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Brain -> The Truth About the Deficit (2/10/2010 3:51:26 PM)
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To truly tame the deficit requires serious healthcare reform and that means a public option.
The Truth About the Deficit
The deficit numbers — a projected $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2011 alone — are breathtaking. What is even more breathtaking is the Republicans’ cynical refusal to acknowledge that the country would never have gotten into so deep a hole if President George W. Bush and the Republican-led Congress had not spent years slashing taxes — mainly on the wealthy — and spending with far too little restraint.
When President Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget had been in the black for three years, and continued surpluses were projected for a decade to come.
By the time Mr. Bush left office in early 2009, the government had run big deficits for seven straight years, and the economy was on the brink of another Great Depression. On Jan. 7, 2009 — two weeks before Mr. Obama was inaugurated — the Congressional Budget Office issued new budget estimates showing a fiscal year 2009 deficit of well over $1 trillion.
About half of today’s huge deficits can be chalked up to Bush-era profligacy: mainly cutting taxes deeply while borrowing to wage two wars and to enact the Medicare prescription drug benefit — all of which Republicans supported, virtually in lockstep.
The other half of recent deficits is due to the recession and the financial crisis.
Mr. Obama’s budget makes a down payment on deficit reduction by freezing some nonsecurity discretionary spending for three years, and by letting the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans expire at the end of this year. To truly tame deficits will require serious health care reform, the sooner the better. Other aspects of the long-term fiscal problem — raising taxes and retooling Social Security — must take place in earnest as the economy recovers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07sun1.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07sun1.html?pagewanted=all
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