PERRspectives: Jeb Bush Wrongly Blames GOP Congress for Dubya's Spending and Debt
"As it turns out, it is Barack Obama who brought some budget discipline to Washington. On January 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama's inauguration day, CNN reported on the latest long-term budget forecast from the CBO. Just days before President Bush ambled out of the Oval Office for good, CNN explained "the U.S. budget deficit in 2009 is projected to spike to a record $1.2 trillion, or 8.3% of gross domestic product." With the recession in full swing and the massive TARP program passed at Bush's urging the previous fall, CBO predicted in January 2009 that federal spending would spike to $3.543 trillion dollars while tax revenue would plummet to an anemic to $2,357 trillion. Federal spending has hardly budged since. While the annual deficit has been reduced by two-thirds, Uncle Sam's outlays measured in constant FY 2009 dollars have dropped every year since George W. Bush left the Oval Office and Barack Obama moved in."
