President Obama starts playing offense in the budget war: http://thurly.net/1b1l

As Kevin Drum points out at MotherJones.com, the president threw down in plain language during his budget speech: the deficit is the Republican's fault. Pure and simple. Nearly 100%.

America’s finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program — but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts — tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.

To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our nation’s checkbook, consider this: In the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.

But that’s not what happened. And so, by the time I took office, we once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a Baby Boom retirement that is now starting to take place. When I took office, our projected deficit, annually, was more than $1 trillion. On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more.

Shame on any Democrat (or Republican who cares about the country's future) if they don't follow suit. This has been about giving huge breaks to the hugely wealthy and taking things away from people who need them—mostly while paying for wars we didn't need and probably can't win.

How can this be tough to sell to the majority of American voters? Honestly, how??

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