
Despite what you may have heard in the news, there is no political slant to the soaring federal debt:
Since the end of World War II, the budget shortfall has grown under six Republican and six Democratic presidents; it has grown when the Democrats have controlled Congress and when the Republicans have controlled Congress; and even the twelve years of budget surplus (1947–1949, 1951, 1956–1957, 1960, 1969, 1998–2001) are almost equally split between the parties’ control of the White House and Congress. (source) Bottom line, there’s no point in pointing fingers. We’re in this mess together and we need to work together to prepare the coming economic storm.
Our current economic problems are not the result of one piece of legislation, one president, or one session of Congress. Our current economic woes are the cumulative result of a long series of fiscal policy decisions over many, many years. Let’s take a brief survey of American history since the Franklin Roosevelt Administration as it relates to fiscal policy:
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