BLAME FOR DEFICITS FOR DUMMIES

With this post, I hope to provide some assistance in sorting out the blame for the United States national debt, which is over 12 trillion dollars, amounting to over $113,000 per taxpayer and over $40,000 per citizen.

First, President George W. Bush deserves blame for the national debt. When he took office, the national debt was 5.7 trillion dollars. When Obama took office, the national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars. The nation racked up 4.9 trillion dollars of debt under the Bush presidency. As I heard someone characterize it---he spent like a drunken Marxist.

Second, how does debt grow? Most of you know this. The national debt grows when our government spends more money than what it takes in. It is the same way your own debt increases. If the government spent no money, no debt would accumulate.

The money the government spends comes from the federal taxes upon the United States citizens. Another way to avoid debt is to increase the total amount of taxes paid. If the government brings in more revenue than what it spends, debt will decrease. How to increase the revenue is a little more tricky than how to decrease the spending. What I have noticed in my lifetime is that governments that cut taxes increase government revenue. That doesn't make sense to some people. How could the government increase its revenue by decreasing taxes, when taxes are the only way a government can get money to spend? What I have witnessed is that the decrease of taxes results in the growth of the economy. More money is invested in private enterprise resulting in more production of wealth. Even though a smaller percentage of taxes are paid, the total amount of taxes increases because of the increased productivity and wealth. It's as simple as this: people work harder when they get to keep more of what they earn. When they work harder, they increase productivity and then wealth.

However, for the sake of argument, let's keep the revenue side out of this. Some argue for raising taxes as a means of increasing revenue. Others contend that lowering taxes will raise the revenue. We all know that cutting spending will lower the national debt. There is no argument on that.

Spending increased in the Bush government. He's to blame.

Third, were President Obama and Vice President Biden also part of the government when George W. Bush was president? Yes, they were. They were two of the only fifty United States Senators, Senator Obama from Illinois and Senator Biden from Delaware. Barack Obama was a Senator in the United States Congress from January 3, 2005 to November 16, 2008. Joe Biden was a Senator during the entire Bush presidency.

Fourth, did Senator Obama, and now President Obama, try to cut spending or did he vote to spend more as a Senator during those years of the Bush presidency? Congress does, if you didn't know it already, control the purse strings in our government. Money spending starts with Congress. The Senate is one house of the U. S. Congress. Certainly the president must approve of that spending, but no spending would occur without the Congress initiating it. Then Senator Obama was part of the Congress the last four years while Bush was president. The Democrats also controlled both houses of Congress after 2006.

We know how Senator Obama voted as a Senator and he rarely voted against spending more money. When now President Obama was a Senator, he also often voted against spending cuts. The National Taxpayers Association reported that in the 110th Congress, then Senator Obama was by far one of the biggest spenders. If you just look at his time in the Senate in 2007, Obama voted "NO" to "To pay down the Federal debt and eliminate government waste by reducing spending on programs rated ineffective by the Program Assessment Rating Tool" on March 22, 2007. Just quickly scanning his record, he voted "YES" to additional spending on 3/7/06, 3/14/06, 3/15/06 (twice), 3/16/06 (six times), 4/3/06, 5/18/06, 3/23/07, 3/29/07, 6/6/07, 6/19/07, etc.

So the answer is that, "yes," Senator Obama supported and contributed to the increase in the national debt. He was not a force toward shrinking the debt, but an encouragement toward growing it.

Since President Obama became president, in a little more than a year the debt has increased from 10.6 trillion to 12.3 trillion. That's 1.7 trillion increase in national debt since Barack Obama became president. If you project that over his four years, he will have increased the national debt over 1 trillion dollars more in four years than what President Bush did in eight.

Someone who complains and blames about inherited debt, who racks up debt the fastest in all history, is like someone who complains and blames about frowning, who has a permanent scowl on his face. The person who blames someone else about inherited debt, who multiplies the debt like no other, is like someone who complains and blames about boogers, when he's got boogers all over. You can put his face next to hypocrite in the dictionary.

Fifth, no one who grows the national debt by supporting increased spending and then himself increases the national debt faster than anyone ever shall be able to blame anyone for increasing the national debt. All blame of others or predecessors by such persons shall be ignored.