Paul Ryan was for Big Deficits before he was against them (graphic)

Paul Ryan blames President Obama for the government’s budget deficits, and singles out the stimulus program as the culprit. But stimulus was one-time expenditures, not ongoing annual ones, and so over time will contribute little to the deficit. What does drive up the deficit annually is a series of Bush-era measures, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, tax cuts and unfunded medicaid prescription drug benefits, and the economic collapse that derived in some large part from extensive deregulation of the banking and financial sectors.

Paul Ryan voted for every single one of the government measures that created the current deficits, and he opposes the obvious measures that would bring them down. He was opposed to the US withdrawal from Iraq. He opposes letting the Bush tax cuts on the super-wealthy expire. He opposes re-regulating the banks.

Ryan wants to blame those deficits on President Obama, who was not even in the federal Senate when Ryan voted to spend a trillion dollars on an illegal and unjustified war on Iraq.