Jeb Bush, the 2016 GOP White House hopeful tells us, loves his brother. But judging by his recent statements, he apparently loves the idea of being president even more. Confronted by Dubya's dismal record at home and abroad, Jeb ultimately denied the Iraq war was a mistake and comically claimed "ISIS didn't exist when my brother was president." Conveniently forgetting the 3,000 people slaughtered on George's watch on September 11, 2001 and the 4,500 American troops needlessly killed in his Iraq war, Jeb insisted "he kept us safe." And on Sunday, the former Florida Governor offered a new explanation for the explosion of federal spending President George W. Bush's and the ongoing of hemorrhage of red ink from the U.S. Treasury he produced.
It was Congress' fault.

Yes, Jeb Bush used his appearance on CBS Face the Nation to excuse his brother's budgetary recklessness. When Bob Schieffer asked, "What do you think you learned from him, successes and mistakes," Jeb replied:

"I think I learned also from not having -- keeping the reins on spending. Because of the war and because of the focus on protecting the homeland, I think he let the Republican Congress get a little out of control in terms of the spending."

If that's what Jeb Bush learned, then he simply wasn't paying attention. Virtually every program that drove the 54 percent growth in federal spending during Dubya's tenure--the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the unfunded Medicare prescription drug plan, the massive Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)--was strongly pushed by President Bush himself.
When George W. Bush first took the oath of office in January 2001, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected the Clinton surpluses he inherited would continue. With Uncle Sam forecast by CBO to build up $5.6 trillion in surpluses over the next decade, President Bush's press secretary Ari Fleischer declared, "We are seeing a government that is awash in surplus money." For fiscal year 2001, which started the previous October 1, Bush could expect to be $281 billion in the black, as revenues ($2.135 trillion in 2001 dollars) were expected to far outstrip outlays ($1.853 trillion).
But it didn't work out that way. As the chart at top shows, federal spending jumped quickly under Bush 43's watch. And as the twin charts below show, annual deficits ballooned as over $2 trillion in tax cuts and lower tax collections from the much weaker economy produced red ink as far as the eye could see.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded, the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the deficits during his tenure, and if they had all been made permanent, over the next decade would have cost the U.S. Treasury more than Iraq, Afghanistan, the recession, TARP and the stimulus--combined. So much for President Bush's 2004 claim that "tax cuts always increase revenue."
That's not to say the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq haven't had a dramatic impact. They have--and will for years to come.
By 2020, the direct cost of America's wars to U.S. taxpayers could reach $3 trillion. In March 2011, the Congressional Research Service put the total cost of the wars at $1.28 trillion, including $444 billion for Afghanistan and $806 billion for Iraq. (Only World War II cost the United States more in real dollars.) In addition, baseline defense spending has almost doubled since the 9/11 attacks, jumping from $297 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $531 billion in FY 2012:

Jeb's mythmaking notwithstanding, Congress happily blessed Dubya's war spending even as it allowed him to become the first President in modern times to cut taxes during war-time. But it was the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan passed in December 2003 that highlighted President Bush's willingness to spend and not tax. Unlike President Obama's Affordable Care Act, Medicare Part D was not paid for. When it was passed in December 2003, the new Medicare drug benefit was forecast by the Bush administration to cost $395 billion over its first decade. To pay for the program, President Bush and his GOP allies did--wait for it--nothing. As Utah Senator Orrin Hatch admitted in 2009, during the Bush years:

"It was standard practice not to pay for things."

To persuade Congressional Republicans to back the bill, the Bush White House lied to Congress about the cost. Within two months of signing the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) into law, President Bush quietly informed Congress that the true cost of the program would be $550 billion, not $395 billion, over the next decade. When Medicare actuary Richard Foster sought to present the true price tag to Congress in late 2003, then agency chief Thomas Scully threatened to fire him. By the time the program was launched in 2006, the estimated 10 year price tag for the Medicare prescription plan had increased to $720 billion.
Ultimately, the troubled Medicare Rx program cost less than expected, due to the adoption of generic drugs and the lower than expected enrollment rates. But all of its costs went (and still go) on Uncle Sam's credit card, helping entitlements become an even bigger part of the federal deficit by 2009.

Nevertheless, Jeb Bush is blaming past Republican majorities in Congress for his brother's own out-of-control spending, and not for the first time. As the New York Times reported two weeks ago:

"I think that, in Washington during my brother's time, Republicans spent too much money," Mr. Bush said Thursday when asked to describe where there was a "big space" between himself and his brother George W. Bush. "I think he could have used the veto power. He didn't have line-item veto power, but he could have brought budget discipline to Washington, D.C."

As it turns out, it is Barack Obama who brought some budget discipline to Washington. On January 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama's inauguration day, CNN reported on the latest long-term budget forecast from the CBO. Just days before President Bush ambled out of the Oval Office for good, CNN explained "the U.S. budget deficit in 2009 is projected to spike to a record $1.2 trillion, or 8.3% of gross domestic product." With the recession in full swing and the massive TARP program passed at Bush's urging the previous fall, CBO predicted in January 2009 that federal spending would spike to $3.543 trillion dollars while tax revenue would plummet to an anemic to $2,357 trillion. Federal spending has hardly budged since. While the annual deficit has been reduced by two-thirds, Uncle Sam's outlays measured in constant FY 2009 dollars have dropped every year since George W. Bush left the Oval Office and Barack Obama moved in.