WRONG!!!
What was the concern in the Bush administration about debt and deficits? NONE...Bush's solution was to eliminate the voices of concern, his first Treasury Secretary.
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Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George Bush's Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the president's policy on tax cuts.
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The president had promised to cut taxes, and he did. Within six months of taking office, he pushed a trillion dollars worth of tax cuts through Congress.
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But O'Neill thought it should have been the end. After 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, the budget deficit was growing. So at a meeting with the vice president after the mid-term elections in 2002, O'Neill argued against a second round of tax cuts.
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"Cheney, at this moment, showed his hand. He said to O'Neill: 'You know, Paul,
Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.' … O'Neill was speechless."
"It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society," says O'Neill. "And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction."