The Norman Transcript

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Discussion

August 6, 2011

Congress under Obama increased the deficit

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — Editor, The Transcript:

In response to “Your View,” (Debt is not Obama’s fault) Betty Standifer, The Transcript, Aug. 2, 2011:

Betty, Betty, maybe your memory is not as good as you think. Presidents do not spend money — Congress does. Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that has controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party (until Republicans gained a majority in the house in 2010). President George W. Bush was dealing with a Democrat-controlled Congress.

You say President Bush’s party started a war based on lies to beget oil.

First of all, Democrats controlled the Congress at the time and voted in favor of the war. Secondly, every intelligence service in the world believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

This was not fabricated by President Bush, and Iraq had plenty of time to remove weapons before the invasion. Many believe that weapons were moved into Iran. This Democratic Congress also approved the war in Afghanistan.

The Democrats controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. For FY 2009, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.

To this day, the Democrat-controlled Senate still has never presented a budget, as the country continues to operate on continuing resolutions.

Barack Obama was a member of that very Congress that passed all of the massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as president to complete FY 2009.

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit — the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, at about $400 billion, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending.

The deficit in 2008 was about $500 billion. If President Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In 2009, the deficit jumped from $500 billion to $1.75 trillion.

President Obama inherited a deficit that he voted for, and then his Congress grew the deficit four-fold since Jan. 20, 2009. How can this be President Bush’s fault?

When President Obama took office, the national debt was about $9 trillion. It is now over $14 trillion. And you say this is the fault of President Bush?

THOMAS G. NIBLETT

Norman

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