Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
Not terrible, but I take exception to their explanations of why things are unusually bad right now. It has everything to do with the recession and very little to do with war spending, tax cuts, TARP, Medicare Part D, and Obamacare. Oh, obviously military/security spending has contributed to our total debt, but not our current deficit. Bush's tax cuts certainly helped a little bit, but you can see deficits had narrowed significantly by the end of his term, so I doubt that's a major factor (they were probably getting back to some equilibrium after cuts). TARP was a one-time ding that is getting nearly all paid back (it may even make a small profit). Medicare Part D is a better argument, but the real costs are in the future and not now. Obamacare even more so - few of the costs have figured in our deficits.
We've had recessions before. We haven't had spending that was 24% of GDP since WWII.