It’s Hard To Run A Democracy With An Ignorant Public October 30th, 2013 12:00 am Gene Lyons “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” –Vice President Dick Cheney, 2002 Given the great hullabaloo in Washington over government spending, here are a couple of noteworthy facts. Under President Obama, the federal budget deficit has been more than cut in half, from a FY 2009 high of $1.55 trillion (largely inherited from George W. Bush) to an estimated $642 billion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. However, a recent Bloomberg News poll shows that 10 percent of American voters are acquainted with this indisputable fact — 59 percent mistakenly believe that the deficit has risen under Obama. Another 26 percent think it’s remained approximately the same. It’s hard to run a democracy given such widespread public ignorance. Militant ignorance, much of it. Fully 93 percent of Tea Party members subscribe to the false belief that government spending is skyrocketing out of control. No wonder they’re running around with their hair on fire. But hold that thought, because there’s more: Measured as a percentage of the overall U.S. economy, the federal budget deficit has shrunk from 10.1 percent in 2009 to 4 percent today. Given increased revenue and decreased spending, the CBO projects the figure will decrease to 2.1 percent by 2015.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 21:15:37 +0000
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