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About half of today’s huge deficits can be chalked up to Bush-era profligacy: mainly cutting taxes deeply while borrowing to wage two wars and to enact the Medicare prescription drug benefit — all of which Republicans supported, virtually in lockstep.

The other half of recent deficits is due to the recession and the financial crisis

To avoid a meltdown, the government — under President Bush and President Obama — rightly decided it had no choice but to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks and car companies and to stimulate the economy. That prevented a very bad situation from becoming much worse, but as the recession dragged on, hundreds of billions in tax revenues have also dried up.

As for why the financial system and the economy imploded, President Bush and Congress deserve much of the blame for their devotion to debt-driven growth and blind deregulatory zeal — although on deregulation, President Clinton and his team (some of whom are back in the White House) were also complicit

That is why when the banks and the economy began to crumble in 2008, President Bush responded with a $700 billion bank bailout and a $168 billion stimulus package

When Mr. Obama took office, the banks were still shaky and the economy was still plunging— as measured by real-life indicators like jobs, consumer spending, credit availability, home equity, retirement savings and business confidence. The new administration made the sound decision to continue the bailout and pushed a $787 billion stimulus through Congress, with very little Republican help.

The stimulus package slowed job losses and helped spur activity — in the third quarter of 2009, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.2 percent, and the initial fourth-quarter reading was 5.7 percent, a rebound few thought possible a year ago.

To truly tame deficits will require serious health care reform, the sooner the better. Other aspects of the long-term fiscal problem — raising taxes and retooling Social Security — must take place in earnest as the economy recovers.  NO FUCKING WAY!!!

Republican lawmakers calling for tax cuts at most every opportunity — and never acknowledging that a shortfall in revenue is one of the important causes of the deficit

And then there is Social Security. What is needed is a combination of benefit cuts and tax increases that preserve the program’s essential nature — a contract under which the young support the old via taxes and the rich help the poor via a benefits formula that favors low- income beneficiaries. One sound approach would be to link benefit levels to life expectancy, so that as people live longer, future benefits would be modestly reduced while payroll taxes that support Social Security would be modestly increased.  DEATH PANELS!!!