| richardhutnik said: Wait, whatever happened to the governing by the philosophy of Dick Cheney that "Deficits don't matter"? http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/245esggv.asp Yes, even the Weekly Standard, an influential publication which drives Neocon ideology in 2005 writes that deficits aren't too bad. Yet now, they are? Oh well, I guess they only matter when you aren't in power. I would love to see congress try to pass tax cuts with required spending cuts, and those who are all against Washington spending get NO money back from Washington for their district. It is only pork when it is someone else's district. |
First off, I would like to point out that most true fiscal conservatives and libertarians did not approve of the Bush deficits, and this was one of the few things that they agreed with Democrats at the time; until (of course) the Democrats gained power and (much like anti-war and environmental activists) the Democrats demonstrated that they didn't really have any principles, and only were angry with these policies because a Republican was in charge.
Beyond that, in defence of the people who didn't see the Bush deficits as a problem and now argue against the Obama deficits, there is an argument to be made that deficits of a certain size are not that big of a problem. If your deficit is roughly equal to or smaller than economic growth the size of the debt as a percentage of GDP doesn't increase. Under the Bush administration the public debt as a percentage of GDP remained relatively stable, and therefore the debt didn't get substantially worse under George W. Bush. In contrast, under the Obama administration the deficit is an order of magnitude greater than GDP growth, and debt as a portion of GDP is exploding.
