Chart: We Have A Spending Problem, Not A Revenue Problem
Via Ed Morrissey, this is our national fiscal mess in a nutshell:
Note that the chart destroys several lefty tropes about our nation’s finances.
For one, the idea that the Bush tax cuts created deficits. Those tax cuts were implemented in 2003, and had their first full impact in 2004. From that point on, deficits shrunk as federal tax receipts soared thanks to increased economic activity. If Bush and Republicans could have reined in spending, at least stopping it from growing faster than tax receipts, we could have had a balanced budget.
That they didn’t is hardly an indictment of the tax cuts.
Also, keep in mind that the budget for FY2007 was the last budget passed by the Republican super-majority. Democrats took over both houses of Congress in 2007 and produced their first budget for 2008 which reversed the trend in shrinking deficits.
To be fair, Bush signed the FY2008 budget which began the widening deficits again and he also signed into law TARP which created $700 billion in new spending. But that aside, we can see that deficit spending accelerated to new highs under President Obama.
Note, in particular, the wide gap between White House/CBO projections for deficits and the reality in the later years of Obama’s term. The Obama administration had expected to have deficits lower by now, but that hasn’t worked thanks mostly to a stagnant economy.
Raising taxes is only going to exacerbate that problem. We need to cut government down to something we can actually afford.
Tags: deficits, national debt
