Deficit Hypocrisy

All of a sudden, the right is all abother about deficits, making symbolic gestures of opposing an increase in the federal debt ceiling.

Where were these deficit hawks during the Bush administration, when W pushed through a massive tax cut and paid for two wars and a huge Medicare drug plan with Uncle Sam's credit card?

What we have now is vintage "conservatism". When George W. Bush took office, the federal government was running a surplus, projected to total $5.6 trillion dollars over the span of what would become his administration.

Yet Bush didn't run a single year of surplus. When he handed over the reigns of government to his successor, the government was running deficits over $500 billion per year. Under the most optimistic of scenarios, there was no possible way to balance the budget over the succeeding eight years.

During the Bush years, the federal deficit expanded by $2.5 trillion--that's an $8 trillion swing from what he inherited.

We're now facing even bigger deficits, and the Obama administration, along with Congress, will have to figure out how to deal with it. But make no mistake: the problem was caused by W. Bush and his Congress. The deficit hawks squawking on Faux News didn't seem too bothered then.