Ezra Klein: A tale of two presidents and their deficits

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ezra Klein clears the fog of Tea-Publican propaganda on the deficit. Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph – The Washington Post:

From the New York Times :

What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them.

To relate this specifically to the debt-ceiling debate, we’re not raising the debt ceiling because of the new policies passed in the past two years. We’re raising the debt ceiling because of the accumulated effect of policies passed in recent decades, many of them under Republicans.

Hysterical Tea-Publican propaganda claims "it's all Obama's fault!" So much for personal responsiblity that Tea-Publicans like to talk about, but never accept.

UPDATE: Steve Benen has more at the Political Animal – Blame where blame is due. Money quote:

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough recently surprised me by identifying the culprit for the nation’s fiscal mess. “Let’s make no mistake about it right now: increasing this debt ceiling? This is George W. Bush and the Republican Party’s debt,” the former Republican congressman said. Scarborough added, “This is George W. Bush’s debt…. You can’t just put this on Barack Obama.”