| thx1139 said: Wrong. Notice that the debt decreased under LBJ and that continued until Reagan came into office and introduced trickle down economics. Continued rising until Clinton policys came into effect. Then took off again under Bush. Yes year and a 1/2 of Obama (Obama 1st budget was 2010, not 2009) presidency accelerated, that is do to continuing nearly all new Bush policies because of Senate fillibusters and the 1 time stimulus.
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Go look at the policies LBJ put in place.
Under Johnson, Medicare and Medicaid were passed. These were two landmark programs that did not exist prior to LBJ, and have grown in size considerably since he pushed them through via his Great Society initiatives. Additionally, his Great Society acts included federal funding of education, and started most welfare programs we know today, and expanded the role of Social Security in our society by increasing its benefits.
All of these acts' costs were not fulfilled under Johnsons presidency, much like all of FDR's acts costs were brought to bear during his presidency.
So lets look at Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs and see how these acts play into our current budgetary issues:
As of 2011, costs are now approximately $460 billion USD. Adding Medicaid, the costs are approximately $773 billion USD/yr or 23% of all federal outlays. Add Social Security in as well, and you have approximately $1.494 trillion in spending between our social insurances program. Taxes among these programs were $965 billion in 2010, so our government lost $529 billion USD on social programs last year, most of which were initated or expanded by LBJ.
Throw in the other programs championed by LBJ such as food stamps and federal education spending, and you add another $150 billion USD/yr on programs started by LBJ for a grand total of $600 billion USD in annual spending on programs that LBJ created.
As for the Obama argument - you can play that game of passing the buck on Bush & his Democratic legislature as much as you like, but everything we see today points to the fact that Obama has not attempted to reduce the massive size of government in the post-Bush era by one iota. Since he has done this, he and his government is implicit in the screw-up that was Bush's presidency.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
