The budget doesn't reset to zero on inauguration day. Clinton left Bush a 300 billion dollar annual surplus. Then a Republican President, along with a GOP Senate and House, turned that surplus into record deficits, and Bush left Obama a trillion dollar deficit, and the worst economic collapse since 1930. What the Bush tax cuts produced was record deficits. The economy wasn't strengthened by the tax cuts, it collapsed like it was made of cheese. Turning the economy away from free fall and bringing it to a stable state took money, there should have been a lot more stimulus, because there wasn't enough to bring the economy back to robust growth, only enough to stop the bleeding. And robust growth, and the increase in revenue it brings is the only hope this country has to balance the budget and that will take spending and the only entity in the position to spend is the federal government.