Opinion: Who's Really to Blame for Monster Deficits?

(Oct. 4) -- Who is to blame for the gigantic budget deficits and the pileup of debt over the next decade? It depends on whom you ask.

President Barack Obama and the Democrats place the blame squarely on Republicans. As Obama has repeatedly stressed, he inherited a fiscal meltdown, driven by "two tax cuts that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for, that were hugely expensive" and a deep recession.

"When we came into office," he's noted, "the deficit was $1.3 trillion -- $1.3 trillion."

Republicans, in turn, put the blame entirely on Obama's spending policies.

So which is it? Are the monstrous projected deficits the legacy of George W. Bush's economic policy? Or Obama's unquenchable thirst for more federal spending?

The answer is both, but not to an equal degree. Here's how we know:

Every year, the Congressional Budget Office projects spending and revenues 10 years out into the future, assuming the president's budget plan is enacted.

So what happens when you line up the last budget Bush released -- for which the CBO made projections out to 2018 -- with the most recent Obama budget? The first thing you notice is that the CBO predicted Bush's budget would produce very small deficits between 2011 and 2018. In fact, the CBO projected a balanced budget in 2012 and again in 2018.

What changed?

Well, for one thing, Bush's budget came out before he or the CBO knew how long and deep the recession was going to be.

And you can see the effects of the recession in expected revenues. The CBO now expects revenues to be $2.2 trillion lower over the next eight years than it did under Bush's budget -- despite the fact that Obama's budget raises taxes on the rich. To the extent that Bush's economic policies caused that recession and its long-term revenue effects, he takes the blame for the falloff in federal tax receipts.

But what really stands out when you make this comparison is the fact that Obama's budget dramatically ratchets up long-term spending.

A chart shows President Bush's 2009 budget compared to President Obama's 2011 budget.

Source: Congressional Budget Office.

This chart shows the CBO's projected federal spending for 2011-18 under President Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget compared with President Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget.

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Between 2011 and 2018, Obama would spend $4.9 trillion more than Bush had planned to. Keep in mind that all this extra spending is after the economic stimulus has been almost entirely exhausted.

In other words, if Obama had simply kept Bush's spending policies in place, federal deficits over the next eight years would be 60 percent lower. In 2018, we'd have a deficit of just $188 billion, instead of the projected $996 billion under Obama's budget.

So while Bush no doubt shares the blame for the dismal budget outlook, the majority of the blame belongs with Obama for putting the government on a far higher spending path.