Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit

My sister has been having an interesting e-mail exchange by a man who claims to be a Republican but blames the current deficit on Bush, claiming

First, we all know that the budget deficit was started during the Bush administration.

I wrote her back with some talking points. But for those who try to suggest that the Bush deficits are in any way comparable to the spending spree that Obama has embarked on, check this out:



While the link is to the Heritage Foundation, the graphic is from the Washington Post.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The Washington Post has a great graphic which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context of President Bush’s.