Tim and Alissa Birkel: Bush Derangement Syndrome, Deficit Edition: Still Crazy After All These Years
Unfortunately, it seems that the reports of a cure for Bush Derangement Syndrome have been premature. Either that, or Paul Begala hasn’t gotten his shots yet. On last night’s episode of Anderson Cooper 360, during a news story on the government’s new estimates adding another $2 trillion to the national deficit, Begala agreed that Obama is up a creek with no paddle in regards to the deficit. However, he claimed that the President “inherited” that creek from The One the Left Loves to Hate, George W. Bush.
“…I think the president will be able to make the case that he inherited these deficits. He inarguably did.”
He went on to blame President Bush’s tax cuts for costing more than twice what a health care bill would.
"I went and looked at the bill that passed through Senator Kennedy’s committee, the health committee in the Senate. It’s supposed to be one of the more liberal versions of this. It was scored by the Congressional Budget Office at about $600 billion. Now, that is a lot of money, but that is half of what some of the earlier versions cost. And it’s less than half of what just the Bush tax cuts alone cost."
There’s only one problem – his math and logic are demonstrably false. Contrary to leftists groupthink, George W. Bush’s tax cuts led to an increase in tax revenues and a decreasing of the deficit from 2003 to 2007. Mr. Begala indeed seems scarcely acquainted with reality. He claims the stimulus is a one-year program (it’s at least three), that Bush’s tax cuts cost the country 1.3 trillion (again, it brought in more money, and Obama is going to let them expire next year anyway), and that Obama’s deficit is due to the war in Iraq (which Obama is withdrawing from, and which is not included in long-range spending forecasts by the Obama team).
That’s not to say Bush didn’t do his fair share of deficit spending. Yet what bills he did pass were largely due to Democrats. Indeed, the largest additions to Bush’s deficit came from bills that he got passed as a sop to the left and, after 2006, a Democratic Congress—Medicare part D, massive increases in education funding and poverty relief, huge expenditures on African foreign aid. And for these bills, he got not one whit of thanks or credit from the left (see: Bush Derangement Syndrome). But even with all of that, Bush’s deficit can’t hold a candle to Obama’s...
Read entire article at Newsreal
“…I think the president will be able to make the case that he inherited these deficits. He inarguably did.”
He went on to blame President Bush’s tax cuts for costing more than twice what a health care bill would.
"I went and looked at the bill that passed through Senator Kennedy’s committee, the health committee in the Senate. It’s supposed to be one of the more liberal versions of this. It was scored by the Congressional Budget Office at about $600 billion. Now, that is a lot of money, but that is half of what some of the earlier versions cost. And it’s less than half of what just the Bush tax cuts alone cost."
There’s only one problem – his math and logic are demonstrably false. Contrary to leftists groupthink, George W. Bush’s tax cuts led to an increase in tax revenues and a decreasing of the deficit from 2003 to 2007. Mr. Begala indeed seems scarcely acquainted with reality. He claims the stimulus is a one-year program (it’s at least three), that Bush’s tax cuts cost the country 1.3 trillion (again, it brought in more money, and Obama is going to let them expire next year anyway), and that Obama’s deficit is due to the war in Iraq (which Obama is withdrawing from, and which is not included in long-range spending forecasts by the Obama team).
That’s not to say Bush didn’t do his fair share of deficit spending. Yet what bills he did pass were largely due to Democrats. Indeed, the largest additions to Bush’s deficit came from bills that he got passed as a sop to the left and, after 2006, a Democratic Congress—Medicare part D, massive increases in education funding and poverty relief, huge expenditures on African foreign aid. And for these bills, he got not one whit of thanks or credit from the left (see: Bush Derangement Syndrome). But even with all of that, Bush’s deficit can’t hold a candle to Obama’s...