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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (45316)	8/26/2010 6:39:14 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

McMegan in reply to brad1064 All revenues collapse to unsustainable levels during recessions. The structural deficit Bush was running was (for the short term) fine; the long-term structural problems came from Medicare and Social Security, not his tax cuts. To be sure, he helped make those "less fine" with the prescription drug benefit, but Democrats, who wanted a more expensive benefit, can hardly complain about that. (I did, and do, though I'm also now somewhat persuaded that it probably ultimately saved the system money.) To put it a different way, near the end of his term, when the economy wasn't particularly booming, the deficit was, within the range of sustainability, what anyone would have been running--a Democrat might have spent the money rather than doing tax cuts, but the deficit wouldn't have been noticeably more or less dangerous than it was. theatlantic.com