Watch Bernie Sanders Provide Republicans a History Lesson on Deficits

Vermont’s Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders, stood up for the American people and middle-class in the midst of a budget meeting dominated by Republican austerity economics.

“It’s important to understand the past as we go forward,”he said, singling out the Iraq War, Medicare Part D, and the reckless Bush Tax cuts as the main drivers behind America’s deficit spending.

“Is it fair to say that the reason we began to go into deficit was because we went to war in Iraq, which by the time we take care of the last veteran is going to cost us about $3 trillion?” Sanders asked Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf during Wednesday’s meeting. “How do we pay for that war?”

Elmendorf began explaining that Congress actually cut taxes during that period, until Sanders cut in.

“You’re not suggesting that in the middle of a war which cost $3 trillion Congress actually cut taxes for the rich?” he asked, sarcastically.

Incredibly, House Budget Committee Chairman and Tea Party “darling” Paul Ryan found his question particularly funny, interrupting with a chuckle, “Bernie, that’s fine. Come on.”

But Elmendorf, smiling as well, finished explaining that Congress cut taxes “for a lot of people” and spent a lot of money overseas.

Sanders, known for his hard-hitting progressive views and unabated honesty, replied:

Show a Republican This to Expose Their Hypocrisy About Deficit Spending

There’s a lot of rhetoric that comes from conservatives when it comes to President Obama.
I’ve never seen a man be accused of being so many different things, often accusations which completely contradict facts, logic and reality.
One of the accusations I always find most amusing is this “disgust” conservatives have with the spending under President Obama.  My favorite right-wing catchphrase is “Obama has spent more than every other President in United States history—combined.”
Which is by far one of the dumbest things I’ve heard considering that basic knowledge of math easily disproves it.  The national debt when he took office was $10.6 trillion, and it currently sits at $16.4 trillion.  That’s an increase of $5.8 trillion, or as I like to call it—not greater than the $10.7 trillion he would have needed to spend to more than double our debt and “spend more than the combined totals of all other Presidents in United States history.”
Now don’t get me wrong, $5.8 trillion is a lot of money.  But it’s also a number that has more than just what you see on face value, especially when  you consider these people voted for George W. Bush—twice.
See, much of the money that Obama gets blamed for in 2009 was actually passed in 2008—under Bush.  So if you take out the $1.4 trillion deficit we ran in 2009, which carried the budget passed in 2008 under President Bush, that puts Obama’s additions to our national debt at $4.4 trillion.