Quote:
Originally Posted by crazy_eoj
Obama took office on Jan 20, 2009 and the debt was 10.6 trillion. Today it stands at 16.3 trillion. That's borrowing almost 6 trillion dollars in one term, or an increase of over 50%.
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This is nonsense. Bush created a structural deficit in his first term by passing tax cuts that have carried through until now and as a result of two new wars. This is what is responsible for essentially all deficit spending under Bush and Obama. These are not new Obama programs, Obama did not stop all Bush spending and convert it to Obama spending the moment he took office. Immediate repeal of the tax cuts and immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan in February, 2008 would have led to significantly smaller deficits, but would have had other effects and the complaining about those would be louder. Gradually shrinking the deficit back towards balance is the only reasonable alternative, you can't do 1.4 billion in spending cuts in one fell swoop, particularly in the economic climate of 2008.