How we got here
Informative must-read in today's Washington Post about the politics and policies that led to budget deficits and our national debt, from Clinton to Bush to Obama.
Generally, our elected leaders ignored the facts. Facts that predicted the inevitable overwhelming of the federal budget by entitlements. They ignored the warnings of the bubble bursting and the economy crashing, and the inevitable impact on revenues. They decided at a critical moment to reduce taxes instead of using a Clinton-era surplus to pay down the debt. During the two Bush administrations, they approved a stream of more tax cuts. Primarily with borrowed money, Bush and Congress waged two wars, grew the entitlement burden by adding a costly Medicare drug benefit, and spawned a massive new intelligence/homeland security industry in reaction to 9/11. The Obama administration and Congress followed suit with more tax cuts, the latest in December 2010, and approved a massive, complex overhaul of our healthcare system. While I strongly support the effort to
Generally, our elected leaders ignored the facts. Facts that predicted the inevitable overwhelming of the federal budget by entitlements. They ignored the warnings of the bubble bursting and the economy crashing, and the inevitable impact on revenues. They decided at a critical moment to reduce taxes instead of using a Clinton-era surplus to pay down the debt. During the two Bush administrations, they approved a stream of more tax cuts. Primarily with borrowed money, Bush and Congress waged two wars, grew the entitlement burden by adding a costly Medicare drug benefit, and spawned a massive new intelligence/homeland security industry in reaction to 9/11. The Obama administration and Congress followed suit with more tax cuts, the latest in December 2010, and approved a massive, complex overhaul of our healthcare system. While I strongly support the effort to