Letter to the editor: Obama, Simpson gave us the road map for strategic debt reduction - by Michael Legge

Found here. 

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Here we have another leftist regurgitating something he read on some leftist website. As is typical for the Left, the author picks out factoids about particular examples of government spending and assigns their cost to the debt, which implicitly means he regards all other spending as funded. 

So if a war costs $3 trillion but SNAP costs $120 billion, Medicare $747 billion, and Medicaid/CHIP costs $609 billion, the cost of the war is deemed deficit spending but everything else is not. This of course is completely arbitrary based on the author's political orientation.

At the end, the author is actually in favor of debt reduction, which is surprising since the Left generally views deficit spending as desirable. Thus the author concedes major ground. All that is left is to decide what to cut.

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Sen. Sheehy thinks the current national debt is the result of "disgraceful spending" and a "sugar high". (We will find the author agrees. He goes on to chronicle several major "disgraceful" spending initiatives.

Indeed, the problem is and always will be spending.)

Let's look at the facts and the growth of the national debt over the last 25 years from major policy actions.

President Bush's "war on terror" invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is cited to have cost $8 trillion. (War is expensive, no doubt. But more realistic estimates put the cost of the war on terror at less than $3 trillion. 

Further, it wasn't Bush's war. Pretty much EVERYONE voted for it:

And of course the author assigns this spending to the debt.)

President Bush's tax cuts cited as $5.6 trillion over 10 years. (Tax cuts don't cost anything. Tax cuts mean people were allowed to keep their own money... it's not the government's.)

President Obama added $5.5 trillion but of that $4 trillion was an extension of President Bush's tax cuts. President Obama's economic stimulus and Affordable Care Act added about $1.5. (Um, no. Obama added $8.34 trillion not including anything Bush did. It was the largest increase of the national debt by any president.)

President Trump's first term is cited to have increased the national debt by $7.8 trillion (This is approximately correct, but the author neglects to mention the wild spending due to COVID.)

with his tax cuts accounting for $1.9 trillion during his first term. (Tax cuts do not increase the debt. Spending does.)

President Biden is cited to have $6 trillion debt increase (This is approximately correct.)

with $1.9 trillion for the pandemic related Cares Act. About 1 million Americans died, the highest percentage of deaths worldwide. (No mention of excusing COVID expenditures regarding Trump.)

Adding all this up, roughly $29 trillion resulted from wars, policy decisions, and tax cuts. (100% of the national debt is due to policy decisions.)

Back then, the Congress still controlled the purse strings. (Constitutionally, this is true. But the author just finished attributing various debt numbers to presidents. Did he forget this?)

Now we have a unelected chainsaw wielding Afrikaner Elon Musk and his DOGE army of Gen-Z radical tech bros illegally cutting federal workers jobs and programs (No, DOGE is advisory and has no power whatsoever. Trump is implementing DOGE recommendations.)

but not waste, fraud, and abuse. (A curious claim, since hundreds of billions of dollars of egregious waste has been found.)

Why aren't there any criminal charges? (Because no laws have been broken, while the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money should be legally actionable.)

Because they have found no waste, fraud, and abuse. That's right. Sen. Sheehy and Republicans in Congress support Musk/DOGE illegal cuts to government spending. (The author repeats his false charges.)

Remember in 2010 when President Obama created the bipartisan National Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Erskinie Bowles, former businessman and White House Chief of Staff, and former Republican Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson? Their commission issued a report recommending dramatic action to reform government finances. (And how much of that was implemented? Zero. How much did government get cut? Zero. How much did the debt reduce? Zero. Among the ones voting against: Montana democrat Max Baucus.)

Their report still stands as a road map for reduction of national debt. (Which included tax cuts, government cuts, and tax increases.)