John Steele Gordon: A Short Primer on the National Debt - WSJ.com
Many blame the Bush tax cuts for adversely impacting federal revenues, causing the debt to spiral upwards.
But that is just not true.
Federal revenues declined by almost 12% in the early years of the decade, but when the tax cuts fully kicked in in 2003, the economy began to grow strongly again and federal revenues increased 44% in the next four years, while unemployment fell to 4.2% from 6.2%.
Federal outlays in those four years increased by only 26.4%, and while the debt-to-GDP ratio increased to 64.8% by 2007, that was still well below what it had been in 1994.
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