Bush responsible for almost all of deficit

A favorite wingnut meme is that the current deficit can be blamed largely on the fiscal policies of the Obama administration. Alas, reality refuses to cooperate, as shown in a recent report from the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

President Obama Largely Inherited Today’s Huge Deficits:

Some critics charge that the new policies pursued by President Obama and the 111th Congress generated the huge federal budget deficits that the nation now faces. In fact, the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the economic downturn together explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years (see Figure 1).

…

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration —tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan— accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and $7.1 trillion in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).

Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the previous Administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade. That would put the nation on a much sounder footing to address the demographic challenges and the cost pressures in health care that darken the long-run fiscal outlook.

The report also notes that the steps proposed in the administration’s budget “represent a commendable first step, though they are hardly sufficient to address our long-term fiscal imbalance”.

Wingnuts, of course, live in their own carefully distorted reality. When faced with facts that contradict their fantasy world, they simply ignore those facts.