You read that title right, now the $1.3 trillion deficit is being blamed on Bush in a February 6 editorial in the New York Times. Where to begin with this notion is something I have been wrestling with all morning. The author is correct in his assertion that Bush did little to combat the deficit but misses the mark on a few, key, factual points.

What is even more breathtaking is the Republicans’ cynical refusal to acknowledge that the country would never have gotten into so deep a hole if President George W. Bush and the Republican-led Congress had not spent years slashing taxes — mainly on the wealthy — and spending with far too little restraint.

Am I the only one that sees the gigantic factual error in that sentence? A Republican-led Congress? The 110th Congress was a Democratic majority with the only Republican leadership being Dick Cheney. The author is mincing words by trying to distract from the fact that it was a Democratic Congress that approved Bush’s plans. The Congress had the chance and the power to go against Bush’s wishes but instead they buried their heads and let things fall into place.

This leads to the other issue, the tax cuts on the wealthy. I am not even sure why this is an issue anymore, if we continue to think that taxing people who make a large amount of money a lot more than those who are in the middle class, we’ll do nothing but discourage the wealthy to keep their money here. I would argue it is more harmful to the funding of projects, to philanthropy, and to business in general to tax the wealthy a great sum more than everyone else.

You can read the article yourself and come to your own conclusions but it seems that the author is gripping at straws to try and push blame to the past for something that is a very real-time indicator of the present.