The Real Reason the National Debt is So High

People wave signs at a tea party protest. | Reuters Photo

First, I want to tell everyone that I have been nursing a nerve injury in my left hand. It has caused me to not want to type much as there was no telling which keys my fingers would hit. The numbness is subsiding some and I am able to work the fingers again. I’m back, somewhat.

The tea partiers rant and rave about the national debt, but fail to remember just how it got to where it is today. This is from an article back in July from Politico:

Sixty-one percent of the 697 self-identified tea party supporters surveyed identified the federal debt as one of the “extremely serious threats” to the future well-being of the United States.

They blame Obama, of course, but here’s the real reason our national debt is out of hand:

Re:  The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond

There is no question that the Iraq war added substantially to the federal debt. This was the first time in American history that the government cut taxes as it went to war. The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion in 2008 (before the financial crisis); at least a quarter of that increase is directly attributable to the war. And that doesn’t include future health care and disability payments for veterans, which will add another half-trillion dollars to the debt.

As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house was in dismal shape even before the financial crisis — and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn.

Where were these pasty old white men with their “big government” rhetoric in 2003?