Thanks to Don Brunell for his Sept. 20 column “Ask where candidates stand on our debt.”
I’m reminded of Ross Perot. He ran for president in 1992 as a third-party candidate.
The cause of the debt is our budget deficit. With his charts and graphs, Perot showed how both political parties love to give voters things without making us pay for them.
The solution is to increase taxes and decrease expenses, both of which make voters unhappy.
Both were done during Bill Clinton’s terms. Democrats raised taxes in 1993, Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 and held down the growth of spending. We had a surplus instead of a deficit in 2000.
The reverse happened during George W. Bush’s presidency. Congress passed a tax cut in 2001 and removed the spending controls. The surplus was wiped out, replaced by an increasing deficit. With the financial crisis of 2008-09, spending went up as income went down and our debt increased by more than $1 trillion in one year for the first time in history.
We changed course with Obama’s presidency. Spending continued up during 2009, without any tax increases. Our largest deficit occurred in 2009. Tax increases came in later years and Congress renewed the battle to hold down spending. And the deficit has decreased substantially.
Therefore, thinking of the deficit and debt only, we need a Democrat as president and a Republican Congress.
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