So, why the American debt? Really?

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat has suggested that when Congress passed a law cutting taxes for wealthy people (those making over $ 250,000) both in 2001 and 2003, the national debt increased and this would later lead to the deficit we have today. He further suggests that the economy would have had a surplus of about 6 trillion dollars by 2011 if the taxes on the wealthy had not been cut.. Fareed Zakaria, an author of Newsweek suggests the same thing.
But on the other hand, Brian Riedl of the American Heritage Foundation suggests that these tax cuts only caused 4% of the deficit. He further writes that taking away these tax cuts from the wealthy would only contribute about 700 billion dollars to pay down the now-13-trillion dollar deficit. So since taking away the tax cuts would only cut the projected deficit by 700 billion dollars, this means that taking away these tax cuts can neither help much with taking America out of debt, nor had much to do with the debt that the country has accumulated
So who is right here? What Riedl says is that the 6-trillion dollar surplus that Kerry suggested (for 2011) did not take into account that between 2003 and 2011, America would have terrorist attacks, two wars, natural disasters (remember Katrina?) and 2 stock crashes at Wall Street. This contributed to the debt crisis that America has today, according to Riedl. .
However, we regular folks think that if perhaps taxes had not been cut, we would perhaps have had some money to help with Katrina, the wars and terrorist attack emergencies. Isn't this what regular folks do? Put away some money for a rainy day at a time when you have plenty to spare? Furthermore, the unwritten implication that the tax cuts to the wealthy had little effect on the accumulated national debt and that recalling these taxes would do little to pay down the debt leaves out one major issue. What about the lost revenue when this money (read tax revenue lost to wealthy people) did not go to pay down the national credit card? When one does not pay their credit card dues, the interest grows and the total amount of debt balance on the card increases because of increased interest. That's a regular person's understanding of issues. Any disputes? Or corrections? I stand to be corrected.