me to the comparison of how Democrats and Republicans control the functioning of our government. The difference between liberal and conservative philosophy (socialism vs capitalism) and how each of these concepts are misused and misunderstood. Our government must provide the best of both paradigms and the American people need to elect those political candidates that support both concepts. Our government needs to provide for the improvement of all social classes as well as for the improvement of our infrastructure.
When Republican candidate George W. Bush defeated incumbent V.P. Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election it was by the slimness of margins. This was a controversial victory and a stain on our democratic election process. As my book explains, this has become increasingly more divisive with Donald Trump’s 2016 and Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential elections. The 2016 election demonstrated the profound effect that the expansion of the World Wide Web of internet communications technology has had on the minds and actions of the American people.
Not only has our technological advancements drastically changed our methods of communication, it has brought great wealth and power to the already wealthy. They in turn have used this excessive flow of financial entitlement to support their successful achievements by setting up Political Action Committees: PACSs and SuperPACs. At the same time, Rupert Murdoch an Australian-born American billionaire businessman, through his company News Corp, worked to acquire hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world. This is how the extremely wealthy is able to greatly influence election outcomes and control political candidates.
I vividly remember how Fox News would continually broadcast Socialism as a concept that is even more evil than Communism. The fear of spreading Communism over the concept of Democracy was the rational that got us into the Vietnam War. This was a horrific decision by our U.S. Government leadership that swallowed up my future just like World War II did for my father. Fortunately, after WWII, America became a world leader in democratic freedoms and a nation at peace. A time when our government was willing to work on behalf of the American people, at least for the most part.
Then in 2001 our country was attacked by foreign extremists led by Osama bin Laden. Under newly elected Pres. Bush, using fear of further potential attacks on the United States, wealthy neo-conservatives heavily advocating for engaging in a war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Consequently, our free enterprise system of government ramped up spending for military operations that included funding for civilian corporations and industries to help resolve problems that never really existed. We became involved in two world conflicts that lasted for over two decades that ended in disaster for everyone.
During this period of increasing world disruption and hostility, both the Bush and Trump administrations deregulated business restrictions while Republican controlled legislators worked to undermine and defeat Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The profiteering of corporations with the commercialization of the internet created the 2008 recession just when Barack Obama easily won the Presidential election. Subsequently large corporations stopped their pension plans and increased health care cost for employees. Other businesses followed suit.
Fox News did it’s best to downplay the cause for the hardships that the recession created for middle class working Americans. They broadcast blame on the cost of Government programs that help America with their financial struggles and disabilities. Conservative Media promoted tax plans that favored the wealthy and denounced programs for the poor and unfortunate. My books detail how this was allowed to happen.
