we don't need no stinking facts

the trouble with lies is that facts often get in the way of a perfectly good untruth... take, for instance, the "Bush-era tax cuts"... the common misconception is that these tax cuts caused (in whole or in part, depending on the lie being told) the current deep recession we are in... for example:

Recently, a Florida Democratic representative, Corrine Brown, explained her vote against the debt ceiling agreement by citing "eight years of horribly reckless spending and excessive tax cuts for the rich under President Bush and the Republican Congress."

point... and counterpoint:

Bush did indeed cut taxes for the wealthy -- along with everybody else who paid income taxes. But does Brown remember that tax revenues actually increased in the years after the Bush tax cuts took effect?

Obama Partisans Ignore Facts When Bashing Bush - Byron York - Townhall Conservative

Revenues fell in Bush's first two years because of a combination of the tech bust and the start of the tax cuts. But then things took off. After taking in $1.782 trillion in tax revenues in 2003, the government collected $1.88 trillion in 2004; $2.153 trillion in 2005; $2.406 trillion in 2006; and $2.567 trillion in 2007, according to figures compiled by the Office of Management and Budget. That's a 44 percent increase from 2003 to 2007. (Revenues slid downward a bit in 2008, and a lot in 2009, when the financial crisis sent the economy into a tailspin.)

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FEDERAL REVENUE CHART:

USGovernmentRevenue.com

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FEDERAL DEFICIT CHART:

USGovernmentSpending.com

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so, what would have been saved had the "Bush-era" tax cuts been permanent?... well, by the charts above, maybe our federal government, but i don't want to speculate over what-might-have-been... let's look at those damnable facts again:

Treasury estimates the costs of making the tax cuts permanent for everyone is $3.7 trillion over 10 years.

Of that, $3 trillion accounts for the cost of extending them for the vast majority of Americans, as the president has proposed. The remaining $700 billion is the cost of extending them permanently for the high-income earners.

Bush tax cuts: What you need to know - By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writer for CNN Money

so what the Big Lie is, if we cut taxes on the rich, we'd lose $700 billion over a span of a decade... my math isn't the best, but that's about $70 billion a year... the deficit as of 2011 is $1,500 billion (that's $1.5 trillion)... but, let's presume we somehow recoup the money the rich should have spent since 2001 when the taxes were introduced... the federal deficit would have been $700 billion less, or only $800 billion... that's still $790 billion more than it was in 2001.

what is the point of all this fact-finding?... the point is that blaming the "Bush-era" tax cuts for our current situation is like blaming Dr. Jonas Salk for polio deaths... there was a financial problem, and President Bush tried to solve it... like his solution or not, he worked under adverse conditions (i.e. tech-bubble, 9/11 WTC attacks, Democrat Congress) to make the economy better.

and when President Obama has troubles (i.e. mortgage-bubble, bailouts, european debt crisis), we look to see what he and his Democrat Congress are going to do... and what do they do?... they blame Bush-era tax cuts.

and three years later, they still blame him... oh, it's turned to blaming the rich for wanting $700 billion in tax cuts... those dirty, evil rich people.

what about the $3 trillion that the not-so-rich are holding onto?... no one seems to remember them.

and yet, in 2010, my taxes increased and Social Security withholding reduced... remember that?

i sure do.