Lie #5: The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline.

Back in February, AP reporter and John McCain donut server Liz Sidotiwrote of beaten and battered Republicans trying to find their way backfrom the political wilderness in a piece titled, "GOP tries to restoreimage of fiscal discipline."

Of course, that would constitute a return to a time that never was.Far from the deficit hawks of Republican legend, the modern RepublicanParty from Reagan forward devastated the U.S. treasury, leaving mounting debt and hemorrhaging red ink for as far as the eye can see. As it turns out, U.S. national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again under George W. Bush. As this eye-popping chartshows, under recent Republican presidents the debt exploded as apercentage of GDP, interrupted only by the all-too-brief fiscal sanityof the Clinton years.