Bush tax cuts, wars account for nearly half of public debt by 2019

Ten years ago today, President George W. Bush signed into law an unsustainable package of tax cuts that continue to pile up the national debt. “Simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule (or paying for any portions that policymakers decide to extend) would stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio for the next decade,” a new analysis of Congressional Budget Office data reveals. So will Congress act?

• Following the Bush tax cuts, “Overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967.”
• The only people for whom the Bush tax cuts did much good was the wealthy. According to EPI, “the top 1% of earners received 38% of the breaks in the 2001-08 tax changes; 55% of the tax breaks went to the top 10% of earners.”
• “From 2001 through 2010, the cuts added $2.6 trillion to the public debt.”