Fox Ignores Economic History To Praise President Bush's “Fiscal Discipline”

Fox News ignored economic history to forward the absurd claim that former President George W. Bush exercised “fiscal discipline.”

On the April 25 edition of Fox & Friends, former Bush White House Chief of Staff Andy Card claimed that President Bush “probably has the best track record of any modern president in terms of fiscal discipline,” a statement that went unchallenged by the Fox & Friends co-hosts:

But facts undermine Card's claim. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the drivers of current and future public debt are policies from the Bush presidency:

A recent study from Harvard researcher Linda J. Bilmes found that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will ultimately cost taxpayers between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, that the Bush-era tax cuts added $2.6 trillion to public debt from 2001-2010, and as Foxnews.com noted  in September 2011, the Bush-era Medicare drug benefit came with unfunded costs of $7 trillion.

Furthermore, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Office of Management and Budget data, the Bush era saw the second largest annualized growth in federal spending since the Eisenhower presidency:

According to former President Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett, when Bush took office, the CBO projected a $3.5 trillion surplus through 2008. Instead, Bush delivered a $5.5 trillion deficit over his two terms.