More on deficits

One thing I forgot. There is a core difference between the Obama deficit and the deficits of Reagan, Bush, and Bush. Obama ran his deficit for a purpose.

During a time of foundering economy, collectible taxes go down. The country has less money. It can do one of three things: 1) increase taxes, putting more strain on people already struggling; 2) cut services, at the time they are most needed, and putting more people out of work; or 3) deficit spend, and hope to pay it back when times are better.

Neither 1 nor 2 are good options. Conservatives insist on #2 as the solution, and they insist on ignoring the fact that cutting services necessitates laying off federal workers, leaving off road repairs, cutting money to states that use it to hire workers, not to mention the hurts to people who aren't receiving the services, all these things hurt the economy. Money sent to the poor and disabled is money sent to business: virtually all of it is immediately spent. Unemployed workers don't spend money, and don't pay income taxes. Both options 1 and 2 exacerbate the economic trouble. So Obama chose to deficit spend, deliberately. Increasing federal spending increased employment, contracted services, purchases of privately made goods, all things to put money into the economy.

On the other hand, the three other culprits in the disaster that is Federal finance--Reagan, Bush, and Bush--deficit spent at times of plenty. If you spend more than you make when you're making more than usual, what do you do when the good times end? Kick the can down the road. The only prosperous time when the extra money was used to balance the budget was, surprise of surprises, under Bill Clinton.