[Republicans] not only starved the [government] through tax cuts for the rich and increased defense spending; they've just about dismembered it.

Financing the Common Good | Robert B. Reich | February 1, 2008

After three decades of government starvation of necessary resources, the next president needs to champion progressive taxation with the proceeds invested in social outlays that make for a more productive economy.
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A new Democratic president will face many of the same challenges Bill Clinton faced at the start of his administration -- but all made worse by George W. Bush. Clinton, recall, inherited a fiscal straightjacket. At the start of 1993, the federal budget deficit was running $300 billion a year as far as the eye could see. Prior Republican administrations had sought to "starve the beast," going deep into the red by spending heavily on defense while at the same time cutting taxes.

A new Democratic president coming into office in 2009 will face a national debt much larger than it was in 1993. Despite the $5 trillion 10-year budget surplus that ended the Clinton years, the federal debt at the end of the Bush years will be almost $4 trillion larger than it was then. It will have grown about 70 percent during Bush's reign. If you assume 5 percent interest, the Bush debt burden will require the government to pay its creditors -- prominent among them, the Japanese and Chinese -- $200 billion a year, forever. That will use up a lot of tax revenue even before any of the nation's problems are addressed. In this way, George W. and company have done Reagan one better. They've not only starved the beast through tax cuts for the rich and increased defense spending; they've just about dismembered it.

Meanwhile, the fiscal demands facing a new Democratic president in 2009 are far greater than when Bill Clinton took office in 1993. Clinton's investment agenda in schools, job-training, health care, and infrastructure was badly needed then. Today, it's urgent. Inequality of income and wealth is wider and upward mobility has slowed. Our schools are worse than they were when Clinton became president, classrooms more overcrowded, and school buildings, falling apart. Job-training is almost nonexistent. At least 10 million more Americans lack health insurance than they did in 1993. Among the 13 wealthiest nations, America now ranks last or nearly last in infant mortality, low birth weight, and life expectancy. Some 5.3 million more Americans are living in poverty than when Bush became president. America's infrastructure is older and even more prone to breakage. From New Orleans levees to Minneapolis bridges to New York City's water lines, the nation is literally falling apart.

Add to all of this the pending retirements of baby boomers and the looming fiscal crisis of Medicare, which includes a giant subsidy to the pharmaceutical industry disguised as a Medicare drug benefit for the elderly. And the Alternative Minimum Tax about to hit the middle class unless a trillion dollars can be found somewhere. There is also the newly obvious need to support basic research in non–fossil based fuels. Finally, and tragically, the war in Iraq will cost the nation billions more. Even if we were to withdraw tomorrow, the future costs of disability and health care for tens of thousands of wounded veterans, many with spinal and brain injuries, will be staggering. ...