Video: Former Reagan/Bush Aide Bartlett Recites GOP Debt History

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In just a few short minutes during an interview with Chris Matthews, Bruce Bartlett, a former advisor to Reagan and Poppy Bush, dissected and summarized Bush era "conservatives" who took a surplus from Clinton and turned it into a deficit.

In the video below, Bartlett said when Bush took office we had a national debt of about $6 trillion and at the time, the CBO was projecting a $6 trillion surplus which would have paid off the debt providing Bush and his rubber stamping band of idiots DID NOTHING. Instead they added to that with $3 trillion in tax cuts, lost another $3 trillion in revenue due to the poor economy, a Medicare drug benefit and two unfunded wars. So instead of paying off the debt, we wind up with $12 trillion of debt at the end of the Bush era, with another $3 to $4 trillion in damage control deficits on the way. That they did all this with seven easy one-line “clean” debt ceiling increases for Bush is now apparently irrelevant. Don't pay no mind to any of that. Instead, they now want everyone to keep their eyes on the "socialist" in the White House.

"The Republicans keep saying that the tax cuts are the key to prosperity. Well the 2000's is evidence that that's not true."

Absolutely! After ten years of Bush Club-for-Growth voodoo economics and tax cuts, shouldn't the economy be booming about right now?

Bartlett finishes up with, "I think a good chunk of the republican caucus is either stupid, crazy, ignorant or craven cowards who are desperately afraid of the tea party people - and rightly so."

Watch it.



The Motley Cow, “Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett destroys Republican talking point.”

The Democurmudgeon's video library is loaded with a nice collection of excerpts and clips from often overlooked interviews like this one with Bartlett. Check 'em out.