When did we start hearing about the deficit all the time? Did we hear about it in 2000-2008?

[raccoon]

I don't remember that we did. I think all this whining about the deficit is a conspiracy to reduce programs that actually help the 99%.

[Liberal In Texas]

1. Bush Fires Economic Team. Cheney says, 'Deficits Don't Matter.'

On December 6, 2002, the Bush Administration fired its top two economic advisers: Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey due to the continuing lagging economy (when Bush took office, unemployment was 4.2%. In Dec of 2002... more than a year after 9/11... the rate jumped from 5.7% to 6.0% in one month). In November of 2002, when O'Neill, a "deficit hawk", tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits... expected to top $500 billion that fiscal year alone... posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off, saying, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

http://crooksandliars.com/mugsy/ten-years-ago-today-bush-fires-economic-team

[raccoon]

3. Thanks for the link. nt

[SharonAnn]

13. In Dec. 2000, budget and forecast showed after 2009 "surpluses as far as the eye could see"

Of course, in 2001 the first think W did was grab all the money that he could and give it to his friends (personal, corporate, and military-industrial). From then on, we were in deficit "as far as the eye could see".

So, of course the GOP stopped talking about the deficit problem since they created it.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

2. January 20, 2009 n/t

[CK_John]

4. Just goes to show how centralized the GOP is.Group think 24/7.

[kentuck]

5. The Republican Party became interested when the Tea Party became interested...

The Tea Baggers were ready to leave their Party if they did not get what they wanted. Republicans could not survive without them, ergo, we are where we are today. Republicans have been extorted by the Tea Partiers.

[Wounded Bear]

7. Actually, I think you're wrong there.....

Tea Partiers got interested when the Republican elites got interested, right after President Obama was elected and looked like he might try to shift deficit spending away from shit they wanted to like wars and tax cuts for wealthy folks to shit like social programs and safety nets for working people and infrastructure.

The tail does not wag the dog.

[kentuck]

16. I think you are mistaken on this one...

I think the Republican Party is taking all their positions from the Tea Party within them.

[Wounded Bear]

17. My point is that the Tea Party is a sham....

It may have some grass roots, but the big money brokers of the GOP have long been its operators. Do you really think that the GOP PTB give a flying fuck what a bunch of yahoos from outer Georgia think? The "grass roots" folks are taking their marching orders from others high up in the Repub food chain, fed to them by Fox and the other corporate owned media.

[Gregorian]

6. GOP media

[City Lights]

8. During Junior's reign we heard that "defecits don't matter."

Unka Dick said so, and that was the end of it.

[gulliver]

9. That was before the Republican economic crash caused higher deficits.

Now the high deficits caused by the Republican economic disaster are being used by Republicans to attack Democrats. It is the height of chutzpah. If Republicans hadn't ruined the economy, we wouldn't have high deficits, and we would be able to afford more spending, not less. Unfortunately, the American people aren't using their brains or the Republicans would be a dead political party.

[zbdent]

10. No deficit ... the surplus was the reason for the Bush tax cuts.

And then, when the "economy started tanking" (ironically, after it was decided Bush43 was "pResident&quot , the tanking economy was the reason for the Bush tax cuts ... "so help me God" (Bush43, January 2000).

[octoberlib]

11. Republicans only care about the deficit when

there's a Democrat in office.

[OnlinePoker]

12. I remember reading about it during the Reagan administration

I read Ravi Batra's book "The Great Depression of 1990" when in came out in the '80s and it slammed the deficit spending going on at the time and the resultant debt accumulation. I don't recall a depression in 1990, but I do know it was during the Reagan years that the number of people "no longer participating in the labor market" started an unending climb. If all the people no longer counted were added to the unemployment rolls, I'm pretty sure the unemployment rate would be approaching 20%.

[Igel]

14. Yes.

Obama even campaigned on it. Lots of (D) did. Heck, lots of (R) did--it was probably the #1 complaint about * from those right of center.

We squandered the surplus. We had unaffordable wars. We had unsustainable deficits because we reduced taxes for the wealthy.

We had cries that * was responsible for record deficit after record deficit. He was responsible for a third of the debt. Then he was responsible for a half of the debt.

2006: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1608260 was a fairly common kind of thread every time there was a deficit update or budget discussion. And with every spending bill there was such a discussion.

2005: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3309755&mesg_id=3314277

2008: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3411978&mesg_id=3412579

It was a constant refrain here and in much of the MSM. You even participated in some of the discussions over the years. I know I did.

[spanone]

15. not a peep when junior was spending like a drunken sailor....cheney 'deficits don't matter'

[HiPointDem]

18. kr