Don't Forget Who's at Fault-by Meteor Blades

[kpete]

Don't Forget Who's at Fault
by Meteor Blades

Mon Jun 28, 2010 at 12:52:37 PM PDT

Over at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney are reminding us - in case we've forgotten the way so much of the media have - that the deficits we're facing in the next decade are due to the economic downturn, financial rescues, and Cheney-Bush policies, including the tax cuts they crafted for their wealthy cronies.

Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years
Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers

Some critics continue to assert that President George W. Bush’s policies bear little responsibility for the deficits the nation faces over the coming decade — that, instead, the new policies of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress are to blame. Most recently, a Heritage Foundation paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies. ... Nevertheless, the fact remains: Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years.

The deficit for fiscal year 2009 was $1.4 trillion and, at nearly 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was the largest deficit relative to the size of the economy since the end of World War II. If current policies are continued without changes, deficits will likely approach those figures in 2010 and remain near $1 trillion a year for the next decade.

The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.



more:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/6/28/880049/-Dont-Forget-Whos-at-Fault

[Ozymanithrax]

1. We should also remember the terrible cost of the wars...those have contributed to the recession. n/t