Billy, I totally agree that when the economy is running "normally", we need to be running surpluses. If you are going to stimulate it at times like these, you need to run a surplus to prepare ahead at times when there is not a crisis. In my view, Carter was the last President to make a serious effort at balancing the budget. There were some good years under Clinton as well, but they were the product of booming tax revenues from a massive bull market, combined with government inaction due to conflict between the Republican Congress and the Democrat President, and not really due to a systematic attempt at fiscal prudence.
LC, political scientist would laugh at your comparison of US democracy to the versions that have failed in S America and Africa. Way more complicated than your simple comparison
The core difference is that our founding fathers were well aware of the weaknesses of Republics and Democracies, and discussed them at length in the Federalist Papers. They tried to carefully craft the Constitution so as to prevent giving the Federal Government enough power to destroy itself. They included five protections against it, four of which are now gone. The South American and African democracies fail because they model themselves on what we have now, with all our protections removed, and not on what we started with. Thus, they start out with an unrestrained central government, without the traditions that we have, so they go far more quickly down the path to corruption and destruction.
What were those five protections?
1. Congressmen were unpaid. The idea was, no one would want to be a career politician if they weren't paid. They would do it as a public service, and would therefore vote for what was good for the country, rather than what would get them re-elected. They later concluded that, if they weren't paid, they might be more prone to accepting bribes, so it was decided that they should be paid. Now they are very well paid indeed, and we do have career politicians, and indeed, multi-generational political families, just as the founding fathers feared.
2. Government would have no power to levy broad-based taxes. If the government couldn't assess taxes, they would have no large source of money, and they couldn't spend. With only limited sources of revenue, they were very constrained in what they could do. To fund WWI, we passed a Constitutional Amendment allowing an Income Tax, which was expected to be temporary. We all know how that went.
3. Government was limited in its ability to print money and borrow. To get around it, they created authorized the Federal Reserve, a private corporation owned by the banks. The money we circulate as "US Dollars" are actually Federal Reserve Notes. By working with the Federal Reserve, there are no restrictions on what the government can do now. They can print money, create money, and borrow money freely.
4. Government was to have only three specific enumerated powers. They had the military power, since governments need to maintain order. They had the postal power, since (at that time), the mail was critical. The third power was the power to regulate commerce among the several states. That was envisioned as they power to standardize things, such as the width of carriages, so the roads would be the same in all states, and commerce could flow freely. In 1937, in the middle of the Depression, FDR found a flaw in the Constitution. Nowhere does it say how many Justices should be on the Supreme Court. He called in the Justices, and told them that, either they would re-interpret the Constitution in a way of his liking, or he would continue to appoint more and more Justices until they eventually outnumbered the existing Justices, and inevitably the power of government would be expanded. Faced with the prospect of the Constitution becoming a mockery, Justice Roberts switched sides, and the interpretation of the Constitution abruptly changed. Since 1937, the Commerce clause has been interpreted to mean that the Government has unlimited power. They can do anything, or regulate anything, that might somehow have even the tiniest affect on interstate commerce, and since anything and everything might affect interstate commerce, the government's power is no longer limited.
5. The Separation of powers - This doesn't restrict what government can do. It merely is a delaying tactic. It doesn't halt our trend to destruction, but rather slows it.
Since 1937, the government has had unlimited power, but we have had the Separation of powers to slow things down, and we have our long traditions. Traditions of people working hard, pride in the country, and traditions of overcoming obstacles and persevering should not be underestimated. Those are the things that separate us from new startup democracies. Had we started up in the 18th Century without the protections we originally had, we would have suffered the same fate.
Now that the protections are gone, we will eventually get there, but it will just take longer. Rewriting history, to stop focusing on the American successes, and instead focus on an idealistic view of government as our protector has led to a new generation that has a very different view of history than I have. Time will tell whether I am right, or they are. Will they convert the US to a utopia, or to Venezuela?
To quote a prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr from 1933, "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other." There is little I can change, so I try to stay out of most political arguments, and am simply content to observe the downhill spiral.