Don't b.s. me, bro

This chart from the White House, which purports to prove, with the scientific magic of math, that basically everything bad that has happened to the budget is the fault of one George W. Bush, has been making the rounds.  My colleague approvingly calls it “Another chart that should accompany all debt ceiling discussions”. 

I’m a little less enamored, considering that this graph attributes decisions made by Obama and an all-Democratic Congress—like doubling down in Afghanistan—to Bush, while taking responsibility for basically nothing except the stimulus.  When Obama extends the Bush tax cuts for the rich under pressure from Congressional Republicans, that disappears from his side of the ledger, because after all, he didn’t want to do it.  When Bush enacts Medicare Part D under pressure from Congressional Democrats, the full cost is charged against his presidency.  The list of such silliness goes on.  Our president seems set to coin another presidential motto: “The duck starts here.”

If you must use this chart as some sort of an aid to debate, we should probably drag in a few others for contrast and depth. The first shows deficits, spending, and revenues since 2000 (as a percentage of GDP):
And the second shows what happened to the national debt, and interest payments on that debt, during the same period:

It’s not really very easy to look at these graphs and tell a story where the deficit is 1.6% under George Bush in 2007, and then suddenly balloons to 10% under Obama a few years later—and does so almost entirely as a result of policies initiated under George W. Bush, and only those initiated under George W. Bush.  (Not because of say, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.)  What changed about Bush policies that made them so much more expensive once Barack Obama took office?
Nor is it exactly obvious to look at the $2.4 trillion in additional debt incurred during Bush’s eight-year presidency, and say that he is nonetheless actually responsible for $7 trillion of our current debt load—and then turn to the $3.1 trillion of debt incurred during Barack Obama’s three-year presidency, and declare that his policies are actually responsible for only $1.4 trillion.

As Jim Fallows notes, these blame games are really quite childish.  In fact, most of what’s driving our current deficits is the economy, and the onrushing retirement of the Baby Boomers.  Those are the things that are changing rapidly, not the size of the Bush tax cuts.  If you want to blame it on anyone, blame Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, but good luck getting any money out of their estates.

(Source: evilteabagger)