Are Short-Term "Advances" Caused by Long-Term Memory Loss?

My archnemesis, a liberal guy at my school, says, "Well, Obama may be giving us a fair amount of debt, but Bush gave us, like, all the debt we already had." Usually he has a more eloquent and sarcastic argument, and he's usually more well-informed (sadly). I didn't even bother arguing. Rationalizing to make the problem seem smaller is a common trick. So the following information, from heritage.org (I think the info is originally from the Washington Post and heritage.org just put it on their site) is dedicated to him.


-President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.

-President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.

-President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.

-President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it.

-President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent.

-President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.

-President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

Now, some people say that we got out of the Great Depression because of spending. Sure, it increased our debt and only lasted for a short period of time and ultimately, along with additional spending, led us to the crisis we have today, but still, it got us out, right? That's what I'm saying about short-term results. They don't work and eventually just make things worse.

Sorry to burst your bubbles, liberals.

Maybe the reason we keep making these short-term advances is because we have long-term memory loss and thus we can't learn from history.