CBO is not alone. Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi estimated in a July 2010 paper that without the stimulus spending, the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points higher.

"The massive borrowing and spending by the Treasury Department crowded out private investment by American businesses of all sizes."

Crowding out occurs when government spending drives up interest rates and makes borrowing unattractive to the private sector. As economist Joseph Minarik of the Committee for Economic Development explains, "When interest rates are on the floor, you can't say federal government borrowing is crowding out business investment." The lackluster investment climate reflects low consumer demand and underutilized capacity.

"The truth is we will never balance the budget and rid our children of debt unless we cut spending and have real economic growth. And we will never have real economic growth if we raise taxes on those in America who create jobs."

Never? Under President Clinton, taxes were raised, primarily on the wealthy. During the eight years of his administration, the economy grew by an average of close to 4 percent.

"I ran for Congress in 1990, the year our nation's leaders struck a so-called bargain that raised taxes as part of a bipartisan plan to balance the budget. The result of that so-called bargain was the recession of the early 1990s. It wasn't until the economy picked back up toward the end of that decade that we achieved a balanced budget."

Boehner blames the budget deal for tanking the economy, but the recession actually started in July 1990, two months before the agreement was reached.

"A tax hike would wreak havoc not only on our economy's ability to create private-sector jobs, but also on our ability to tackle the national debt."

During the early 1980s, taxes were cut and public debt ballooned, from 26 percent of GDP in 1980 to 40 percent by 1986. In 1993, taxes were increased (and spending cut); debt as a share of the economy fell, from 49 percent to 33 percent. In 2001 and 2003, taxes were cut. By the time President Obama took office, debt had climbed to 40 percent of GDP.

Listening to Boehner, I began to think the country suffers from two deficits: the gap between spending and revenue, and the one between reality and ideology. The first cannot be solved unless we find some way of at least narrowing the second.