Data For Deniers

The above graphic is from an article whose title tells it like it is:

Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years

Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers

From the article:

The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.

Also, because it's a credible and balanced article:

While President Obama inherited a dismal fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them. Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s long-term deficit problem. But we should not mistake the causes of our predicament.

Among the titles of other paragraphs in the article:

Financial Rescues, Stimulus Add to Deficits in Near Term

And:

Bush Tax Cuts, War Costs Do Lasting Harm to Budget Outlook

Another article makes mostly the same point, if a bit skeptically:

The dire outlook from CBO today is not the fault of the current administration or any one administration (LBJ may be the most to blame I guess for starting Medicare). In fact, if the Medicare cuts in the health care bill are to be believed and CBO's estimates pertaining to the health care bill are to be believed, Pres. Obama has already done more to reduce in magnitude the long-term budget problems for the U.S. than the previous administration, who undoubtedly made the problem worse. That's true despite the amount added to the deficit from the stimulus bill and the costly coverage provisions in the health care bill. The obvious question is whether or not you believe the large cuts to Medicare will ever pan out. If not, Obama's fiscal record thus far is about as bad as the previous administration's.

Yet, in their usual disingenuous (at best) and cynically dishonest (for sure) or deliberately destructive (in reality) manner, the RWS™ remain in force and on message, claiming that the merest suggestion that GWBush has the tiniest shred of connection to our perilous situation is politics of the worst (if not unfamiliar to them) kind.

I repeat myself, some might say. But isn't this what it's all about, politically, for the next several months, in the US? In hopes of getting back into power, the robbers return to the scene of the crime claiming they're innocent. This is a willful disinformation campaign by Congressional Rs, the RWS™, and Fox "news," aimed at distracting the disturbed and deceived from the truth: that their policies and their most recent president have left us damaged -- possibly beyond repair. Knowing their faithful and faith-needy and hugely uninformed and formlessly angry and base base will take it in like high-fructose corn syrup, they continue to dish it out and provide the spoons. Common sense and simple facts be damned: there are teacups to be filled, and teabaggers most eager to drink.