How the Deficit Got this big

The New York Timmes ^ | July, 23, 2011 | Teresa Tritch

[shoff]

With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.

[familyop]

Congress approved much new federal social, police and public education funding for state and local governments during the Reign of Clinton Terror against working class families.

[Doogle]

..graph stats by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities...a “protector” of the poor. A libtard rats nest.

[andyk]

1) There was only a surplus if you acknowledge that the social security and medicare trust funds do not exist. 2) How is it that the federal spending has not dropped back down after the supposed one-time stimulus?

[Colonel Kangaroo]

...52% of the people living in this country not being required to pay income taxes. If these so called "americans" want BIG government, EVERYONE should have to "pay their fair share". It's not "the rich's" job to subsidize Socialism for the freeloaders living here.

But the 52% has to pay through the nose on sales taxes, property taxes, etc. There is truly a class living of the welfare state, but it's a whole lot smaller than 52% of the population.

[sappy]

A tax cut costs nothing. Spending costs money.

[andyk]

For instance, “tax cuts” are not “New costs”

Exactly. It costs nothing to take less money from a person.

[Doogle]

correctamundo.........all “PROJECTED”

[Rudder]

A bizarre graph that "proves" their point...surprise!

[kabar]

The entitlement programs, especially Medicare, are driving the deficits. Add to that means-tested programs like Medicaid and food stamps and you have deficits as far as the eye can see. And the truth is that Clinton ran a deficit every year he was in office if you deduct the SS “surplus.”

[Palter]

We have funded our economy with debt. That simple. America's economy cannot function unless we spend cash we don't have. Gotta love it.

[bagman]

These putative surpluses were based on continuing economic growth. Let us not forget that the Internet Bubble burst at the end of the Clinton years, which means that the economy was not growing. I recall seeing a graphic in the Wall Street Journal back in 2001 which showed that the Leading Economic Indicators fell every month in the year 2000 (that “great” Clinton economy).

We should also recall the budget which Clinton submitted in February, 1995. It had annual deficits of about $180 to $200 billion projected as “far as the eye can see.” So where did these surpluses attributed to Clinton come from?

I submit that you have to give a large part of the credit to the Gingrich Congress. Gingrich led the take over of the House of Representatives in November, 1994, changing the way that Washington (read Democrat controlled House) does business. Combined with the Internet and PC revolution, which increased productivity, the budget surpluses were created. To be sure, Clinton deserves some credit (as much as it pains us to give Clinton credit for anything) for not screwing it up.

The Liberal mantra in this whole budget mess is that the deficit is attributable to the Bush tax cuts. Somehow, I think that the Obama stimulus had something to do with it. Oh, they rejoin, it was necessary because of Bush’s destruction of the mortgage market. Well, then, why do we have so little to show in the way of results from the expenditure of the Stimulus monies? (And we don’t need to re-hash who is really responsible for the mortgage meltdown - I am sure that Mr Barney Franks will resign in disgrace any minute now).

[brytlea]

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

[TwelveOfTwenty]

The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.

No, the answer is that a budget surplus isn't all Clinton left us with.

[woofie]

http://keithhennessey.com/2010/11/18/president-george-w-bushs-spending-record

While President Bush’s critics frequently remind us of his decision to fulfill a campaign promise to add a drug benefit to Medicare, they forget or ignore his important fiscal policy moves in the other direction. President Bush vetoed the second farm bill; that veto was overridden. President Bush twice vetoed bills unnecessarily increasing spending for children’s health insurance. President Bush repeatedly proposed hundreds of billions of dollars of Medicare and Medicaid savings, only to find these proposals routinely ignored by Congress. President Bush proposed a long-term budget neutral drug benefit plus Medicare reform package to House and Senate Republican leaders in 2003. Those leaders supported the drug benefit but rejected the savings from the aggressive structural reforms. President Bush received little support for Social Security reform proposals that would have significantly addressed our long-term entitlement spending problem. If you don’t like the net spending increases during President Bush’s tenure, ask why Congress so often resisted the President’s proposals to cut spending.

Unlike each of his three predecessors, President Bush did not raise taxes.

George W. Bush, a wartime President, had a smaller federal government and lower taxes relative to the economy than each of his three predecessors, historically small deficits, no tax increases, and 5.3% average unemployment. He vetoed a farm bill and two health bills for spending too much. He proposed structural and incremental reforms to Social Security and Medicare that set up the current entitlement reform debate. Maybe the conventional wisdom should be revised a bit

[cranked]

Same ole blame Bush BS...all the while, BLATANTLY ignoring how much this sorry SOB POTUS has spent in less than 2.5 years in office.

Hey NYT: KMA and hope ya go bankrupt like yesterday. =.=

[shoff]

Thanks that answers the Clinton “surplus” if it was real he could have paid down the debt.

[jpl]

The left had better get all of their Bush Derangement Syndrome out of their system now, because I guarantee that by this time next year the country just won’t want to hear it any more.

[CodeToad]

Here are the breakdownss of the national debt during each Congress and President since this country was born:

Presidential Party
Federalist $7,512,818 +1.11%
Whig $23,025,792 +40.66%
Democrat-Republican $(15,501,250) +0.07%
Democrat $2,365,959,484,414 +23.88%
Republican $7,783,797,371,805 +22.64%

Senate Party
Federalist $7,512,818 +1.11%
Whig $326,156 +13.99%
Democrat-Republican $10,570,383 +1.53%
Jackson Republican $(73,947,011) -27.97%
Democrat $5,206,071,954,221 +55.64%
Republican $5,024,337,411,790 +8.07%

House Party
Federalist $978,571 +1.08%
Anti-Federalists $1,199,480 +0.83%
Whig $31,246,112 +58.46%
Jeffersonian Republican $15,905,150 +2.44%
Jackson Republican $(81,016,547) -29.64%
Adams-Clay Republican $(12,492,617) -3.49%
Democrat $6,412,690,458,908 +45.37%
Republican $3,827,278,257,467 +7.85%

[brytlea]

The sad thing is, even conservatives talk about the Clinton surplus as if it were a real thing (as if it was money just floating around Washington for the spending (and they spent it as if it were real too).

[Sequoyah101]

The only thing they are correct about is that the Bush Tax Cuts created a whole lot more people who don’t pay any taxes at all. The Bush Tax cuts favored the lower class a HECK of a lot more than the upper class. In fact, you could argue that the cuts did not do one thing to help the ultra rich who make their money in long term capital gains.

I know a lot of people who were paying some taxes who pay nothing at all now since the Bush Tax Cuts. Does this ever get mentioned? No, of course not.

Does it ever get mentioned that if the Bush Tax cuts were totally reversed it would hurt the lower income much more than the upper income? No, never.