Deficit Truths And Lies

Or, the falsehood that wouldn't die.  The latest eruption of this patently phony nonsense, from Senator Rand Paul:

"You know, the thing is, people want to say it’s extreme. But what I would say is extreme is a trillion-dollar deficit every year. I mean, that's an extremely bad situation."

And we've all heard the constant insistence from the Republicans that Obama exploded the deficit, and that it continues to grow- a claim swallowed whole by much of the mainstream press.

Well, time out for a little truth.  Here's a nice, readily available chart of the recent history of the Federal deficit:

I added the grey bars to allow you to see what happened to the budget deficit under Republican and Democratic Presidents, going back to Jimmy Carter, whose fiscal mismanagement (according to Republicans) left the Federal government with a deficit (get ready for the shock) of $59.6 billion.

As you can see, every Republican administration in the last 35 years has left office with a greatly higher budget deficit, and every Democratic administration has done exactly the opposite.  Despite this truth, the press of course continues to collaborate with Republicans to spread the patent falsehood that it is Democrats that are the spendthrifts.  And thus the American public continues to place its trust in the very people that pose the greatest threat to our public well-being.  So, the struggle between flawed but essentially decent people, and those who are not, continues as it has throughout the whole history of mankind.

Comments

Jerry Critter said…
Once again, proof that Democrats are more fiscally responsible than Republicans. Republicans simply accuse Democrats of doing exactly what they, themselves, do.
Anonymous said…
Hey, where do these #'s come from? Thanks
Green Eagle said…
Anonymous, click on the link.
Philmarusa said…
I'd be interested in seeing the source, too! Great Chart!
Anonymous said…
Jon Hazell There's an incredible amount of misinformation out there about deficits and the debt and it's often hard to tell fact from hype. For instance, it's not widely known that the US Federal Government ran a surplus in June. A good source for accurate, unbiased, non-political information is the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank (called FRED). You can take their factual data and apply it to your own biases! http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/
(O)CT(O)PUS said…
It should also be pointed out that budget deficits are inversely proportional to tax revenues, and tax revenues are a function of economic activity. In other words, a healthy economy translates into higher tax revenues which means lower deficits - all under the aegis of Democrats.
Jerry Critter said…
The solution is higher wages. Higher wages result in:

1. Higher tax revenues
2. Lower deficits
3. Increased demand
4. Increased employment
5. Improved economy

And the cycle continues.

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