Every now and then, I like to pin my local paper's ears back a bit. An editorial today contained this little gem, which I've seen repeated in MANY places:

"Much of the current fiscal nightmare is the result of two wars, huge tax cuts for the wealthy and a massive new Medicare prescription drug benefit."

My response on their comment board online:

^That was read right off the Democratic Party index card.

The total cost to date of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the anti-war National Priorities Project, is something less than a trillion dollars.

According to the 2009 Medicare Actuarial Report, expenditures on Medicare Part D from 2004 through 2009 were about $210 billion (see table on page 120).

Add both of these multi-year expenses together, and you have a number that is still less than the 2010 predicted Federal budget deficit. Not the budget, the deficit alone. For one year.

Try again.

As for the tax cuts being a problem, according to the White House budget history documents, Federal receipts were $1.7 trillion in 2003, and increased steadily to over $2.5 trillion by the end of 2008. Does that sound like a revenue issue? Until 2008, deficits were declining. Keep in mind which party got control of the budget process in January of 2007.^