James Fallows posts an edifying graph from The New York Times:

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Look, this is the whole strategy behind “starve the beast.” Run up huge deficits, then blame them on a Democrat and use them as an excuse to eviscerate the social safety net. Until the current administration, though, no one could argue that it was actually working.

As a matter of pure partisanship, though, it’s telling that the deficit became a huge issue to Republicans only after Bush ran up more than $5 trillion in debt.

Adam Serwer is a writing fellow at The American Prospect and a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also blogs at Jack and Jill Politics and has written for The Village Voice, The Washington Post, The Root, and the Daily News. Follow @adamserwer