Bush brought bad math to the budget

Phil Ventura, Las Vegas

Sunday, July 31, 2011 | 2:03 a.m.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a math class and I’m wondering if “new math” is similar to the “Republican math” that is being used to try to pin the rise in the nation’s debt on our current president.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, the national debt was $5.7 trillion. President Bill Clinton had achieved a balanced budget and the country was sitting pretty. The Congressional Budget Office at that time predicted that the country would enjoy a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next 10 years. The math says if we did nothing, the national debt would be almost zero today.

Then Bush had the bright idea to tinker with something he apparently knew nothing about and added a few trillion dollars to the debt with his infamous tax cuts. He then entered the nation into two unfunded wars and passed a Medicare drug program that was also kept off the books.

As the economy started to crash, economic planners in the Bush administration instituted a $170 billion economic stimulus package that added further to the deficit, along with the $700 billion Bush TARP program. The national debt when Bush left office in 2009 was $10.8 trillion, a $5 trillion increase from when he took office.

President Barack Obama was forced to make a decision on how to stop our economy from total collapse as the unemployment rate was at 8.2 percent and rising when he took office. Further spending was needed and, at a minimum, the additional spending saved two auto companies and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Republicans, aided by Fox News, try to pin this poor economy and the bloated national debt on Obama, but those of us who still know how to count know better.

A pop quiz for Republicans. The Dow Jones average closed at 6,626 on March 6, 2009. Friday it closed at more than 12,000. You do the math!