This chart shows policy changes and their monetary costs. It shows that the reason the debt is so darn high doesn't have a lot to do with President Obama's policies as a socialist (in Fox News lingo). You can see that Obama has decreased outlays in defense, so that is a net minus. We still spend money on wars but less so and it is reflected. Other policies have had the effect of increasing the debt. But put side by side you can see that the amount of increase in the outlay by President Obama pales in comparison to his predecessor. I think the eyeopener here is that the tax cut program that basically rewarded the rich might well be enough to entirely pay for Obama's new programs, mostly necessary in response to the Depression. Astounding!
Add the two together (Clinton left us with positive cash flow) and get that huge amount of deficit we have. The only thing slightly misleading that I can see about these graphs is that Bush had 8 years to think up policies to rack up his amount, while Obama has had considerably less time to implement policies by this point. Although the chart projects Obama's current policies out through through 8 years to be equal to Bush's time in office, it can't include the possible new policies that might be down the road (i.e. new wars, melting of the ice caps, etc.) Yet... look at the graphs. Astounding! Think of all the rhetoric about Obama's out of control spending. It is utter crap. Just a repeal of the tax cut would reap incredible savings. Even if we just repealed the tax cut from the millionaires alone that would no doubt pay for a vast majority of Obama's policy expenditure through to the end of his presidency. Wait, have I heard that somewhere before? I'm kind of surprised that the Medicare drug benefit has so little potential for savings. After all, had the drug companies not written the law we surely would be reaping savings by the truckload when we made fair bids for their drugs, instead of paying their intentionally US only inflated retail price. Yet it is small compared to the newest tax breaks for millionaires. Go figure.
Another shocker, at least it should be to the Fox-Based community, is the non-defence discretionary spending. Again this is an extrapolation forward on the Obama part and probably doesn't include the Public Works Administration program of the future needed as our country sinks further into depression due to a contraction of the money supply now all the rage in congress. :) But look at this. We, of the non Fox-Based community knew Bush was one of the biggest spenders around but, my oh my, in discretionary spending, too? Holy hollyhocks. He placed all these long term spending programs into place and still could not hold down the discretionary bit.
"The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it." - Bush IIWell, that is if you are over 40 or so and not in good health... or if you can't currently extrapolate a little backwards from the seemingly obvious future, I guess.
Somehow, the "you and I will not be around to see it" kind of smacks of apocryphal thinking. Maybe only historians will be left behind after the rapture and the older ones who remember Bush's remark won't be reading the other's writings due to their ill humor over the end of history itself.
