Don't Blame Tax Cuts for Huge Deficits

A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report puts to rest any misperception that tax cuts are the leading driver of our currently enormous budget deficits. Key findings:

• had there only been the tax cuts and no further spending measures, we would have enjoyed large and growing surpluses instead; and
• the main cause of today's huge deficits is increased mandatory spending in the form of Medicare prescription drug benefits, the TARP bailout and the 2009 stimulus. 

For more, see National Center for Policy Analysis synopsis of the CBO findings, or full paper by the Economic Policies for the 21st Century: How Did Federal Surpluses Become Huge Deficits? (Hint: It Wasn't Because of Tax Cuts for the Rich) by Charles Blahous, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution.