Quote:
Originally Posted by Whirlaway
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Let's look at facts
FACT: When George W. Bush took office, there was a budget SURPLUS.
FACT: Bush led Congress to implement very substantial tax cuts. ADDITIONAL FACT: Because the long term budget projections of those tax cuts were very bad (large deficits coming) the law enacting those cuts also mandated that they expire at the end of 2010. And those projections did not include the cost of any wars.
FACT: For years we spent tens of billions of dollars per month fighting two wars. None of that money was offset by additional revenue (tax).
FACT: When the banking crisis hit in 2008, President Bush pushed through Congress the Troubled Asset Relief Program--$700 billion plus to bail out the banks and Wall Street.
FACT: When President Obama took office the "Great Recession" was in full force. He pushed through Congress another $700 billion plus stimulus bill to put money into the economy. Note that every main stream economist in the free world agreed that a massive stimulus was necessary. Many economists, including Nobel lauriet Paul Krugman, strongly argued that the stimulus should be bigger.
FACT: The job losses and business downturn of the Great Recession further decreased tax revenue.
MY OPINION based on these facts: We need to get our federal budget in ballance and begin paying down the debt. However it is impossible to do either without a ballanced approach of increasing revenue and decreasing spending. To hold that any tax increase is unacceptable is an absolutely stupid position. Equally as stupit is to hold that any reduction in "entitlements" is unacceptable.