Noahpinion has an interesting read. Very well said:
"Debt is now approaching 100% of GDP...If the Reagan-Bush I debt runup had not occurred, we would only be at 70%. If the Bush II tax cuts had not occurred, we would probably be around the same level or slightly higher. If neither Republican debt binge had occurred, anyone who tried to question U.S. solvency would be laughed out of the room."
Along the same lines, Joe Nocera writes in today's column pretty much the same thing:
"The downgrade, after all, was less about economics than politics. S.& P. was frightened by the same thing that has scared most Americans: the spectacle of an unyielding minority of Tea Party Republicans ready to push the country into default rather than accept even modest tax increases to help bring down the deficit. “The effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policy-making and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges,” wrote S.& P. in its downgrade report. Who can disagree?
Has any president in American history left behind as much lasting damage as George W. Bush? In addition to two unfinished wars, he also set us on the path to our current financial mess. The Bush tax cuts, which turned a surplus into a growing deficit, have been disastrous."
That's why Peter Orszag's recommendation to let the Bush Tax Cuts expire makes sense:
"...the most straightforward way to raise the needed revenue is to allow all of the 2001/2003 tax cuts, not only those for high-earners, to expire at the end of next year. That would lower the 10- year deficit by more than $3 trillion. (Democrats who bemoan the role of the tax cuts in driving up the deficit but then favor extending the vast majority of them are suffering from cognitive dissonance.)"
At some point the Republican Party needs to say enough is enough to the Tea Party. Unfortunately I can't imagine a day when that will actually happen.
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