Roscoe Bartlett: “both the White House and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been patting themselves on the back so hard…”

“both the White House and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been patting themselves on the back so hard they've been wrenching their shoulders, all to claim credit for deficit reduction which wasn't their doing. The facts are these: The deficit would be at least $56 billion higher today if we had followed the President's budget, but instead, we Republicans did the hard work of finding the savings the Democrats didn't have the guts to make. The rest of the deficit reduction came from three places: First, cuts in defense as a result of the peace dividend which occurred because Ronald Reagan killed communism; second, sales of assets from the S&L cleanup already in place before Clinton took office; and third, the one thing that was the Democrats' doing; namely, tax hikes on gasoline, social security recipients, and small businessmen. Republicans want to cut those Democratic taxes and create jobs as a result. More jobs would mean a stronger economy, which would mean a smaller deficit--no thanks at all to the Democrats.”