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Democrats caused the budget deficit

Time and time again, President Barack Obama and his staff comment how they inherited a huge deficit from President Bush which is why our economy slides deeper in the red. Sad thing is that a large group of his followers believe it.

A quick lesson in civics: Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2006 is the Democratic party. They controlled the budget process from FY 2006 to FY 2009 under President Bush, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011 under President Obama. In that first year, they had to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

As time went on though, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid bypassed Bush entirely and passed continuing (deficit) resolutions to keep all their pork and programs running until Obama took office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budget.

And where was 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: If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 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 Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

So — what Obama is saying is he inherited a deficit that he voted for and which he pushed to expand fourfold since January 20.



Bob Rapalus

Gardiner