Look at the facts on how deficit grew

Last November I wrote an opinion in the Herald regarding the national debt and the fact that most of that debt was accumulated during the administrations of Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. Some of the online comments to this must have been written by the factually (or mathematically) challenged.

Certainly the debt has grown tremendously during the first two years of the Obama administration, but this is somewhat normal during a severe recession. However, the $3 trillion-plus added to the debt during the 12 years of Reagan/Bush 41 (during a good economic time) would equal $9 trillion to $10 trillion in today’s dollars due to the high inflation rates of the 1980s.

But more important than those facts was that Bush 43 inherited huge trillion-dollar projected surpluses from the Clinton administration, but through two misguided tax cuts those surpluses quickly turned to deficits. Those tax cuts certainly did nothing to help the economy as proven by the stock market performance (or lack of) during the Bush years.

No one should debate the fact that the debt is now a nearly insurmountable problem which must be attacked by not only large spending cuts which disproportionately affect the lower and middle classes but also by raising tax revenues as the Simpson-Bowles bipartisan commission suggested.

However it certainly would have been beneficial to the nation had the Republicans embraced these ideas during the first six years of the Bush administration when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Unfortunately in 2002 when Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill warned Bush of a looming debt crisis he was told by Dick Cheney that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” O’Neill was fired shortly after this exchange and the rest, as they say, is history.

Phil Williams

Palatine