Democrats in Congress

Short Civic Lesson

Another version of a December 2009 post - Big Dem Gov Deficit graph

The Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush. Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense. So once more, 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 Democrat Party. They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush. That caused them to compromise on spending when Bush, somewhat belatedly, got tough on spending increases.

For FY 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 FY 2009 budgets.

Where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period: (below)



If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last Republican budget. 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. That includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is that I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

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Note from the right jack. Posted in Really? August 2010

Democrats like to use the phrase "the failed economic policies of the past" in connection with anything Bush and/or Republican. Yet, it has been the past few Democrat Congresses [House and Senate], including the last one under Bush 43, that have legislated our way into massive debt, now expanding into "trillions" of dollars. It has been the Democrat's unwillingness to exercise regulatory oversight that destroyed the housing market.