Memo to Deficit Commission: Spending is the Problem

Kathryn Nix / April 29, 2010

The President’s deficit commission met yesterday to begin its task to address the mounting fiscal crisis facing the nation.  As we show in our 2010 Budget Chart Book, the estimated federal deficit in 2010 will be $1.54 trillion, and spending on entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) and interest on the federal debt is slowly squeezing out other programs.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) outlined a way forward for the commission yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, and while we agree with Leader Hoyer on the gravity of the nation’s financial situation, his analysis was lacking in the following ways:

• Pointing the Finger in the Wrong Direction. Leader Hoyer attributes the climbing deficit to President Bush, claiming that “more than 90% of the projected deficit we will face over the next decade is the result of President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rescue of the financial sector he began in the last few months of his presidency, and lower revenues from the recession.” To ascribe the enormous deficits of the past, present, and future to President Bush is erroneous.  Heritage’s budget expert Brian Riedl finds that the cost of the Bush tax cuts, funding of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Medicare prescription drug program created under the Bush administration comprise a little over a third of the $13 trillion in baseline deficits for the next decade. (more…)