It is amazing how relevant facts are completely forgotten or denied without challenge in the midst of political debates like the one we are now having. All of the following are simple facts of history:
- President Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion budget deficit.
- Republican leaders supported the tax cuts and wars that (along with the recession, another pre-Obama phenomenon) created that deficit.
- Republicans engineered this crisis by attaching unprecedented ideological demands to a routine measure.
- President Clinton left behind a substantial surplus
- President Bush vaporized it into a gigantic deficit
- President Obama’s health care reforms will actually reduce the deficit.
For a further discussion, read Still True Today: Frequently Forgotten Facts of the Debt Debate.
It is said that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Unless we can start remembering the history of just the past 10 years, we will likely repeat it in spades.