What has caused the deficits? And how to end them

Here are the three main drivers of our current deficit:

• Bush Tax Cuts, that weren’t paid for
• Two wars, that weren’t paid for
• Worst economic downturn since the Great Depression

Here it is in visual form:

The answer comes via the CBPP, Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years.

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.

This information is key to understanding how worthless the work of the “Catfood Commission” is. Social Security and Medicare are not responsible for the current deficit. Doing anything with them will have no effect on the current deficit, since they didn’t cause it. If we want to get rid of the current deficit we need to end the Bush Tax Cuts, end two very expensive wars, and end the economic downturn/drastically lower unemployment. That last one can be cured by the a modern day WPA.