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| Pretty much. |
Go right ahead. Using
figures by Reaganomics architect Bruce Bartlett,
Andrew Sullivan writes:
When you check reality, rather than the alternate universe constantly created by Fox News and an amnesiac press, you find that Bush had a chance to pay off all our national debt before we hit the financial crisis - giving the US enormous flexibility in intervening to ameliorate the recession. Instead, we had to find money for a stimulus in a cupboard stripped bare - its contents largely given away, by an act of choice.
I'm tired of being told we cannot blame Bush for our current predicament.
We can and should blame him for most of it - and remind people that Romney's policies -- more tax cuts, more defense spending-- are identical.
With one difference: Bush pledged never "to balance the budget on the backs of the poor." Mitt Romney has no qualms about doing that very thing. And he will, if he is given the chance.
Reaganite
Bruce Bartlett (also referenced above) lays it out in black and white:
Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts.
And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008.
Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous.
Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts.
PS:
"According to a new Gallup survey, over
two-thirds of the country say Bush deserves either "a great deal" or "a moderate amount" of blame for the economy, compared to just over half who say the same about Obama" (MMFA,
Poll Shows Americans Still "Blaming Bush" For Economy | Media Matters for America - http://goo.gl/1p8c4 June 14, 2012 )
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