In a nutshell, it's all Bush's fault. Don't give me no steenking tax cut talk again, Mister.
Today, bright, sunny and warm as usual, seems to have brought out my inner wonk. I apologize ahead of time. Hey, I read it so you don't have to. But in case you want to, here it is, The Definitive NYT Explanation of the federal deficit. And for those of you who like to cut to the chase, a phenomenally impressive graphic that even I can understand at a glance. Of course, it has words, too. That helps.
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I really hate to say this, but maybe Brad DeLong is right: "Why can't we have a better press corp?"
ReplyDeleteThe NYT aticles (read the second article too) are fairly straight forward, but first of all, they don't bother to add the numbers up. Total deficit created in Bush Years is $1.443 trillion; total for Bush and Obama (policies started by one and continued by the other) is $0.417 trillion; President Obama's programs add another $0.201 trillion, for a combined total of $1.211 trillion deficit created. Starting from a Budget surplus from President Clinton of $0.850 trillion and subtracting the deficit created of $1.211 trillion, we arrive at a projected deficit of $1.211 trillion.
The numbers don't match the NYT article due to rounding. Their total estimate is $1.215 trillion. A difference of $0.004 trillion: close enough for government work.
Now look at the deficit projected from the Bush years: $0.673 trillion was added by the Irag war, tax cuts, and the Medicare drug prescription program. That is roughly half of the total increase in the deficit for the period. As I recall, there was bipartisan support for all of these items passed by Congress.
As Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Ah, the old "as I recall" and "bipartisan" canards, eh?
ReplyDeleteHell, I dunno what the votes were on tax cuts and Part D. Hey, even the AARP apologized for that and "as I recall," some Dems put up a big enough fight. But I'm glad for it now, that's for sure. My drugs this month would be close to a cool thou.
But, Yeah, a lot of Dems were cowards and a lot got bought and a lot were just plain afraid. We were lied to about the war and so were they. I don't count myself special for opposing the war because who was I going up against by doing so? Not a bunch of angry voters convinced that Saddam and AQ were in it together on 9/11, that's for sure. Nobody was going to call me a traitor on national TV.
P.S. And the other half?
They is us just means nobody takes the blame or the responsibility and nobody learns not to do the same thing in the future. I'm sick of that quote.