To the dismay and disappointment of conservatives, the Republican Congress set a record "unified budget" deficit of $412 Billion in FY 2004. This departure from fiscal conservatism may have been an under-appreciated factor in the GOP's loss of Congress in 2006. But Republicans did make 3 years of progress and got the deficit down to $162B in FY 2007 -- a reduction of $250B. In the first complete fiscal year Democrats were the majority (FY 2008), the deficit exploded to an estimated $455B, nearly tripling the deficit they inherited and setting a new all-time record. This fiscal year (FY 2009) the deficit is expected to nearly triple again and perhaps hit $1.2 Trillion, breaking into 13 digits for the first time. Do you see a pattern here? In a press conference on January 7, Representative John Spratt (D-SC) said this: Well, thank you for coming. This is sort of the last chapter in the fiscal history of the Bush administration, and Senator Conrad and I thought it was an apt...(Read Full Article)