Ron Paul For President in 2008

[Final-Fan]

The question is not who has done more deficit spending; it's obviously the Democrats, as they've had more opportunity to spend. The question is: whose spending has been more outrageously in the red? In your example, Republicans were exactly as eager to spend as Democrats (otherwise they should have been able to knock it down at least a little). So their score is exactly the same. As it should be. (It's what's known in mathematics as an "average". A more detailed description can be found below for your convenience.)

The Democrats in your example are more culpable only in that they've had much more opportunity to do what the Republicans were (apparently) equally willing to do.

I did notice that I'd used the word "faith", but I thought, despite all that's gone between us, that you wouldn't sink so low as to jump on it like that. (Feel free to replace it with "confidence" and it won't affect what I meant the sentence to mean one little bit.)

What better way to calculate an average is there than to add together all the sample sizes and divide by the number of samples? It appears to be simple math from my point of view.

If you like, you can try re-running the statistics based on deficits per FY calculated according to whichever party had a 2/3 or 3/3 majority and discarding the 1/3 remainders as innocent bystanders. I'd actually be interested in seeing that but I'd be surprised if the comparison came out any better for Republicans. And it'll be you doing it since I really don't want to do all that over agian.

By the way, I'm curious as to the exact way in which your method produces "a more reasonable result". I certainly hope you don't mean one that happens to agree with your opinion. I assure you that if my method had produced Democratic average deficits that crushed Republican ones, I would have posted it. Not eagerly, but just as doggedly.

HOWEVER!

I'm more than willing to abandon the whole thing, though, in favor of either stopping entirely OR returning to my basic ideas, which I've mentioned throughout and fkusumot and Entroper have both commented on:

--Deficit spending is bad, except in times of national emergency -- i.e. crisis situations. [edit: Well, it's still bad, but it can produce a much greater good in such times.]
--Debt is bad in the long term.

Building on those foundations, I also submit these assertions:
--Tax cuts reduce revenue in the short term, and tax increases increase revenue in the short term.
--Tax cuts that produce deficits are to be avoided.
--Tax increases to reduce deficits are justified.
--Tax increases to reduce the debt at a modest rate are justified.

(What started this train wreck -- an apt phrase -- was my assertion that Republicans had failed more completely at the two foundations of my position.)

Choosing either the "back to the basics" or "stopping entirely" option this far into a vigorous, protracted, and dare I say entrenched exchange will not be taken as any sort of admission. Frankly, I've come quite close at various points to choosing the latter myself and if I do in the future I ask the same courtesy.