I remember the budget hawks in the aughts saying that if the administration wanted to spend a ton of money on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (this: unrelated to 9/11), that it would be fiscally prudent to raise tax revenue to cover the costs. Bush instead cut tax revenue substantially.
I'm not making a judgement either way, just saying that there was a choice here and Bush made the choice to increase the deficit. (Dick Cheney was correct when he advised Bush that deficits don't matter. The increase in the deficit indeed didn't matter to the electorate, and the deficit spending, in part via tax cuts, did win him a second term.)
I remember the budget hawks in the aughts saying that if the administration wanted to spend a ton of money on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (this: unrelated to 9/11), that it would be fiscally prudent to raise tax revenue to cover the costs. Bush instead cut tax revenue substantially.
I'm not making a judgement either way, just saying that there was a choice here and Bush made the choice to increase the deficit. (Dick Cheney was correct when he advised Bush that deficits don't matter. The increase in the deficit indeed didn't matter to the electorate, and the deficit spending, in part via tax cuts, did win him a second term.)