Thanks for the compliment. It should be remembered that W. was a free-spending big-government governor of Texas as well. Becoming president in 2001, he believed that he could implement his expensive programs without increasing the national debt because the economy was healthy and tax revenues were still pouring in. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. The Internet bubble was bursting, and then 9-11 really put a serious hit on the economy. Add in unvetoed pork barrel spending, the two wars and the billions spent on Homeland Security and you get a monster federal bloatocracy and $400 billion annual budget deficits. We're slowing digging our way out, but it's much worse than it could have been.
Good argument about 9-11, the wars, and DHS, but let's not forget that Clinton left him with a recession and a zero-deficit federal budget. The classic big government solution to a recession is massive increases in Federal deficit spending. Bush combined that with tax cuts and it worked spectacularly, but once we were recovering, he couldn't stop spending, and spending, and spending...