With the mid-tern elections just around the corner, the GOP may have just lost one of its key talking points. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the budget deficit has dropped to its lowest level since President Barack Obama took office in January of 2008.
The current deficit sits at approximately $500 billion annually, with a projection for further drops in 2015. Stan Collender, executive vice president at Qorvis MSLGROUP, made this point about the GOP’s ability to use the country’s debt as an issue: “The deficit just doesn’t have the political cache it had before, because one, it’s falling, and two, it’s falling precipitously.
Three, the economy is growing. Four, for Republicans to talk about the deficit is a real problem because the follow-up question is well, what would you do about it?”
That certainly explains the Republican Party’s silence over the issue in the past few months. With unemployment stabilizing in the 6% range, economic issues are simply off the table for GOP politicians who are seeking election this cycle.
With Obamacare also showing positive signs, Democrats can consider this to be great news as they continue to distance themselves from a President that seems to be losing the confidence of the American people.
After five years of the President taking a brutal beating over the economy, all of the criticism should be considered a thing of the past. In fact, Republicans shouldn’t be surprised to see democratic candidates use this information to their benefit.