S
ince bashing deficit spending is now de rigueur for some on this blog, especially the Baconator himself, I thought it might be interesting to note what the Huffington Post and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have to offer on the topic.
True, they are from the left side of the aisle, but I am asked to take seriously lots of stuff put out by Commentary or the American Enterprise Institute, so, like Fox News, I am trying to be “fair and balanced.”
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post notes that a new study by the Center shows that the current $1.4 trillion annual deficit run by the government doesn’t really have all that much to do with Barack Obama. Au contraire it is the fast-forgotten “W” (remember him?).
A few of George W. Bush’s deficit culprits:
- Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 (which aided mostly the rich), cut revenues.
- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are major factors. The other day at a Richmond speech, Sen. Jim Webb but the price tag at $2 trillion. Noted economist Joseph. E. Stiglitz has put it at $3 trillion.
- The nasty recession has cut tax revenues as sales diminish and property values tank.
- The TARP financial services bailout and the rescues of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac added mightily to the expense list and these were Bush programs. In fact, while government spending did rise noticeably in 2009, about 41 percent or $245 billion of it were the result of Bush bailouts.
To be fair, TARP now seems to have worked and banks are repaying their rescue funds. Obama is thinking about flipping some of the money over to create jobs, which is a fine idea. But Obama’s troop hikes in Afghanistan are going to be costly. So will health reform, but that is pretty much in the hands of the House and Senate leadership, not Obama’s.
Anyway, read it and weep. Where were all those grave deficit concerns among you Republicans during the Bush years of 2001 to 2009?
Peter Galuszka