CBO Report is Damning for Ideologues - Right and Left

[Igel]

17. Because we read and have memories.

"investing in America's future and raising taxes on the wealthy, by 2015, the deficit will have been cut by 80% relative to the size of the economy from when President Obama took office..."

That was after a sharp contraction, so the economy was smaller by comparison. Now we've had years of growth. We've raised taxes two ways. We have repayments from the FMs to artificially reduce the deficit. And yet the deficit is only 20% smaller than inauguration day.

Even that "baseline" deficit from 1/2009 included emergency spending--that extra $700 billion--*and* sharply reduced tax reductions. If Obama hadn't spent $350 billion of TARP, we'd still be well above the deficit on that day. At least the article doesn't cite useless numbers like the deficit for 2009.

And the prosperity is also being helped by $85 billion a month in "stimulus" pumped out by the quasi-independent Fed For the last few years. That's trillions to help restore liquidity, keep the deficit from hurting equity markets, and keep the interest payments low on the 40% or so of the debt that's built up since 1/2009.

That's the "reading part."

The "memory part" is excoriating a deficit of $450 billion during a nearly jobless recovery from recession as unsustainable, immoral, corrupt, and ultimately the destruction of the US economy. That, with lower taxes and two wars, instead of one wound down under the 2008 SOFA and the other about to wind down.