This chart, from The Maddow Blog, once again shows the Republicans are just lying when they called the Democrats the "big spenders" who create large deficits. If you'll remember, there was no budget deficit at all when President Clinton left office. In fact, there was a budget surplus (that was slowly paying down the national debt).It was George Bush, with his waging two unnecessary wars and give unnecessary tax cuts to the rich, that created the budget deficit that we currently have. And the deficit during Bush's final year in office was the biggest budget deficit this nation has ever seen -- and was larger than any budget deficit in any year of the Obama presidency (and faster than any deficit reduction since World War II).
Now the Republicans will try to claim that the budget is being reduced now only because of the cuts they have forced. That is just not true. Their vaunted "austerity" has kept our crippled economy from recovering from the Bush recession as fast as it could have, and has kept joblessness at a very high rate. Most of the lowering of the deficit is because of new revenues (which the Republicans opposed, and finally had to be forced to accept).
And more revenues still could be accomplished. The simplest way would be to eliminate the capital gains tax rate (now at 20%, even for billionaires), and tax all income at the same rate (the earned income rate). This would bring huge amounts of new revenue into the government -- and it would do so without raising the top income tax rate for the rich. Another excellent idea would be to put a small tax on the trading of huge amounts of stock.
My point is that the budget could be lowered much further -- and it could be done without hurting those Americans still struggling to recover from the last recession (the unemployed, the poor and disadvantaged, the elderly, and children). And it could be done without causing further damage to the middle class.
