Here we go again, babble about Obama and the Democrats inheriting a huge deficit from Bush and the Republicans, blah blah blah. Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense. So here’s a short civics lesson.
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. They controlled the budget process for fiscal years 2008 and 2009, as well as 2010 and 2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases. For 2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the fiscal year 2009 budgets.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and as president he signed the omnibus bill to complete 2009. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period.
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the fiscal year 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
What Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since Jan. 20.
I hope your various letter writers get their facts straight before they make assumptions.
Jim Raffetto
Mill Creek
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