The New Republic: Exonerating George W. Bush
by Jonathan Chait
February 5, 2010
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123402066Former George W. Bush economic adviser Keith Hennessey is tired of the Obama administration dragging its predecessor's name through the mud. So rather than simply imply or assert that President Obama's fiscal record is worse than George W. Bush's, like most conservatives do, Hennessey actually tries to make the argument that Obama's policies are more profligate than Bush's.
I remember Bush's fiscal policies, and the political environment that surrounded them, pretty well. In the wake of the Bush administration's collapse, its defenders have been mostly laying low, trying to make their man look good by taking passive-aggressive shots at his successor. I've been waiting for Bush's loyalists to try to rewrite the past. So consider this fisking the beat-down that was nine years in the making.
1. Hennessey begins by saying that the Bush administration got blindsided by optimistic budget projections:
"It is true that 10 years ago we had a budget surplus of more than $200 billion, and that CBO projected surpluses "stretching out toward the horizon." When CBO built its budget baseline for 2001, they had not yet accounted for the bursting of the late 90’s tech stock market bubble and the effect it would have on federal revenues. Like families, businesses, and investors, CBO made a mistake: they projected future revenue growth that was never going to occur. Critics of the Bush Administration hinge their comparative argument on this single mistaken budget projection which in hindsight analysts from both parties acknowledge was wildly inaccurate."
Here's what actually happened:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123402066
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