Rep. Paul Ryan Wants to Address the Drivers of Our Debt

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Republicans have decided that their talking points should be about the national debt instead of, say, job creation. To that end, Rep. Paul Ryan, on one of those Sunday morning talk shows, said “We need to address the drivers of our debt.”

That’s a great idea.

Maybe Ryan expected that no one would take him up on that offer, but it’s too late. Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has done what Ryan wanted. The result might not be what the Republican’s chief budget specialist had imagined.

The chart below shows the Bush/Obama tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan account for almost half of the projected debt by 2019.

H/T: Steve Benen.