WashingtonPost on the Deficit, Bush vs. Obama

There's a really good graph from the link.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/obamas-and-bushs-effect-on-the-deficit-in-one-graph/2011/07/25/gIQAELOrYI_blog.html
 
AMT and other mechanisms keep revenue increasing naturally

there was one spike in revenue that was due to a major year for corporate profits (corporate taxes were not cut down from 35%)
 
Everyone is jumping on that stupid chart. I've seen countless articles about it. All wrongfully say that the Bush tax cuts are the major blame but fail to say that after the cuts in 2003, revenue in $ and % of GDP increased every year until the fall in 2008. They also fail to mention the steadily reducing deficits every year following the tax cuts. But yeah, it was those damn tax cuts that got us in this mess.
 
Dodd-Frank Bill would have but the banks were fighting it tooth and nail. And the House GOP are allowing them to kill it.

And proof to your claim? Bush stayed out of the way from Wall ST.
 
There are plenty of issues with this chart, but let’s start with the notion that the “Bush tax cuts” cost the static-analysis price listed here. Absent those tax cuts, we would not have had the recovery from 2003-7, which generated a rather hefty increase in federal revenues; we’ll return to that in a moment. The actual revenue listed in this chart was what static analysis of the recovery would have brought into federal coffers, which is one of the main problems with static analysis. It also conflates tax cuts with federal spending, which only makes sense if one starts from the premise that the people owe their government all of their income less any that the government arbitrarily allows them to keep.

The chart then tries to claim that Obama’s spending increases over the next 8 years (projected) will amount to just $1.44 trillion — less than the annual deficit these days. Oddly, it doesn’t mention that the last Republican annual budget passed in Congress (FY2007) only had a $160 billion deficit, which tenRAB to interfere with the narrative Fallows and the Times wants to build here.

The war costs used by the Times appears to contain mainly costs that would have been incurred by the Department of Defense whether or not we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also fails to note the bipartisan nature of the war in Afghanistan — and somehow fails to include the costs of both wars under Obama for the first two years. Similarly, the chart correctly notes the first tranche of TARP under Bush, but skips the second tranche under Obama. Also, the category of “2008 Stimulus and Other Changes” seems pretty suspect, since the 2008 stimulus was scored at $150 billion, or less than one-fifth of the $773 billion the Times claims.
 
Counting the Bush tax cuts as an expense in a static model is retarded, as though tax cuts have zero effect on the economy.

Before you jump on me with that OH TAX CUTS PAY FOR THEMSELFS HUH LOLZ please note I'm not saying the difference in revenue was zero or positive, but the difference is also not "whatever higher tax rates would have brought in during the economy that followed the tax cuts" because that economy would not have been the same as what actually happened.
 
We didn't have a serious recovery, we had a slow economy going in a natural business cycle, marked by terrible job growth and stagnant wages

That is despite TWO huge rounRAB of tax cuts

Also, the chart says most of Obama's spending is already done

The stimulus tax cuts are over and the stimulus spending has already been appropriated

So you only have 400 billion of Obama spending (minus the stimulus)

Considering there are a lot of spending freezes and chained growth in the discretionary budget now, I don't see how the non-defense discretionary spending will go up much higher

And the entitlement changes are linked to cuts in Medicare advantage
 
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