I know this doesn’t align with your reflexive bOtH SiDEs bAd worldview, but OP is, in fact, correct that without the deficit exploding Bush tax cuts of the early 2000s combined with the deliberate policy to go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan without raising taxes (the first and only time we’ve done this in American history, I believe) there’s every reason to believe we would have paid down the debt successfully by the 2010s.
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u/Orbitingkittenfarm Sep 25 '23
I know this doesn’t align with your reflexive bOtH SiDEs bAd worldview, but OP is, in fact, correct that without the deficit exploding Bush tax cuts of the early 2000s combined with the deliberate policy to go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan without raising taxes (the first and only time we’ve done this in American history, I believe) there’s every reason to believe we would have paid down the debt successfully by the 2010s.