What’s Behind the Deficit Kabuki

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

This chart is from the New York Times, and shows in lovely, vibrant colors that George Bush was responsible for far more of our current deficit than Barack Obama has been. It’s pretty dramatic, and in any case, probably understates the difference since the vast majority of Obama’s contributions were specifically designed to be temporary reactions to the recession. Take out temporary recession spending from both sides and the tally is something like $4,000 billion for Bush and $300 billion for Obama. So now you know the facts.

But, really, who cares? Republicans have never really cared about the deficit except as a partisan tool to use against Democratic presidents, and all the charts in the world aren’t going to change that. They’ll just keep pointing out that the 2011 deficit is bigger than anything Bush ran up — which is true, thanks to the recession he bequeathed to Obama — and then move on. It’s enough for a TV soundbite, and that’s all that matters. The Pete Petersons and Standard & Poor’s of the world will play along for their own reasons, and the nation’s editorial pages will mostly cheer them on. (And then, quite possibly in an editorial on the same page, wail about all the jobless and wonder why they’ve been forgotten.)

But while it’s pretty plain that Republican angst over the deficit is just a facade, I think Atrios isn’t quite right when he says that Republicans also don’t care about cutting spending. They do. In fact, that’s the political beauty of pretending to care about the deficit: it sounds fiscally responsible, and it provides cover to cut spending on social programs that Democrats care about. Not defense or, as Atrios says, Social Security or Medicare unless they can get bipartisan cover for it, but pretty much anything else that benefits the poor or the young or the sick. All in the name of getting our fiscal house in order and not becoming the next Greece. Hooray.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate