Remember 2001?

Ah, yes. Remember this?

In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything it owed.

And then, remember this?

Voices of caution were swept aside in the rush to take advantage of the apparent bounty. Political leaders chose to cut taxes, jack up spending and, for the first time in U.S. history, wage two wars solely with borrowed funds.

Now, granted things happened in 2001 that weren't in the forecast. But the reaction to those things wasn't to go back to the tax levels the produced the prosperity. The reaction was to cut taxes more, to borrow even more money to pay for those things, and repeat the cycle...

And nowadays the self-proclaimed deficit hawks talk as if entitlements were the whole of the problem, when it's taxes, wars, tax refunds and credits - especially to businesses so that wildly profitable companies are paying nothing - and the recession that drove the problem and are still driving it.

It's absolutely ludicrous that anybody pays the GOP any attention at all when it comes to the economy. Ludicrous - but not funny.

(quotes source, the Washington Post)