Balancing Act

   It may be coincidence, and keep in mind that correlation is not necessarily causation, but consider this:
   For the past 50 years, the balance of payments in international trade has been more strongly negative during Republican administrations than when a Democrat occupied the White House.
   During the 1960s, when John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were in office, the foreign trade balance of payments favored the U.S. by $6 billion. It then began a decline, to a negative $152 billion in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was President, and to a negative $753 billion in 2006, under George W. Bush -- an all-time low.
   Meanwhile, Bush took office with a surplus of $236 billion in the federal budget. Eight years later, that surplus was not only gone, but his budget for Fiscal Year ending in 2009 showed a deficit of $1.4 trillion.