And finally, there's the inconvenient fact that Republicans believe the federal budget is a huge mess, but seem to overlook the fact that it's a mess they created.
The parties share blame for the current fiscal situation, but federal budget statistics show that Republican policies over the last decade, and the cost of the two wars, added far more to the deficit than initiatives approved by the Democratic Congress since 2006, giving voters reason to be skeptical of campaign promises.
Calculations by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent fiscal experts show that the $1.1 trillion cost over the next 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program, which the Republican-controlled Congress adopted in 2003, by itself would add more to the deficit than the combined costs of the bailout, the stimulus and the health care law.
Read that last sentence again.
For all the over-the-top whining about the costs of health care reform, the Recovery Act, and the financial industry rescue, all of those costs combined are less than the Republicans' prescription-drug bill (which was passed under corrupt circumstances, and which the GOP didn't even try to pay for).
For that matter, if Republicans successfully repealed the Affordable Care Act, that would make the budget outlook even worse, since health care reform reduces the deficit.
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