About the Deficit

When GWB and the Republicans took control of government in 2000, the first thing they did was remove the rule providing for pay-go, ie, the rule that said any spending had to be balanced with cuts or revenues. They proceeded to dramatically increase the size and cost of government, through creating large new bureaucracies (Homeland Security) and entitlement programs (Medicare Drug Benefit).

Meanwhile, a Republican governor was applauded for reforming health care in his State (Massachusetts) in accordance with a long-held republican model of individual responsibility, providing a boon for insurance companies and a mandate on citizens to purchase insurance, as had been suggested by the conservative Heritage foundation back in the early '90s.

Notwithstanding a quickly passed and sweeping law restricting individual freedoms and empowering the President with new authorities (Patriot Act) GWB engaged in widespread spying on Americans contrary even to loose laws on the subject. When he was discovered, Congress passed laws retroactively immunizing the complicit crimes of the telecoms industries and changed the laws to make what the President had done illegally, legal.

When the economy tanked in 2007, GWB signed a $152Billion stimulus package passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress. Later in 2008, GWB asked for and received hundreds of billions more to protect banks from economic difficulties and to prevent the auto industry from going out of business.

All of this increased the deficit to record levels despite GWB and the Republican Congress inheriting a balanced budget and a large surplus just a few short years earlier.

When the presidency was returned to Democratic hands in 2009, Congress and Obama passed large tax cuts, along with federal spending in a stimulus package roughly the same size as what GWB did in the prior year. Obama then adopted the Republican health care plan that had proved so popular and successful in Massachusetts. Since then Obama and the Democrats have continued to cut taxes and spending to the point we are now at record low taxes.

However, during the GWB years, tea party people didn't have any problem with Article 1 Section 8. So either that's not what they believe, or they are painfully unaware of obvious facts. I tend to believe the former is true.