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Showing posts from September, 2012

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