Simplifying Politics for a 13 Year Old

My 7th grade daughter is apparently getting into some political discussion in Social Studies early in the semester, and asked me some questions on the way to school today.  Aside from being disappointed that her teacher had simplified the difference between the 2 parties to "government more involved in your life vs. less involved in your life" (which would be another post), we started talking about taxes and the deficit. Trying to simplify for her what has happened over the last decade actually provided a bit more clarity for me.  I mean, at the most basic level, Clinton delivered a budget surplus to George W. Bush, and Bush proceeded to enter into 2 wars (somehow funded "off the books," which I have never really understood) - one of which was completely unnecessary and entered into on false, ginned up, possibly illegal pretenses (again, another post) - implemented massive tax cuts for the rich, and deregulated, and failed to enforce existing regulations or even pay attention to what was going on in the banking industry, which resulted in bringing the entire economy to the brink of another Great Depression.

I don't know what the numbers are, but the wars have likely gone past the trillion dollar mark, hundreds of billions in tax cuts for rich people who don't need them, and untold losses in tax revenue as a result of the foundering economy.  And now the right-wingers are trying to blame the deficit on Obama, and are doing what they always do, which is to claim that the gov't deficit is a huge problem.  This of course serves dual purposes - they get to stick Obama with the problem when they leave office, and screaming that the deficit is a crisis, they get to force the issue of cutting government services.  None of these concepts are new, and Thom Hartmann has long ago identified this tactic, calling it something along the lines of the Republicans "spend like drunken sailors while in office, then scream about the deficit when they aren't."  But describing it in simple terms to my daughter made me feel even more disgust with it than ever.

This strategy reached it's almost absurd nadir with the complete meltdown of the W administration: 2 wars, huge tax cuts for the rich, and extreme deregulation/non-enforcement, causing a Great Recession.

Again, I simply cannot believe that they still have a leg to stand on.

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