Over the past 50 years, 10 U.S. presidents have made annual budget requests to Congress, projecting deficits both big and small. But no other president compares to Barack Obama when it comes to the size and scale of the current budget deficit facing the United States.The country is facing an 8.3 percent estimated average national deficit of a two-term Obama administration — the biggest of the past 50 years. By comparison, the current estimate for Obama is nearly double the percentage under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — and they were fighting the Cold War.
...So what does the current trajectory mean for the United States? We’re certainly no longer looking at a continuation of manageable deficits in the years to come. This is a dramatic change in the magnitude of annual shortfalls at the federal level. That’s one reason Heritage came up with a plan to fix the debt crisis.
And for the drones out there who point to President Clinton's "budget surplus", I'd like to remind you of one simple fact: the House of Representatives -- and specifically Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. John Kasich (now governor of Ohio) -- pinned Clinton's shoulders to the mat in order to force a balanced budget on the spend-happy Democrats.
I have one problem with the Clinton statistics. Clinton move the fiscal year by one day to move one years budget to the next. I was in the service during this time, back when we used to get paid once a month. Our pay day used to be on the last day of the month because of this it was moved to the first. Newt doesn't mention that either because it blows away his augment that he balanced the budget. Please investigate that.
ReplyDeleteThanks I always enjoy this site and the great work you do.