In a piece titled "The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling," James Fallows of The Atlantic explains why the Times' graphic handiwork is so important:
It's based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who's "to blame" for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was the largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.
The chart is titled "Policy Changes Under Two Presidents," and Fallows says it is called that for a reason:
An additional significance of the chart: It identifies policy changes, the things over which Congress and Administration have some control, as opposed to largely external shocks--like the repercussions of the 9/11 attacks or the deep worldwide recession following the 2008 financial crisis. Those external events make a big difference in the deficit, and they are the major reason why deficits have increased faster in absolute terms during Obama's first two years than during the last two under Bush. (In a recession, tax revenues plunge, and government spending goes up--partly because of automatic programs like unemployment insurance, and partly in a deliberate attempt to keep the recession from getting worse.) If you want, you could even put the spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in this category: Those were policy choices, but right or wrong they came in response to an external shock.
The point is that governments can respond to but not control external shocks. That's why we call them "shocks." Governments can control their policies. And the policy that did the most to magnify future deficits is the Bush-era tax cuts. You could argue that the stimulative effect of those cuts is worth it ("deficits don't matter" etc). But you cannot logically argue that we absolutely must reduce deficits, but that we absolutely must also preserve every penny of those tax cuts. Which I believe precisely describes the House Republican position.
In other words, the GOP of 2011 is utterly illogical. But large chunks of the America public still lap up Republican sound bites.
Want another example of GOP rhetoric and its disconnect from reality? Republicans often explain away Bush's spending by saying, "Yes, but he had to deal with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Never mind that it was Bush's policy to start those wars without raising taxes to pay for them. But even when you consider only "non-defense discretionary spending," Bush still tops Obama easily. The totals in that category: $608 billion for Bush, $278 billion for Obama.
Why do we have a debt-ceiling crisis? The answer is clear: George W. Bush probably was the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history.
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