What do we cut spending on? There's never any cost-benefit analysis of what we stand to gain by cutting what's left to cut.
It's frustrating, because the right wants a nice, happy round number to match their nice happy round-number of a tax rate they also think they should have to match the nice happy round-number of what's too big for a deficit.
Meanwhile, there's a society that, by definition of "government" is going to be impacted by what government does or doesn't do---regardless of whatever Randian fantasies one may have.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. If we concentrate on getting the economy to grow, most of these problems (the deficit, federal spending and revenue) are easier to solve.
But our government (both sides of the aisle) seem to do everything in their power to stall the economy and create uncertainty. For the last 6 months, what business person could make a reliable forecast as to the state of the economy? It certainly has not been an environment where you would want to invest in growing your company or employees, given the number of unknowns (future taxes, economic growth, spending, even health care expenses).
Our politicians on both sides seem to be creating a system where they and lobbyists are the only winners. By making short-term decisions, various interest groups are forced to pump more money, more often, into this lobby/politician funnel.
We would probably have less rampant abuse, though if Bush times is an indication of anything, the right can definitely be tempted by debt spending also, just in less egregious quantities. But I'd take Bush-level deficits (400bn) over Obama-level (1trln+) any day.
Obama's deficits are caused by the depression bush brought us (decreased tax revenues -> deficit) and the continued unfunded wars, tax cuts and Medicare D program.
Of course Bush is to blame for everything. It's not like Obama had control over the budget for 4 years now and did nothing to reign in spending. Here I was naively hoping there's some point where blaming Bush has to stop. Of course it will never stop.
>>>> decreased tax revenues -> deficit
This is only partially true - IIRC, CBO estimates are about 24% of the Bush-era deficits were caused by tax cuts. The rest is spending increases and tax revenue falling short of previous expectations (i.e. would happen with or without tax cuts, and without tax cuts would probably be more severe as tax cuts were observed to decrease tax avoidance). The difference between 400bn and 1trln can not be explained by tax cuts.
"It's not like Obama had control over the budget for 4 years now"
Because he's a dictator?
"and did nothing to reign in spending. "
Slowest increase in spending since Eisenhower?
"Here I was naively hoping there's some point where blaming Bush has to stop. Of course it will never stop."
Because it will never stop being true that he's responsible for the current fiscal mess? I'm sorry it's an 'inconvenient truth" for you that Bush sucked and got us in this mess.
"The rest is spending increases and tax revenue falling short of previous expectations"
This is actually what I meant by decreased revenues. My full quote as you can see is:
"decreased tax revenues -> deficit) and the continued unfunded wars, tax cuts and Medicare D program."
So perhaps that could have been punctuated better but it's not hard to see that I was making the distinction between the tax cuts and the decreased revenues due to recession/depression.
For those reading this outside of the USA, this grandparent and parent poster are why this country suffers from backbiting and lack of any sort of progressive reform, like basic health. This view exists from the very bottom to the very top of the socio-economic ladder.
Being a citizen of Indiana, I am embarrassed to have such people at the helm in this country. It is all [pro-democrat, hate republican] or [pro-republican, hate democrat] with no room for even discussion of what works or not. It's all platform based demagoguery.