WaPo: Running in the red: How the U.S., on the road to surplus, detoured to massive debt

[Scuba]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/running-in-the-red-how-the-us-on-the-road-to-surplus-detoured-to-massive-debt/2011/04/28/AFFU7rNF_story.html


..snip..

Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus, a favorite target of Republicans who blame Democrats for the mounting debt, has added $719 billion — 6 percent of the total shift, according to the new analysis of CBO data by the nonprofit Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative. All told, Obama-era choices account for about $1.7 trillion in new debt, according to a separate Washington Post analysis of CBO data over the past decade. Bush-era policies, meanwhile, account for more than $7 trillion and are a major contributor to the trillion-dollar annual budget deficits that are dominating the political debate.

As Congress prepares this week to launch a high-stakes battle over whether to raise the legal limit on borrowing, the analyses offer a clearer view of the drivers of the debt — and of the difficulty of re-balancing the budget without new tax revenue.


..end..

[FreakinDJ]

1. Them "Pesky Facts" again

[sinkingfeeling]

2. "Bush-era policies.. account for more than $7 trillion", not according to the GOP who accomplished

that. It's 100% the fault of Obama and why it's now a problem and wasn't until Jan. 2009.

[spanone]

11. but those policies are absolved from blame since they were incurred by republicans

[jtrockville]

14. Right.... Just ask Dick "I'll break the tie, deficits don't matter" Cheney

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. According to Republicans it doesn't count unless it's done by a Democrat.

They're, in their eyes, inoculated from any responsibility.

[Jim Lane]

4. That article is a great summary of the fiscal debacle.

Now if only we could fit that article onto a bumper sticker....

[kentuck]

12. Here it is:

$9 out of $10 in DEBT
Was created by Republicans

[gratuitous]

5. Article published back on April 30

I wonder why the substance of this article hasn't gotten more play in the popular media? Prolly those libruls trying to cover up the facts to try to make Republicans look bad!

[SpiralHawk]

6. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL Bush (R)

[SpiralHawk]

7. Face the UgLY truth republicons: This is your freaking mEsS

AMERICA's finances and economy are in the crapper because of REPUBLICONS.

Not partisan rhetoric: absolute truth.

[kentuck]

8. Every Democrat needs to know these facts:

<snip>
In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything it owed.

<snip>
The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts. Together, the economy and the tax bills enacted under former president George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent by President Obama, wiped out $6.3 trillion in anticipated revenue. That’s nearly half of the $12.7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to real debt. Federal tax collections now stand at their lowest level as a percentage of the economy in 60 years.

Big-ticket spending initiated by the Bush administration accounts for 12 percent of the shift. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have added $1.3 trillion in new borrowing. A new prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients contributed another $272 billion. The Troubled Assets Relief Program bank bailout, which infuriated voters and led to the defeat of several legislators in 2010, added just $16 billion — and TARP may eventually cost nothing as financial institutions repay the Treasury.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

9. THANK YOU!!!

I could kiss you for this. I was just battling a wingnut friend of mine who insists that the stimulus failed. She comes equipped with all her wingnut talking points and NO facts!!!!!

[kentuck]

10. Another prominent fact:

<snip>
Still, Hoagland said, the abandonment of fiscal discipline in the wake of the surpluses clearly didn’t help. “Nobody pushed for paying for this stuff,” he said. Not even after “it became very clear in the middle of 2003 that the line had turned on us. And the surpluses as far as the eye could see were no longer there.”

[spanone]

13. imagine if Joe Biden came out tomorrow and said 'deficits don't matter' as cheney did?

and cheney was right at the time....his colleagues didn't give a shit, and if a pub was in the white house, they would still not give a shit.

[CleanGreenFuture]

15. An entire decade on a war footing and they never had a plan to pay for it. And now

the chickens have come home to roost and they're trying to dump it all on Pres. Obama.

This information needs a massive email/social media blast.

[WCGreen]

16. Wow. from WaPo.....

Damn, that's unexpected.

K&R