Tim Penny: History Repeats Itself. Will Washington Learn?

Tim Penny is a former Congressman from Minnesota and a Co-Chair of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Examiner, an excerpt of which is below.

Divided government at the national level may be the best election outcome we could have hoped for. Why? Because one party controlling both Congress and the presidency has not worked out all that well in recent decades when it comes to deficits and debt.

In 2001, former President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress enacted huge tax cuts, which — along with the unfunded cost of the war in Afghanistan — ended three years of budget surpluses and returned us to deficit spending.

In 2010, former President Barack Obama and the Democrats enacted Obamacare, which — while paired with offsetting tax increases and spending cuts at the time — greatly increased the size of our federal healthcare budget, with private health insurance costs rising in the years after. Not to mention, several of the offsetting taxes or spending cuts were ultimately repealed.

Read the entire piece here.

Published works by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget do not necessarily reflect the views of all members or staff of the Committee.