Eight years ago, President Obama fought for an economic stimulus package in the hopes that it would jump-start an economy in crisis. At that time, the prevailing assumption was that a country which had seen its national debt double during the previous administration would take a Keynesian approach to recovery in the short-term, before a period of federal fiscal responsibility and (hopefully) robust private sector growth.
Obviously, many of those expectations went unrealized. Among the many faults conservatives found with the Obama administration, its profligate spending habits were one of the first and most consistent criticisms. In the 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles, GOP candidates across the board campaigned heavily on the promise of reigning in and reversing government growth.
