The Deficit Is A Republican Creation

The excellent chart above (from the blog Progressive Eruptions) shows where the federal deficit has come from. When President Clinton left office, he left his successor (George W. Bush) a surplus in the government's yearly budget. But even though the Republicans like to brag about how frugal they are with the taxpayer's money, it didn't take Bush and his GOP cohorts long to bust the budget and create a massive deficit.

First, he passed huge tax cuts (which mostly benefitted the richest Americans). That action alone created nearly half of the current deficit (about 48%). If he had done nothing else, that one ridiculous act would have created a deficit out of the surplus he inherited. But Bush didn't stop there. He increased the Homeland Security and military budgets and started two unnecessary wars. That accounted for another 35% of the budget deficit -- and added to the tax cuts for the rich, makes up 83% of the deficit.

But the congressional Republicans have an amazing ability to ignore the obvious reality. They are blaming the entire deficit on the small rise in spending on entitlements (10%) and domestic programs (7%). It doesn't matter to them that the so-called "entitlements" (Social Security and Medicare) could be easily fixed and funded far into the future by simply removing the cap on payroll taxes (so that the rich pay the same percentage as working Americans). And the small rise in domestic spending could easily have been covered if the tax cuts for the rich had not been enacted.

What is the Republican "solution" to fixing the deficit? They want to abolish Medicare and cut (or privatize) Social Security (in spite of the easy fixes available), and then they want to deeply slash spending for domestic programs (which are badly needed by American hurt by the GOP recession). And they want to double-down on the two biggest budget-busters, by raising military spending and giving the rich even more huge tax cuts.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that would increase the federal deficit instead of lowering it. It becomes obvious now why the GOP wants to eliminate the Education Department and cut funds for education. Only an uneducated public could fall for the outrageous Republican economic plan.
by Ted McLaughlin