Where'd That Surplus Go?

Greg Mankiw writes about what happened to the budget surplus from 2002-2011. "Reasonable people can disagree about whether the Bush tax cuts were advisable, but don't let anyone tell you that the tax cuts were the main reason the surplus of 2001 disappeared." It turns out tax cuts were only about 20%. The war and other spending were the biggest chunk and it turns out people estimates of the economy were wrong.