CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The $40 Trillion Debt, Oh My!

Image Source: Wikideas1 – CC0

I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now. But whatever we think of debt and deficits, there is one point that should be very clear: it has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy.

Every Democratic president of the last half century has left with a deficit that was lower, measured as a share of GDP, than the one they came in with, except Obama, who left it unchanged. By contrast, every Republican president has left with a considerably higher deficit than what they inherited.

Starting with Carter, the deficit for fiscal year 1976 was 4.1% of GDP. When he left office in 1980, it was down to 2.5% of GDP, despite a recession that year. That was the starting point for Reagan. (These figures refer to fiscal years, which end on October 1 of the year.) Reagan’s tax cuts, along with a big military buildup, were most of the story of higher deficits. When his successor, George H.W. Bush, left the White House in 1992, the deficit was 4.5% of GDP.

For better or worse, Clinton took deficit reduction........

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