Yeah. My observation on this is that the more conservative party takes power when there is already an economic boom and takes all the credit for it. Then, once they ruin everything, the liberal side has to step in and repair all the damage.

There seems to be this fundamental problem with democracy that when times are good, people don't want to pay taxes, and they vote in the party that promises to lower them. But then when the economy tanks, they want that safety net again. It's an interesting thought experiment as to what would happen if you had it the other way? So while times are good, you raised the taxes so that the government would have a cushion to weather the next economic downturn and help everyone back on their feet.

That coupled with "decrease government income (taxes)" as the first resort means conservative governments always start off in a deficit position and most never get out of it. Decreasing taxes has not done anything to improve the lower 99% lives. It has only worked to shovel money into the 1%.

Yeah, there is a difference now, isn't there? Like I reached voting age in the Reagan era (Mulroney here in Canada, but he was a carbon copy of Reagan). In those days, the conservative philosophy seemed to be just keep spending like crazy while slashing taxes (mostly corporate). Then leave the next government to clean up the mess with an austerity program.

But Trump/Musk actually did gut all sorts of programs while still somehow running up a jaw-dropping deficit, even by Republican standards. Americans are paying higher taxes (through tariffs) and losing services at the same time. Seems pretty indefensible, and I hope there is a reckoning at the mid-terms. Here in Canada, our government is also running a large deficit, mind you. I think it's sort of unavoidable, though, given we are under economic siege.