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Republican Politicians in Congress Are Way Better than Democratic Ones
There's way more than a dime's worth of difference.
“There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.”
Democratic Party politician George Wallace, at one time a Democratic governor of Alabama, made this claim after he dropped the Democratic Party and ran a third-party campaign for president.
Wallace’s claim wasn’t just wrong. It was spectacularly wrong. I challenged it on one particular by looking at Congressional votes for the farm bill in 2018. Republicans were much more likely to vote against that expensive bill.
But that’s just one vote.
Zachary Yost and Dan Klein have compiled data from three separate organizations that show there are billions of dollars worth of difference.
Billions are more than 10 cents.
In this Substack post, Yost and Klein write:
For ratings of Congresspeople, we recommend the following three sources:
Americans for Prosperity Scorecard
The Heritage Foundation Scorecard
(We thank Eric Hammer for data work and displays shown in this section of the essay.)
All three scorecard show a large and systematic difference between Republicans and Democrats. The vertical axis shows the score, and the colored bars are averages:
The Republican average scores are not merely better. They are vastly better!
Back to me:
Yost and Klein provide much data on many issues. Their whole post is well worth reading—and pondering. Overall, the data support my choice to have registered Republican some years ago. I admit that I did it so that I could vote for Ron Paul in the 2008 presidential primary and the 2012 presidential primary, and for Rand Paul in the 2016 presidential primary. Inertia has kept me registered Republican.
But now it’s more than inertia.
Your friend Shikha Dalmia has indirectly responded to this piece, mentioning you, Yost & Klein: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-trump-killed-libertarianism
I have always felt this way about Republicans too, but what about the cost of wars we might not have had otherwise? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to have cost the United States between $4 and $6 trillion. This includes:
Funding: The U.S. spent $2.2 trillion to finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
Medical and disability claims: The U.S. has spent billions on medical and disability claims for veterans.
Military replenishment: The U.S. has spent money replenishing its military.
Social and economic costs: The wars have had social and economic costs.
Interest: The U.S. has spent interest on debt incurred to fund the wars.