eglamkowski's Journal: deficits and surpluses

So, using the following sites for data:
http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/house_history/partyDiv.html
http://senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/hist.pdf

I had to start in 1901 since the historical federal budgets aren't separated out by year until then.

I looked both at which party controlled both chambers of Congress, and then which party controlled Congress AND the presidency BOTH at the same time, and added up the budgets for each year of control. Years where there was a split, I didn't assign the budget to either party, although arguably I could/should assign it (or some percentage of it) to the party controlling the House, but I did it as an all or nothing deal.

There's some funky "TQ" budget between 1976 and 1977, but no footnote or explanation in the table as to what that means. I did include this budget amount in my totals - the democrats controlled congress in both 76 and 77, but the presidency switched in those years and so I assigned it to the republican president. This works to the favor of the democrats since this TQ budget ran a deficit...

One thing I had a problem with was control of the Senate during the 107th Congress and how it kept flip-flopping, first democrat control with 50-50 split and Al Gore still VP, then 50-50 split with Dick Cheney as VP, then democrat control 50-49 with Jeffords caucusing with the democrats, then republican 50-48 after the death of Paul Wellstone. So I didn't assign the budgets for the 107th Congress to either party.

With these things in mind, since 1901 the democrats have controlled both chambers of congress 59 years of that time, versus 38 years for republicans. Democrats have controlled congress AND the presidency 36 years, versus 30 years for republicans.

If you look at the budget only in the context of who controlled both houses of Congress, without regard to who controlled the presidency, the democrats, in their 59 years, ran deficits in 52 of those years and surpluses in only 7, for a net of $2,896,474,000,000 (~$2.9 trillion) in debt. The republicans ran deficits in 17 years and surpluses in 21 years, for a net of $1,228,948,000,000 (~$1.2 trillion) in debt. If you don't count the Bush years, the republicans actually ran a net surplus of $127,891,000,000 (~$128 billion) when they controlled Congress.

When you examine which party controlled both houses of Congress AND the presidency, we find the democrats ran deficits in 33 of the years they had this degree of control and surpluses in only 3 years, for a net of $955,058,000,000 of debt (955 billion). The republicans ran deficits in 13 years they had that degree of control, and surpluses in 17 years, for a net of $1,353,730,000,000 of debt (~$1.35 trillion), but again if you discount the Bush years, the republicans had a surplus of $3,109,000,000 (~$3 billion).

Historically, prior to Bush, the republicans were the party of great fiscal responsibility, while the democrats spent us into oblivion. Bush and his cohorts in Congress, on the other hand, have been vastly more egregious than the democrats ever were. We'll see how it goes post-2008...

Now I understand the democrats were in charge during the build up to WWI (though congress split once the war started), through all of WWII, the first half of the Korea war (republicans finished the war), and the first half of the Vietnam War, so a lot of the democratic deficits are from war-time spending, so it isn't necessarily as horrible as it might sound at first, but there are far more non-war years than there are war years, so it's still not all that great.

It does not appear the numbers are adjusted for inflation or otherwise in constant dollars, but if you made that adjustment it would only make things look much, much worse for democrats and much, much better for republicans since republicans ran most of their surpluses in the early part of the 20th century while most of their deficits are in the past 5 years (although 1919 was a humdinger of a year), while democrats have been running deficits the entire time.

Those are not the parties you are looking for.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

They are not the same parties that existed before Reagan or the DLC.

The new allegiance is to Zion and Mammon.

Re:

[eglamkowski]

Would Theodore Roosevelt really be so disapproving of Bush's record?

Party ideologies may not have changed quite as much as you think they have...

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Party ownership.

TR split his own party, too.

Wow

[robi2106]

I love it when someone "runs the numbers" with this kind of source data. Very slick. I'm going to have to link to this. Just fascinating. I am tempted to do the inflation adjustments to see what happens.

Well done

[peacefinder]

I don't suppose you have a table of data you would share?

I'd be interested to see how it looks since 1950 and since 1980.

Re:

[eglamkowski]

I do have an excel spreadsheet I used for all the calculations, but nowhere to post it.
It'd need a little bit of cleanup to be really presentable, but if you got some place I could stick I'll post it.

Re:

[eglamkowski]

From 1950, there have been 5 years of surplus with the democrats in charge of Congress (though not necessarily the presidency) for $17,004,000,000 (17 billion), versus 3 years with republicans control with a surplus totalling $431,121,000,000 (431 billion). I won't bother with the deficits - they're huge and the Bush years guarantee the republicans grossly outspent the democrats.

Since 1980, the democrats have never run a surplus when they controlled congress, while the republicans did for 3 years - the sam

Re:

[peacefinder]

Huh. Interesting.

I guess I shoulda asked about 1950-2000, though. I don't want to lump the current president in with the Republicans. :-/

Will Multiply allow you to post the file?

Re:

[eglamkowski]

From 1950 to 2000, the republicans have controlled both chambers of Congress in 1953 and 1954, right in the heart of the Korean war. Both years saw deficits, but then we *were* fighting a war. $6.5 billion in 1953 and $1.15 billion in 1954. Republican president those years as well: Ike.

Republicans also had control from 1995 to 2000, the Newt revolution, with deficits in 1995, 1996 and 1997 netting $293 billion, and surpluses in 1998, 1999 and 2000 netting $431 billion.

From 1950 to 2000, the periods when

Re:

[eglamkowski]

Multiply will let you attach a file to a blog entry, but I don't have access today to the computer on which that spread sheet lives. Maybe tomorrow or Friday I will have a chance to post it.

Thank you

[Degrees]

I thank you for working up those numbers. It's a nice easy-to-understand concept, with the point that war time spending expands otherwise normal budgets.