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Obama takes Republicans to School (Page 2)
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OAW
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Feb 2, 2010, 05:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by kido331 View Post
Oh jeez ... not this chart again.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that some of you guys either A) really need to learn how to read the chart and properly interpret what it is saying, or B) already know better but are intentionally using this chart in a misleading manner.

I've already thoroughly debunked this foolishness in another thread. But it bears repeating ...

The chart you cite only shows the actual and projected deficits as they occur by year. They do NOT reflect the POLICIES which caused said deficits.

More from the other thread ...



Some relevant points from the article itself:

President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying.
This debt will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.
E.g. Healthcare Reform

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.
Bottom line? Obama is only involved in 30% of the projected deficits. And 27% (i.e Iraq & Afghanistan wars, bank and auto bailouts, and the stimulus program) is stuff that Obama had to do to in order to try and clean up Bush's mess. Only 3% is due to the Obama's agenda itself.

So again ... let's do the math. 90% of the projected deficits from 2009 to 2012 are the direct result of Bush Administration policies and the Bush recession. 97% if you count the stimulus program that Bush didn't enact but was made necessary by his clusterf*ck of an administration. At most you can put 10% on Obama policies that don't directly involve Bush. Only 3% if you don't include the stimulus program.

OAW
     
hyteckit
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Feb 2, 2010, 05:59 PM
 
It has be debunked many times.

This thread too:

http://forums.macnn.com/95/political...cit-neutral/2/


They just like posted the chart from:

Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.


Hell, even the conservative organization, the CATO institute, debunked it.

Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit | Cato @ Liberty

Bush Tax Cuts == Job Killer
June 2001: 132,047,000 employed
June 2003: 129,839,000 employed
2.21 million jobs were LOST after 2 years of Bush Tax Cuts.
     
besson3c
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Feb 2, 2010, 06:09 PM
 
For those looking for an example of somebody being wrong in the face of facts (see this thread), it will be interesting to see what the response is here
     
kido331
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Feb 2, 2010, 06:29 PM
 
From this article by Keith Hennessey:



If I measure President Bush for the nine year period 2001-2009, thus assigning almost all TARP spending to his Presidency, I get an average budget deficit of 2.7% of GDP. (Historical umbers are from OMB’s historical tables. Obama numbers are from Table S-1 in his new budget.) In calculating this nine year average I am adding the horrible FY 2009 into the Bush average, using CBO’s projection for the FY 2009 deficit of 8.3% when President Bush left office in January 2009. Bush therefore gets the deficit hit for most of the TARP, but Obama gets the hit for his stimulus law and the further economic deterioration when he was in office, both of which pushed the actual 2009 deficit to 9.9% of GDP.

You can see a black line within the Bush column. That’s at 2.0%, the average Bush deficit for the eight year period of 2001-2008.

Now let’s turn to President Obama. Remember, we are measuring his average budget deficit through FY 2017, assuming he stays in office for two terms and his new budget is enacted as proposed. I am also being generous by using OMB’s scoring of the President’s budget. CBO is always more pessimistic and would make the Obama numbers look worse.

President Obama’s proposed deficits over the eight-year period FY 2009-2017 are 5.9% of GDP, the light blue bar. That’s more than twice as large as the Bush nine year 2.7% average, and almost three times as large as the Bush eight year 2.0% average. Update: This calculation assumes the full 9.9% FY 2009 deficit in the average, thus it includes the TARP spending and in a sense overlaps with the Bush red bar. The TARP money is being counted with each of them. The next three bars “solve” this problem by excluding all of 2009 (including TARP and stimulus) from the Obama average.

I can imagine someone replying that it’s not fair to blame President Obama for the big deficits we are running as we recover from a severe recession. The next three bars therefore exclude the first one, two, and three years of an assumed eight year Presidency. Surely no one can argue that President Obama should not be held responsible for the budget deficits in years four through eight!

You can see that each of these comparisons, which allow you to “not count” the recovery years in the average for Obama, still result in average budget deficits that far exceed even the worst portrayal of the Bush Administration’s average.

In fact, the smallest annual deficit proposed by President Obama is 3.6% of GDP, in 2018 and 2019, the two years after his second term would end. The lowest during his hypothetical eight years would be 3.7% in 2017 and 2018. The lowest proposed budget deficits in a hypothetical “Obama decade” would exceed the Bush average budget deficit, even if we assign most of the TARP spending to Bush.
     
hyteckit
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Feb 2, 2010, 06:46 PM
 
kiddo,

You see this from CATO institute?



Most of 2009 deficits belong to Pres. Bush.

Pres. Bush deficit spending is over 6%.

Even crazy conservative heritage.org doesn't give Pres. Bush 2.7%.

Bush Tax Cuts == Job Killer
June 2001: 132,047,000 employed
June 2003: 129,839,000 employed
2.21 million jobs were LOST after 2 years of Bush Tax Cuts.
     
OAW
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Feb 2, 2010, 06:53 PM
 
Kido,

Again, in no way does this new graph refute what I said. Here is the fundamental point that doesn't appear to be registering with you.

A large portion of the projected deficits you cite are the result of POLICIES enacted by the prior Administration.

The Bush tax cuts were unfunded. Do you think red ink that resulted only impacts the years Bush was in office?

The Medicare Prescription Drug program was unfunded. Do you think red ink that resulted only impacts the years Bush was in office?

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were unfunded. Do you think red ink that resulted only impacts the years Bush was in office?

No one is arguing that the deficit won't be higher during the Obama Administration. That's not the issue. The issue is WHY is the deficit higher? What is the breakdown of that deficit by POLICY? And who is responsible for the policy? That's the problem with citing a simplistic graph as you have done in a discussion like this. They only show WHEN the red ink occurs ... not WHY it occurs. It implies that the red ink projected to occur during the Obama Administration are solely the result of Obama's policies. When the fact of the matter is that if President Obama came into office and did NOTHING and was simply a "caretaker" President ... pushed no substantive legislation nor signed any ... just "minded the store" and kept things going as they were ... then ALL of the red ink cited in the "Obama years" in your graphs would be attributable to Bush. It bears repeating ...

90% of the projected deficits from 2009 to 2012 are the direct result of Bush Administration policies and the Bush recession.

I really fail to see what's so difficult to understand about this concept. It's just simple mathematics and common sense. If you wish to dispute this then produce a credible reference that shows the breakdown of projected deficits BY POLICY (not simply by year) reaching a different conclusion. Because right now what you are doing is "bringing a knife to a gun fight" ... and it's really not working out too well for you.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 2, 2010 at 06:59 PM. )
     
stupendousman
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Feb 2, 2010, 10:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
Most of 2009 deficits belong to Pres. Bush.
Since when does a President get to spend anything, to create a deficit? The last time I checked, that was the job of Congress. If the President and Congress are of the same party, and they agree to the spending then you can fairly concede at THAT POINT that the numbers reflect the "administration policies."

Does anyone see what happened after the Clinton recession ended...yeah, deficits going back down. Can anyone tell us what's been different since the numbers started going back up again?
     
hyteckit
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Feb 2, 2010, 11:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Since when does a President get to spend anything, to create a deficit? The last time I checked, that was the job of Congress. If the President and Congress are of the same party, and they agree to the spending then you can fairly concede at THAT POINT that the numbers reflect the "administration policies."

Does anyone see what happened after the Clinton recession ended...yeah, deficits going back down. Can anyone tell us what's been different since the numbers started going back up again?
Are you saying all those conservatives on this forum and conservative websites such as the heritage.org foundation are either idiots, incorrect, or making invalid arguments when they post graphs of deficits under each president?

You can't have it both ways. Blame Pres. Obama for being a big deficit spender and then say the President doesn't get to decide how money is spent.

The congress does have the power of the purse string, but the President gets to set the budget and spend it. President tells congress that he wants $50 billion for this and $100 billion for that, and another $200 billion for the wars. Congress then either tells the President that he gets the money or not.

The White House after all, sets the budget.

Welcome to the Office of Management and Budget
( Last edited by hyteckit; Feb 2, 2010 at 11:45 PM. )
Bush Tax Cuts == Job Killer
June 2001: 132,047,000 employed
June 2003: 129,839,000 employed
2.21 million jobs were LOST after 2 years of Bush Tax Cuts.
     
ebuddy
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Feb 3, 2010, 07:59 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Kido, Again, in no way does this new graph refute what I said. Here is the fundamental point that doesn't appear to be registering with you.
A large portion of the projected deficits you cite are the result of POLICIES enacted by the prior Administration.
POLICIES Obama voted for. I mean it's not like we can pretend he wasn't a voting member of Congress or anything right? Congress sends a bill to the President and the President signs it.

The Bush tax cuts were unfunded. Do you think red ink that resulted only impacts the years Bush was in office?
Bush finally threw some red meat to tax payers. The large print giveth, the small print taketh away. Obama decided to let the sun set on the Bush tax cuts in spite of the calls from his base that they needed to be immediately repealed. Why? The economic state of the country; the reason Bush passed them in the first place. Those were temporary cuts anyway as a means of stimulating the economy through 9/11 and a host of other minor catastrophes... and they worked. Tax cuts pay for themselves. Multi-billion dollar stimulus' and omnibus' do not. Don't take my word for it, watch for more economic news when these tax cuts expire.

The Medicare Prescription Drug program was unfunded. Do you think red ink that resulted only impacts the years Bush was in office?
Obama's vote? YES. Do you really think you can pretend that Obama was not part of this problem?

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were unfunded. Do you think red ink that resulted only impacts the years Bush was in office?
Obama's vote on Afghanistan? YES. As President there's no sign of letting up in Iraq and we're ramping up efforts in Afghanistan. Have we caught the boogeyman yet?

No one is arguing that the deficit won't be higher during the Obama Administration. That's not the issue. The issue is WHY is the deficit higher? What is the breakdown of that deficit by POLICY? And who is responsible for the policy? That's the problem with citing a simplistic graph as you have done in a discussion like this. They only show WHEN the red ink occurs ... not WHY it occurs. It implies that the red ink projected to occur during the Obama Administration are solely the result of Obama's policies. When the fact of the matter is that if President Obama came into office and did NOTHING and was simply a "caretaker" President ... pushed no substantive legislation nor signed any ... just "minded the store" and kept things going as they were ... then ALL of the red ink cited in the "Obama years" in your graphs would be attributable to Bush. It bears repeating ...

90% of the projected deficits from 2009 to 2012 are the direct result of Bush Administration policies and the Bush recession.
Once again this is where we get to pretend that Obama was not a contributing member of Congress who sent the President the POLICIES of $3.1 trillion in federal outlays along with a projected $400 billion deficit, $700 billion for TARP and the $787 billion stimulus bill. Obama voted YES.


I really fail to see what's so difficult to understand about this concept. It's just simple mathematics and common sense. If you wish to dispute this then produce a credible reference that shows the breakdown of projected deficits BY POLICY (not simply by year) reaching a different conclusion. Because right now what you are doing is "bringing a knife to a gun fight" ... and it's really not working out too well for you.
What's so difficult to understand about Obama's YES votes on most of these POLICIES you're up in "arms" about? Really the only item left for your contention is the Bush tax cuts which Obama opted not to repeal upon taking office because he felt they were a necessary stimulus through our economic hardship; the very reason Bush passed them to begin with. You don't really get to distance Obama from the POLICIES he supported while a contributing member in Congress who sent the bills to the President for signature. What you're doing is bringing a gun to the bingo parlor. With due respect; nonsense.
ebuddy
     
stupendousman
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Feb 3, 2010, 08:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
Are you saying all those conservatives on this forum and conservative websites such as the heritage.org foundation are either idiots, incorrect, or making invalid arguments when they post graphs of deficits under each president?
Not idiots. The fact is that a President can submit a budget and Congress doesn't have to give it to him. Bush submitted budgets. Congress did what they had to do in order to get their priorities in place and gave the President only what they thought they had to. I'm guessing that if Obama had a Republican majority to deal with, he probably wouldn't get such a big budget passed, and he knows it.

We judge past Presidents based on what actually happened. We judge current Presidents based on what they say they want to happen and what they currently try to do. We look at what Bush actually did and can see what happened with a Republican congress, and what happened when the Democrats took over. We can also see what Obama says he wants to happen with a Democrat Congress. The one constant is that with a Democrat Congress, either the budget goes up or when it does go down it does so only after having it tripled, still remaining way higher.

You can't have it both ways. Blame Pres. Obama for being a big deficit spender and then say the President doesn't get to decide how money is spent.
The question is what he asks for, and what he gets. The same as Bush. With Republicans in control of the pursestrings and parceling out the money to Presidents, the deficit went down except around the time of the recession Bush got us out and increased emergency 9/11 spending. Unless there was a real national emergency, the Republican congress kept spending down.

Democrats are now tripling it and predicting that they'll continue to tax and spend more with and agenda which isn't going to do anything really to get us out of the bad financial times they helped us get into to. The "Porkulus" only added to the deficit and didn't achieve the goals we were promised it would achieve.

The congress does have the power of the purse string, but the President gets to set the budget and spend it. President tells congress that he wants $50 billion for this and $100 billion for that, and another $200 billion for the wars. Congress then either tells the President that he gets the money or not.
Exactly. It's Congress who controls the money. All the President can do is ask. When the pursestrings have been controlled by Republicans, they didn't have these deficits. It's only when Democrats took control that the started to rise again.
     
OAW
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Feb 3, 2010, 04:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
You can't have it both ways. Blame Pres. Obama for being a big deficit spender and then say the President doesn't get to decide how money is spent.
Indeed. It's hilarious how it's all about whose presidential watch the deficits occurred under ... until you get legitimate and factual push back on why that's a simplistic and misleading analysis. Then all of a sudden it's ....

Originally Posted by stupendousman
Exactly. It's Congress who controls the money. All the President can do is ask. When the pursestrings have been controlled by Republicans, they didn't have these deficits. It's only when Democrats took control that the started to rise again.


Now that's a classic example of how Republican self-perception doesn't quite jive with reality. Let's examine this claim shall we? First let's see which party controlled the White House and the Congress since 1981.

Year Congress WH Senate House

2009 111th D D - 55*** D - 256
2007 110th R D - 51** D - 233
2005 109th R R - 55 R - 232
2003 108th R R - 51 R - 229
2001 107th R D* R - 221
1999 106th D R - 55 R - 223
1997 105th D R - 55 R - 228
1995 104th D R - 52 R - 230
1993 103rd D D - 57 D - 258
1991 102nd R D - 56 D - 267
1989 101st R D - 55 D - 260
1987 100th R D - 55 D - 258
1985 99th R R - 53 D - 253
1983 98th R R - 54 D - 269
1981 97th R R - 53 D - 242

Now let's juxtapose that against the federal budget deficits in the same time frame:



From 1982 - 1986, during the Reagan Administration, you see a huge ballooning of the deficit. During that time control of Congress was divided ... but the Republicans controlled the Senate ... the supposedly more "deliberative" body.

From 1990 - 1992, during the Bush I Administration, you see another big increase in the deficit. During that time control of Congress was in the hands of Democrats.

From 2002 - 2006, during the Bush II Administration, you see a massive increase in the deficit. During that time both chambers of Congress was in the hands of the Republicans.

In 2008, during the Bush II Administration, the deficit skyrocketed. During that time both chambers of Congress was in the hands of the Democrats. Started off 50-50 in the Senate but the Democrats got a one seat majority due to a defection. More importantly, the dominant cause was financial crisis that began in 2007 ... triggering the Great Recession .... thereby causing tax revenues to plummet and social safety net expenditures to increase.

The point of all this is to show ... by the numbers .... that anyway you slice it, your claim that these big deficits don't occur when Republicans control the purse strings is simply false.

OAW
     
kido331
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Feb 3, 2010, 05:15 PM
 


and yes, i know. Blame it on Bush.
     
OAW
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Feb 3, 2010, 07:00 PM
 
Regarding federal spending ....

This is an area where the lunacy on the part of both political parties is pretty blatant. Let's look at where the money goes:



When you look at spending in the areas of Defense, Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, Interest on the national debt, and other Mandatory spending .... you will see that that comprises approximately 85% of the federal budget. The interesting part about that is that the Republicans (and the Democrats to a large degree) are unwilling to address the root, structural causes of the federal deficit. They want to b*tch about TARP ... but that only accounts for 4% of the federal budget. They want to b*tch about Healthcare Reform ... but that program according to the CBO would have actually reduced the deficit over 10 years and addressed one of the primary drivers causing the deficits in the first place. They unanimously voted against re-establishing the PAY-GO rules. Even a spending freeze on non-defense discretionary spending ... advocated by the Republicans and embraced by Obama ... only accounts for 12% of the budget.

So riddle me this Batman? How the hell are you going to eliminate deficits when reducing spending in 85% of the budget is off the table? For the Democrats and even moreso for the Republicans? Nobody wants to tackle Social Security, Medicaid, & Medicare ... even though that's one of the fundamental causes of the deficits. It's simply a political hot potato. You even had Republicans who opposed Medicare in the first place actually opposing cuts in wasteful spending in that program in an attempt to curry political favor with seniors during the healthcare reform debate. Had uninformed conservatives running around at townhall meetings and Tea Party events screaming "Say NO to government run healthcare ... but I love my Medicare and you better not touch it!" Apparently, oblivious to the fact that Medicare is a government program. Defense spending is the next major category. Never mind that the US spends more on its military than nearly the rest of the world combined. Republicans never want to reduce it. And even Democrats (except the progressive wing) are hesitant to call for reductions for fear of being labeled "soft of national security" by Republicans.

It all seems a tad bit silly, n'est-ce pas?

OAW
     
stupendousman
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Feb 3, 2010, 09:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Indeed. It's hilarious how it's all about whose presidential watch the deficits occurred under ... until you get legitimate and factual push back on why that's a simplistic and misleading analysis.
Your push back wasn't too convincing.

It didn't refute a single thing I said.

OTHER THAN RIGHT AFTER 9/11 and the CLINTON RECESSION, when Republicans have been in control of both houses, even with a President of the other party is in power, the Republicans consistently acted to lower deficits.

Every graph shows deficits trending DOWN or there being a surplus except for when we were at the beginning of a war and essentially in a "state of emergency. When did it start trending back up? During the Democrat's control of Congress.

From 2002 - 2006, during the Bush II Administration, you see a massive increase in the deficit. During that time both chambers of Congress was in the hands of the Republicans.
Bush was elected in 2000. Why did it take until 2002 for the deficit to suddenly rise? Of course, you know the answer. Now, I won't lay all the blame for the deficit at the end of Bush's last term on the Democrats. They had help That's one of the reasons why Bush wasn't all that popular even with a lot of the members of his own party and his approval ratings went into the toliet.

Of course during the time period you mention (2002-2006) only 3 years had rising deficits. The other three deficits where going back down. Spending wasn't increasing, it was decreasing. Obama has the deficit tripling Bush's biggest deficit.

Sorry, massive fail on your part.

The point of all this is to show ... by the numbers .... that anyway you slice it, your claim that these big deficits don't occur when Republicans control the purse strings is simply false.
Not really my claim. Sorry.
     
OAW
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Feb 4, 2010, 07:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Your push back wasn't too convincing.

It didn't refute a single thing I said.

OTHER THAN RIGHT AFTER 9/11 and the CLINTON RECESSION, when Republicans have been in control of both houses, even with a President of the other party is in power, the Republicans consistently acted to lower deficits.

Every graph shows deficits trending DOWN or there being a surplus except for when we were at the beginning of a war and essentially in a "state of emergency. When did it start trending back up? During the Democrat's control of Congress.
Then clearly you are having difficulty reading the chart. You are completely ignoring the Reagan years. Why? Because the Republicans didn't have "complete" control of Congress? They controlled the Senate and the White House and yet deficits exploded under the so-called party of "fiscal responsibility". Of the four timeframes listed that saw major increases Republicans had their hands in half of them on the Congressional side. I suppose you think we can't count now.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Bush was elected in 2000. Why did it take until 2002 for the deficit to suddenly rise? Of course, you know the answer.
Indeed. The dot-com bubble busted in the year 2000. Over the next two years the NASDAQ lost 60% of its value. The unemployment rate increased from 4 - 5.8%.

The first round of the Bush tax cuts was enacted in mid-2001. It was devised during the 2000 presidential campaign to defend Bush against Steve Forbes on the right. The economy happened to go into decline from March - November 2001. Some called it a "recession" though that is debatable since there weren't two consecutive quarters of decreases in GDP. Regardless, it was sold after the fact as a response to the recession when that really wasn't true. Just like the Iraq war was planned well ahead of time and had nothing to do with WMD in Iraq. But I digress. In any event, the historical record shows that tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts increase deficits. Contrary to what Republicans like to tell themselves and everybody else who'll listen .... Reaganomics simply doesn't work.

The 9/11 attacks went down in September 2001. The DJIA crashed and had its worst one-day and one-week drop in history. It rebounded, only to crash again in late 2002.

The Afghanistan War began in October 2001. Totally unfunded. Impact on the deficit hits in FY 2002.

How about that?

But let's continue .....

The Iraq War began in March 2003. Again, totally unfunded. Even more red ink and the deficit continues to skyrocket.

The second round of Bush tax cuts (on capital gains & dividends) was enacted in 2003. Unemployment continued to rise to 6%. Near the end of 2003 the market began to recover again. Going forward unemployment began to ease as the economy improved. Some credit the improvement on the tax cuts. Others credit the housing boom. In any event, tax cuts coupled with major increases in spending (i.e. two unfunded wars) simply adds to the deficit.

Deficit peaks in FY 2004. Begins to decline in FY 2005 - FY 2007 fueled by the housing boom and decreases in unemployment.

Medicare Part D goes into effect in January 2006. Again, totally unfunded. The government starts paying for prescription drugs for seniors at whatever price the pharmaceutical companies want. The Republicans, ever looking out for big business, refused to allow the government to negotiate lower prices with a volume discount. Wrote it into the law. Defeated all amendments that would have allowed it. (Amendments that Obama supported BTW ebuddy ... so even if you blame him for the policy also, you must admit that he was clearly better on the issue than the Republicans. I mean if you are going to support a policy that adds to the deficit ... at least try to get a discount right? )

The housing market begins to decline in 2006 leading to the subprime mortgage crisis ... which then triggers the financial crisis in 2007 ... plunging the economy into the Great Recession in December 2007. Unemployment rises from 4.6% in 2007 to 5.8 % in 2008 eventually hitting 10.2% in 2009. The red ink skyrockets in FY 2008 which, for the record, began in Oct. 2007 and ended in Sep. 2008 over a month before the election of President Obama. It was NOT due to profligate new spending by the Congress that the Democrats regained control of in 2007 (see below). Keep in mind FY2007 had a deficit that was nearly the FY 2002 level. The deficit of FY 2008 skyrocketed because of the unprecedented financial crisis and recession that began in late 2007. Then, of course, in late 2008 the bottom fell out of the economy. Bank and auto company bailouts via TARP were carried at the beginning of FY 2009 ... which again, began in Oct. 2008 ... a month before Obama was even elected President. By the time Obama was inaugurated and the 111th Congress began with an expanded Democratic majority the second quarter of FY 2009 was well underway.

Originally Posted by stupendousman
Now, I won't lay all the blame for the deficit at the end of Bush's last term on the Democrats. They had help That's one of the reasons why Bush wasn't all that popular even with a lot of the members of his own party and his approval ratings went into the toliet.
Well there's hope for you yet.

Originally Posted by stupendousman
Of course during the time period you mention (2002-2006) only 3 years had rising deficits. The other three deficits where going back down. Spending wasn't increasing, it was decreasing.
And then you go and mess it all up for yourself with foolishness like this. Apparently it doesn't occur to you that deficits and spending are two different things. You see 3 years of declining deficits and you erroneously assume that spending was decreasing. And you know what they say about people who "assume" right? Make an "ass" out of "u" and "me"

The fact of the matter is that you are flat out wrong!



As you can see, spending increased consistently throughout the entire Bush II Administration. Deficits occur when Revenues for a FY are exceeded by Spending. You can have increased Spending and still have a decreased Deficit because Revenues increased more than the Spending. As was the case from FY 2005 - FY 2007 due to the housing boom. But again ... the economy starts to tank in FY 2008. Revenues decline precipitously but the Spending increases marginally and you end up with a huge jump in the Deficit. I know this might be hard for you to follow but do try to keep up ok?

Originally Posted by stupendousman
Sorry, massive fail on your part.
Oh really?

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 4, 2010 at 07:45 PM. )
     
ebuddy
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Feb 4, 2010, 11:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW
Amendments that Obama supported BTW ebuddy ... so even if you blame him for the policy also, you must admit that he was clearly better on the issue than the Republicans. I mean if you are going to support a policy that adds to the deficit ... at least try to get a discount right? )
Of course, why wouldn't I consider that Obama was simply "better on the spending policy than all the Republicans"? Your ability to spin is noteworthy OAW, honestly. I don't know what you consider "better", but it seems to me "the Republicans" have at least shown they're awake at the wheel the past 12 months. The fact is Obama has managed to quadruple the deficit in this time, far in excess of Bush's worst. I'm no fan of either quite frankly, it only follows logically that I'd be more opposed to our current direction.

As far as your remaining points of contention (because again, you can't separate Obama from the spending policies he supported while in Congress during Bush's term); there's far more "discount" and stimulus in a tax cut than there is from the barrel of a money cannon.

Evidenced by the fact that we're now referring to employment numbers in terms of the elusive... jobs saved, and it's still not making a case for this Administration's economic policy. I don't think Obama is better on any of it to be honest OAW.
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Feb 5, 2010, 08:37 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Then clearly you are having difficulty reading the chart. You are completely ignoring the Reagan years. Why? Because the Republicans didn't have "complete" control of Congress?
Precisely. When people have complete control, they can CONTROL. When they don't, they have to compromise with the other party and President in power. I'm comparing when the Republicans had complete control and when the Democrats had complete control.

The first round of the Bush tax cuts was enacted in mid-2001. It was devised during the 2000 presidential campaign to defend Bush against Steve Forbes on the right. The economy happened to go into decline from March - November 2001. Some called it a "recession" though that is debatable since there weren't two consecutive quarters of decreases in GDP. Regardless, it was sold after the fact as a response to the recession when that really wasn't true. Just like the Iraq war was planned well ahead of time and had nothing to do with WMD in Iraq. But I digress. In any event, the historical record shows that tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts increase deficits. Contrary to what Republicans like to tell themselves and everybody else who'll listen .... Reaganomics simply doesn't work.

The 9/11 attacks went down in September 2001. The DJIA crashed and had its worst one-day and one-week drop in history. It rebounded, only to crash again in late 2002.

The Afghanistan War began in October 2001. Totally unfunded. Impact on the deficit hits in FY 2002.

How about that?
Uhh... all conceded previously. We had a war, 9-11 and the what was left of the dot.com bubble bursting and the Clinton recession. We had small (compared to today), short term increases in the deficit, and then they started to drop again.

I wouldn't fault Obama for deficit spending - I think we've got challenges right now that need to worked on, much like Bush did. I just don't think tripling the deficit can be justified when the Republicans never engaged in that sort of thing as an excuse for spending.

But let's continue .....
All well and good, but your analysis doesn't get to the point.

The point is that despite all the challenges Bush had (Clinton had it pretty easy in comparison) and Obama has, we can chart how Congress has reacted and who has had control of Congress when it did so. When you do that, you can see that when the Democrats are in control, they pretty much don't seem to worry about deficits and spending. Not only that, but as the porkulus shows, they don't worry much about how it's spent either.

And then you go and mess it all up for yourself with foolishness like this. Apparently it doesn't occur to you that deficits and spending are two different things. You see 3 years of declining deficits and you erroneously assume that spending was decreasing. And you know what they say about people who "assume" right? Make an "ass" out of "u" and "me"

The fact of the matter is that you are flat out wrong!
Wait a minute...are you saying that Bush cut taxes, increased spending, and the deficit CONTINUED to go down?

You are right. I was mixing my terms up. I was wrong. But what that point in time seems to show is that Bush's tax policies seemed to work. If we are taking more money in, naturally we can afford to spend more. Obama and the Democrats who have control of the pursestrings seek to do this not by cutting taxes, but by raising them and tripling the amount we deficit spend. Thank you for pointing out another really embarrassing difference between what happens when Democrats and Republicans have control.
Oh really?

OAW
Yeah, pretty much. You don't normally win an argument based on quantity of your argument. The quality is still lacking.
     
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Feb 5, 2010, 12:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Of course, why wouldn't I consider that Obama was simply "better on the spending policy than all the Republicans"? Your ability to spin is noteworthy OAW, honestly. I don't know what you consider "better", but it seems to me "the Republicans" have at least shown they're awake at the wheel the past 12 months.
The Republicans aren't "awake at the wheel". They are simply trying to pretend that they don't have anything to do with the massive deficits we are now experiencing. They want to pretend that the deficits hitting the books in FY2009 aren't 90% the result of a budget put in place a month before Obama was elected, emergency TARP spending that hit the books before Obama took office, and tax revenues that fell off a cliff before Obama took office and continued during his first year in office. All of which they had their hands in. Deeply.

Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
The fact is Obama has managed to quadruple the deficit in this time, far in excess of Bush's worst. I'm no fan of either quite frankly, it only follows logically that I'd be more opposed to our current direction.
Again, the fact that the deficit increased during Obama's time in office is not the result of the policies he has pursued since his time in office. I really don't see what's so difficult to understand about this concept. Even the stimulus bill ... a policy that you can put on him ... didn't "quadruple" the deficit. It didn't even "triple" the deficit. The primary reason the deficit has skyrocketed is because of the precipitous decline in tax revenues as a result of the Great Recession. Now surely you aren't blaming Obama for a recession that began before he even took office right?

Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
As far as your remaining points of contention (because again, you can't separate Obama from the spending policies he supported while in Congress during Bush's term); there's far more "discount" and stimulus in a tax cut than there is from the barrel of a money cannon.
Really? Which is why I find it puzzling that the Republicans opposed the stimulus package .... 1/3 of which were tax cuts to 95% of Americans. Then again, it's not really all that puzzling. The M.O. for the Republican Party is most obvious.

Tax cuts are only a good thing when Republicans push them. Deficits only matter when a Democrat is in the White House.

Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Evidenced by the fact that we're now referring to employment numbers in terms of the elusive... jobs saved, and it's still not making a case for this Administration's economic policy. I don't think Obama is better on any of it to be honest OAW.
This is what I don't get about our friends on the right. What we know for a fact is that in late 2008 the economy was on the brink of collapse. Economists of all stripes .... on the left, the right, and the middle ... were warning of a second Great Depression. So as distasteful as it was the Bush Administration pushed through TARP and the Obama Administration pushed through the Stimulus package. And our friends on the right have been b*tching about it ever since ... or at least since Obama got elected. But the million dollar question is this.

What would you have done as an alternative?

Allow the financial system to collapse? Allow the domestic auto industry to collapse? The same ones on the right who are b*tching about 10% unemployment (down to 9.7% today) don't seem to get that the figure would have easily been double that if that had happened. Or perhaps they do know and they simply are willing to "cut off their nose to spite their face" for the sake of their ideology? Or more likely they know it was necessary, but now they just want to pretend like they are so against it for political purposes?

They complain that the stimulus package didn't result in a net increase in jobs. I suppose that's debatable. But clearly ... without question .... jobs have been saved. But they go around acting like that's a bad thing! It's a classic example of "talking out of both sides of your neck". You can't on the one hand b*tch about high unemployment and then turn around and b*tch about a program that saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs! If the people whose jobs were saved by the stimulus bill had been allowed to hit the unemployment lines .... that's even less tax revenues for the government, increased spending in unemployment benefits, and an even further decline in the economy ... which only leads to more of all of this. Another 1/3 of the stimulus was to help shore up the finances of state governments. Should the states had been allowed to go bankrupt? Should the states have been forced to undergo massive layoffs of teachers, police, and firefighters for the sake of conservative ideology? Sure it cost a sh*tload of money but again, what was the alternative? The private sector was in full retreat. Demand in the private sector was collapsing ... so the public sector had to step in to shore up demand otherwise the economy would have tanked even further.

When Obama took office the economy was shedding 750K jobs a month. That figure last month was 20K. The economy was shrinking at 6% per quarter when Obama took office. That figure last quarter was 6% in growth. A 12% swing in a positive direction. Unemployment just dropped from a high of 10.2% down to 9.7%. But you say that's not "making a case for the Obama Administration's economic policy". Given numbers like that, something tells me that nothing ever would for you.

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Feb 5, 2010, 02:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Precisely. When people have complete control, they can CONTROL. When they don't, they have to compromise with the other party and President in power. I'm comparing when the Republicans had complete control and when the Democrats had complete control.
Fine. You want to play that game? Cool. Look on the charts I posted. Since 1980 let's examine when a single party had "complete" control of the Congress and the White House.

1993 - 1994 103rd Congress

Democrats in power. 2 consecutive years of declines in the deficit.

2003 - 2006 103rd & 104th Congress

Republicans in power. 2 consecutive years of massive increases in the deficit, followed by 2 consecutive years of declines in the deficit.

So what's the tally?

Democrats: Net -2. (Even if we add 2009 which isn't on my deficit chart but had an increase that's still Net -1).

Republicans: Net 0.

Winner is ..... the Democrats. Using your own criteria.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
I wouldn't fault Obama for deficit spending - I think we've got challenges right now that need to worked on, much like Bush did.
Like I've said before ... there's hope for you yet.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
I just don't think tripling the deficit can be justified when the Republicans never engaged in that sort of thing as an excuse for spending.
And as always, you follow up with more foolishness. A tripling of the deficit is not necessarily the result of a tripling of spending. Didn't we already cover this?

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
The point is that despite all the challenges Bush had (Clinton had it pretty easy in comparison) and Obama has, we can chart how Congress has reacted and who has had control of Congress when it did so. When you do that, you can see that when the Democrats are in control, they pretty much don't seem to worry about deficits and spending. Not only that, but as the porkulus shows, they don't worry much about how it's spent either.
See above. I mean I know you want to tell yourself that. And you really want to believe it. But your theory is simply not supported by the facts. Now before you defined "complete control" as having the Congress and the White House. But let's see what it looks like if you are now trying to flip the script and only go by control of Congress (i.e. incomplete control)

1987 - 1994 100th - 103rd Congress

Democrats in power. 1 decline, followed by 2 flat, followed by 3 increases, followed by 2 declines. Net 0.

1995 - 2000 104th - 106th Congress

Republicans in power. 6 decreases. Net -6.

2003 - 2006 108th - 109th Congress

Republicans in power. 2 increases, followed by 2 decreases. Net 0.

2007 - 2008 110th - 111th Congress

Democrats in power. 1 decrease, followed by 1 increases. Net 0.

So what's the tally?

Democrats: Net 0.

Republicans: Net -6.

Winner is ..... the Republicans*.

* - of course, this was the result of the economic expansion during the 90s along with the PAY-GO rules that were in force during the Clinton Administration. The same ones the Republicans voted against re-establishing last week I might add.

At best this is an argument for divided government. A Democrat in the White House with Republican control of Congress has historically seen positive results in this department.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
You are right. I was mixing my terms up. I was wrong. But what that point in time seems to show is that Bush's tax policies seemed to work. If we are taking more money in, naturally we can afford to spend more.
Indeed you were. But another valid and more likely interpretation is that the generally deficit increasing policy of cutting taxes while increasing spending was canceled out by an economy that was "growing" due to the housing bubble ... and not undergoing real, solid growth as a result of the tax cuts.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Obama and the Democrats who have control of the pursestrings seek to do this not by cutting taxes, but by raising them and tripling the amount we deficit spend. Thank you for pointing out another really embarrassing difference between what happens when Democrats and Republicans have control.
It's amazing "up is down" and "down is up" to our good friends on the right when a Democrat is in the White House. The fact that a Democratic Congress and White House delivered a tax cut to 95% of working Americans always seems to escape you. But more importantly, you guys appear to be "mathematically challenged" when it comes to this "tripling the amount we deficit spend" claim. I already posted a chart on Federal Spending above. From FY 2000 to FY 2008 federal spending didn't even double ... let alone triple. But let's expand the chart and take it out and include the projections for the remainder of Obama's first term.



Again. Federal Spending was 1.8 trillion in FY 2000. But by FY 2006 it was 2.7 trillion. That's a 50% increase in 6 years ... under a Republican controlled Congress. The Democrats took over Congress in 2007. In FY 2009 Federal Spending was 3.1 trillion. That's a 15% increase in 3 years. Even if we project it out to the end of Obama's first term we see Federal Spending in 2012 at 3.2 trillion. That's still only a 18% increase over the course of 6 years.

So a Republican Congress increased federal spending by 50% over a 6 year time frame. The subsequent Democrat Congress has only increased it by 15% over that thus far ... and is currently only projected to increase it 18% by the end of Obama's first term. That's not a "tripling of deficit spending" any way you slice it. What it shows is that since 2000 the Republicans ... the so-called party of small government ... have increased Federal Spending at triple the amount of Democrats. But hey ... "up is down" and "down is up" for our good friends on the right.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
You don't normally win an argument based on quantity of your argument. The quality is still lacking.
Whatever dude. I'll let my arguments, and more importantly the numbers that back them up, stand on their own. The "judgement" of he who (still) doesn't comprehend the difference between "deficits" and "spending" notwithstanding.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 5, 2010 at 03:11 PM. )
     
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Feb 5, 2010, 03:31 PM
 


hey, looky there. relative to gdp, the republicans managed to keep spending at around 35%. the democrats are taking it up to almost 45%.



here is the federal deficit compared to gdp.



and the national debt compared to gdp.

noticing any patterns?
     
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Feb 5, 2010, 03:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by kido331 View Post
noticing any patterns?
Yeah. It's called the Great Recession which is what caused the decline in GDP. And the decline in tax revenues which lead to the sharp increase in the deficit. What it clearly does NOT show is the Democratic Congress going on a "shopping spree".

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Feb 10, 2010, 11:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
The Republicans aren't "awake at the wheel". They are simply trying to pretend that they don't have anything to do with the massive deficits we are now experiencing. They want to pretend that the deficits hitting the books in FY2009 aren't 90% the result of a budget put in place a month before Obama was elected, emergency TARP spending that hit the books before Obama took office, and tax revenues that fell off a cliff before Obama took office and continued during his first year in office. All of which they had their hands in. Deeply.
The minority of Republicans in Congress since 2006 haven't had their hands deeply in anything that the majority weren't more deeply involved in; Obama included. Obama signed the FY2009 budget remember? To try and distance the President from the policies he voted for is not being honest with yourself or this forum.

Again, the fact that the deficit increased during Obama's time in office is not the result of the policies he has pursued since his time in office. I really don't see what's so difficult to understand about this concept.
It's difficult to understand because it's factually incorrect. Do you know when Obama signed FY2009?

Even the stimulus bill ... a policy that you can put on him ... didn't "quadruple" the deficit. It didn't even "triple" the deficit. The primary reason the deficit has skyrocketed is because of the precipitous decline in tax revenues as a result of the Great Recession. Now surely you aren't blaming Obama for a recession that began before he even took office right?
If it is due to policies he supported as part of the majority in Congress, absolutely. It doesn't make sense that Obama would wash his hands of it and continue claiming he somehow "inherited" the state of the country. He didn't "inherit" the economy any more than he "inherited" the office he ran for.

Really? Which is why I find it puzzling that the Republicans opposed the stimulus package .... 1/3 of which were tax cuts to 95% of Americans. Then again, it's not really all that puzzling. The M.O. for the Republican Party is most obvious.
According to the CBO, you'll have to pull $100 billion from the 3rd slated for "tax cuts" as spending because credits were given to those who didn't pay in. There's an obvious M.O. alright and it's the type that must disregard reality. You've apparently made up your mind that it's the Republicans. I couldn't possibly disagree more.

This is what I don't get about our friends on the right. What we know for a fact is that in late 2008 the economy was on the brink of collapse. Economists of all stripes .... on the left, the right, and the middle ... were warning of a second Great Depression. So as distasteful as it was the Bush Administration pushed through TARP and the Obama Administration pushed through the Stimulus package. And our friends on the right have been b*tching about it ever since ... or at least since Obama got elected. But the million dollar question is this.

What would you have done as an alternative?
Do you really think there haven't been alternatives? Really? The only way to react to a market correction was to buy interests in all the failing entities with your tax dollars? It's like people can't see more than 6 months down the road for crying out loud. I wonder how many folks believe we're up, up, and away from the financial crisis.

Allow the financial system to collapse? Allow the domestic auto industry to collapse? The same ones on the right who are b*tching about 10% unemployment (down to 9.7% today) don't seem to get that the figure would have easily been double that if that had happened. Or perhaps they do know and they simply are willing to "cut off their nose to spite their face" for the sake of their ideology? Or more likely they know it was necessary, but now they just want to pretend like they are so against it for political purposes?
WIth all due respect, I'm no more interested in your ideas on employment numbers than I am this Administration's, which of course will always be remarkably similar. I'm just glad the stimulus worked to keep unemployment below 8%.

Anyway, it's apparent you would only see one set of possibilities. The short answer is "yes" to all the above. Let 'em fail. Yes. Absolutely.

They complain that the stimulus package didn't result in a net increase in jobs. I suppose that's debatable. But clearly ... without question .... jobs have been saved.
Really? How many jobs have been saved? Then tell me the last time this was used as a metric for labor health?

When Obama took office the economy was shedding 750K jobs a month. That figure last month was 20K. The economy was shrinking at 6% per quarter when Obama took office. That figure last quarter was 6% in growth. A 12% swing in a positive direction. Unemployment just dropped from a high of 10.2% down to 9.7%. But you say that's not "making a case for the Obama Administration's economic policy". Given numbers like that, something tells me that nothing ever would for you.
Unfortunately, the faux economy you're defending is not sustainable. If this Administration doesn't begin to drastically change their focus and temperament; throw some bones to small business (minus all the typical BS we've grown accustomed to from this Congress) yesterday, we're going to be looking at very bad times indeed.

I wonder how quick you'd have been to accept that 10.2% unemployment figure a couple weeks ago, but I can see where this would help make the alleged improvement "pop" a little more. Jobless claims rose to 480,000 the last week of January and represents the fourth rise in the prior 5 weeks. Your optimism is noted, but I'm not sure it's driven by reality.
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Feb 10, 2010, 11:33 PM
 
ebuddy, you continue to make arguments like that, but they don't work - namely that because Obama supported policy x as a Senator that he is responsible for the current mess.

I say, firstly, that the current mess are much larger than Obama or Bush. He is not solely responsible for them, there are many things that are responsible for them.

Secondly, what Obama did when he was not a leader of the Democratic party is a much different sort of thing than what he is doing now. As a Senator he was a small part of *shaping* legislation. Right now he is a part of *driving* legislation and actually help facilitate it by urging his party to do x or y. It's a little too early to start with the "grading" nonsense, a lot of presidents in the past have taken some time to hit their stride, many of them ended up to be good presidents. I'm not saying that Obama will be the next great president, I'm saying that it is too early to say, and any assessments that are made need to be put into the context of the massive set of problems he inherited (and when I say that I don't mean by Bush or by the Republicans, I mean "inherited" in a much larger way).
     
ebuddy
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Feb 11, 2010, 07:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
ebuddy, you continue to make arguments like that, but they don't work - namely that because Obama supported policy x as a Senator that he is responsible for the current mess.

I say, firstly, that the current mess are much larger than Obama or Bush. He is not solely responsible for them, there are many things that are responsible for them.
From reading OAW you'd have to conclude it was exclusively Bush and the republicans. It's interesting you're here addressing me again. You're saying my arguments don't work while they continue to reflect the prevailing sentiment of this country. Again, I find your focus interesting. How about citing the fact that the continued reference to the prior Administration is not working?

Secondly, what Obama did when he was not a leader of the Democratic party is a much different sort of thing than what he is doing now. As a Senator he was a small part of *shaping* legislation. Right now he is a part of *driving* legislation and actually help facilitate it by urging his party to do x or y. It's a little too early to start with the "grading" nonsense, a lot of presidents in the past have taken some time to hit their stride, many of them ended up to be good presidents. I'm not saying that Obama will be the next great president, I'm saying that it is too early to say, and any assessments that are made need to be put into the context of the massive set of problems he inherited (and when I say that I don't mean by Bush or by the Republicans, I mean "inherited" in a much larger way).
Right and it's this "driving of legislation" that points back to the same measures he supported while in Congress. It is dishonest for him and his ardent supporters to continue distancing Obama from policies he supported then and makes it appear nothing more than distraction from the incredibly unpopular measures he's "driving" now.

So, while we discuss the notion of Obama taking Republicans to school, the American people are taking Obama to school.
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Feb 11, 2010, 07:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
ebuddy, you continue to make arguments like that, but they don't work - namely that because Obama supported policy x as a Senator that he is responsible for the current mess.

I say, firstly, that the current mess are much larger than Obama or Bush. He is not solely responsible for them, there are many things that are responsible for them.
I agree.

The problem is that he's trying to say that the large problems were the fault of Bush, and wants it to appear that he's the only guy who has every had to inherit bad times and be responsible for turning them into good. When he's been given this responsibility, instead of acting prudently, he's used the situation for political gain and it's making things worse.

Secondly, what Obama did when he was not a leader of the Democratic party is a much different sort of thing than what he is doing now. As a Senator he was a small part of *shaping* legislation. Right now he is a part of *driving* legislation and actually help facilitate it by urging his party to do x or y.
Which makes the failure of the policies he's pushed for, and gotten, all his burden. We were told the stimulus package the Democrats crafted would keep unemployment down. It failed, as predicted, since it did little to target near term spending that would actually encourage job creation or spending for the private sector.

It's a little too early to start with the "grading" nonsense, a lot of presidents in the past have taken some time to hit their stride, many of them ended up to be good presidents. I'm not saying that Obama will be the next great president, I'm saying that it is too early to say, and any assessments that are made need to be put into the context of the massive set of problems he inherited (and when I say that I don't mean by Bush or by the Republicans, I mean "inherited" in a much larger way).
He asked for an outrageous amount of money to be spent. He said it needed to be spent, otherwise the economy would reach a certain bad point. The economy has reached that point and surpassed it already. I don't think it's too tough to determine if something passes or fails when you can judge it based on the goal that was used to sell it. Now they are talking about spending MORE money we don't have on a "jobs bill" that experts say won't create any new jobs and exploding the deficit which makes things worse. At what point does Obama acting irresponsible be Obama's fault?
     
ebuddy
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Feb 11, 2010, 08:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
At what point does Obama acting irresponsible be Obama's fault?
And here is the million dollar question. If our new President is proposing measures that outspend the prior administration's two terms in a quarter the amount of time, when are we allowed to express concerns?
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Feb 11, 2010, 05:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
From reading OAW you'd have to conclude it was exclusively Bush and the republicans. It's interesting you're here addressing me again. You're saying my arguments don't work while they continue to reflect the prevailing sentiment of this country. Again, I find your focus interesting. How about citing the fact that the continued reference to the prior Administration is not working?
Exclusively? No. Vast majority? Most definitely. The Republicans controlled Congress for 6 of the 8 years of the Bush Administration. Amazing how you only want to only focus on the composition of Congress since 2006 ... well after the deficit had already skyrocketed. Regardless, as I showed earlier the major drivers of the deficits that occurred during the Bush Administration were the results of policies he pursued that were passed by the Republican majority in Congress.

- The Bush Tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. Not paid for.
- The Afghanistan War begun in 2001. Not paid for.
- The Iraq War begun in 2003. Not paid for.
- Medicare Part D enacted in 2003. Not paid for.

So again ... look at the chart I posted earlier:



Everything that I just mentioned is summed up in the part of the chart that says ....

The economic growth under George W. Bush did not generate nearly enough tax revenue to pay for his agenda, which included tax cuts, the Iraq War, and Medicare prescription drug coverage.
The impact on the deficit? Well the estimated budgets for FY 2009 thru FY2012 were expected to average an 850 billion surplus when Clinton left office. Now they are estimated to be a 1.2 trillion deficit. That's a 2 trillion dollar swing in the wrong direction! These Bush Administration/Republican Congress policies contributed 673 billion to that swing.

Now you can't put any of this on Obama. He wasn't even elected to the Senate until Nov. 2004 .... so he wasn't around to vote for any of the things I listed above.

And notice how this is the largest bar on the graph ... by far? The amount that these policies are contributing to that swing are more than double the amount that the bailout (185 billion) and stimulus package (145 billion) .... both supported by Obama ... are contributing to the swing combined. The other Obama programs are only contributing 56 billion to that swing. And these numbers are even worse if you factor in the recessions that began during the Bush Administration. Those are adding another 770 billion to the swing which you can't put on Obama due to the decline in tax revenues.

So just do the math and breakdown this approximately 2 trillion dollar swing that turned a 850 billion surplus into a 1.2 trillion deficit:

A. Bush Administration / Republican Congress policies: 673 billion. 34%.
B. Bush Administration Recessions: 770 billion. 39%.
C. Continuing Programs from the Bush Administration: 232 billion. 12%.
D. Bailout / Stimulus Package: 330 billion. 17%.
E. Other Obama Programs: 56 billion. 3%

A & B you can't put on Obama at all. That's 73% of the swing right there. You can legitimately put D and E on Obama either as a Senator or as President. That's 20% of the swing. C is debatable since Obama couldn't logistically end the Iraq War immediately or rescind the Bush tax cuts in the middle of a recession. That's another 12% of the swing.

Furthermore, A & B contribute to long-term, structural deficits. Especially Medicare Part D which adds trillions over time. D ... the things which seems to have our good friends on the right all bent out of shape ... contribute to short-term deficits only. They simply are not ongoing expenses.

So go ahead and attempt to put Obama and the Bush Administration/Republican Congress on the same footing if you want to. Mathematically speaking it's pretty silly. But knock yourself out.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
Anyway, it's apparent you would only see one set of possibilities. The short answer is "yes" to all the above. Let 'em fail. Yes. Absolutely.
Well at least you admit it. Like I said before, there are some whose ideology will lead them to "cut off their nose to spite their face". And that's fine. It's your nose. But from an economic standpoint I think we could (or perhaps I should say "should") at least agree that the economy would be in much worse shape had this happened. It's not a big stretch to conclude that job losses would have been much higher had this happened. Directly for the firms you say should have been allowed to fail. Indirectly for all the other businesses (large and small) which depended upon them for financing (in the case of the banks) or supplier/customer relationships (in the case of the auto companies). Dramatically increased unemployment leads to dramatically decreased tax revenues and dramatically increased social safety net spending (i.e. unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.). Increased unemployment leads to decreased demand for goods and services ... further contributing to the downturn in the economy. Which undoubtedly would have lead to higher deficits for the federal government. So then the question becomes ....

Would the deficit have been higher or lower if the bailouts had not been done? In the short-term and the long-term?

Economists of all political persuasions were pretty united in the view ... from an economic standpoint ... that the bailouts (and the stimulus package) prevented the Great Recession from becoming another Great Depression. Doing nothing was tried in 1929 with disastrous results. Something tells me that if this had happened the deficits would be even worse ... especially in the long-term. And our good friends on the right would be pointing the finger at President Obama for that too. The bottom line is that President Obama was going to be criticized by the right no matter what he did.

And here is the million dollar question. If our new President is proposing measures that outspend the prior administration's two terms in a quarter the amount of time, when are we allowed to express concerns?
See the graph I posted above on spending. In no way, shape, form, or fashion is Obama "outspending" the Bush Administration in a quarter of the time. You guys really need to cut it out with the Republican talking points and actually learn how to read the freaking deficit and spending graphs. More importantly, try to actually comprehend the difference between the two. Simply repeating a BS assertion over and over again does not make it true. The Fox News crowd might believe it ... and I suppose there is a certain amount of political gain to be had because of that. But the facts show that this statement is demonstrably false.

It bears repeating ...

Originally Posted by OAW
Again. Federal Spending was 1.8 trillion in FY 2000. But by FY 2006 it was 2.7 trillion. That's a 50% increase in 6 years ... under a Republican controlled Congress. The Democrats took over Congress in 2007. In FY 2009 Federal Spending was 3.1 trillion. That's a 15% increase in 3 years. Even if we project it out to the end of Obama's first term we see Federal Spending in 2012 at 3.2 trillion. That's still only a 18% increase over the course of 6 years.
Now when you can demonstrate ... mathematically ... how an 18% increase in spending equates to "outspending the prior administration's two terms in a quarter of the time" then this claim might have some semblance of credibility. Even if you look at the absolute amounts of spending .... 3.2 trillion each for FY 2009 and FY 2010 .... a quarter of the time of the 8 year Bush Administration .... is only 6.4 trillion. The 8 years of the Bush Administration saw approximately 19.3 trillion in spending. Anyway you slice the numbers the facts simply don't support this claim. So until you can produce some figures to the contrary ....

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 11, 2010 at 06:17 PM. )
     
besson3c
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Feb 11, 2010, 06:27 PM
 
It has been clear to me for a while that the Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal responsibility, and therefore they have no place on the high ground in preaching about deficit reduction and such.

Actual conservatives, sure, but Republican politicians? Harder pill to swallow...
     
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Feb 11, 2010, 07:09 PM
 
Indeed. And just to reiterate the point ...

Matt Yglesias does good service by reminding us of the 2003 Senate vote on Medicare Part D, the budget-busting prescription drugs for seniors bill that passed the Senate 54-44, even though it wasn't paid for (it adds trillions to the deficit over time). Here's the vote: it is interesting to note that the two Gang of Six members who are the most prominent naysayers and budget hawks on the Senate Finance Committee now, Chuck Grassley and Mike Enzi, voted for the bill. As did assorted other noisy conservatives like Sam Brownback, John Cornyn and John Kyl. What irresponsible spendthrifts!

Republicans who actually are deficit hawks--John McCain (usually) and Lindsey Graham, for example--voted against it. Many Democrats--Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton--also voted against it, mostly because they didn't think it provided sufficient coverage (and let the drug companies off the hook).

But the headline remain grousers like Grassley, who oppose the alleged expense of the Obama plan now (even though the President has vowed not to sign a bill that isn't, more or less, paid for). It should be noted that Max Baucus--who has also made non-stop noises about fiscal responsibility--voted for it, too.
Back to Health Care - Swampland - TIME.com

The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress pushed through this program because they thought it would benefit them politically and solidify a Republican majority for generations. But somehow our good friends on the right didn't view this as "pandering" to the senior vote. Only Democrats do things like that. Somehow they didn't see this as an enormous expansion in the size of government. But the health insurance reform package Obama is advocating is a "government takeover of healthcare". When they wrote the legislation in a way that said the federal government could not, by law, use the size of the Medicare pool to negotiate a volume discount for prescription drugs ... somehow they didn't see that as protecting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the US taxpayer. They then go on to defeat Democratic amendments to allow this AND voted unanimously against re-establishing the PAY-GO rules that led to the surplus during the Clinton Administration. Yet somehow they look in the mirror and believe their own BS about being the "party of fiscal responsibility".

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Feb 12, 2010, 07:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Exclusively? No. Vast majority? Most definitely. The Republicans controlled Congress for 6 of the 8 years of the Bush Administration. Amazing how you only want to only focus on the composition of Congress since 2006 ... well after the deficit had already skyrocketed. Regardless, as I showed earlier the major drivers of the deficits that occurred during the Bush Administration were the results of policies he pursued that were passed by the Republican majority in Congress.
- The Bush Tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. Not paid for.
Allowed to remain by current President due to economic need in spite of calls from his base to eliminate them. This was enacted as stimulus, remained on as a continued measure of stimulus by the current President offering the same reasons for them, and they worked.

- The Afghanistan War begun in 2001. Not paid for.
Supported by Obama, the majority of the country, and the majority of Dems.

- The Iraq War begun in 2003. Not paid for.
Regime change doctrine from Clinton Administration, supported by the majority of the country, and supported by a majority of Dems in 2003.

- Medicare Part D enacted in 2003. Not paid for.
Supported by Obama and the majority of Dems.

Broken record... rinse-repeat... The absolutely only reason for the limited amount of spending you cite in your lengthy post above is the fact that Obama cannot work with others and the majority of the country has indicated that they will entirely abandon ship on him and his party if he does what he wants.

Amazing that the President most noted for his divisive nature and stubbornness was able to reach across the aisle much more effectively than the current President.
( Last edited by ebuddy; Feb 12, 2010 at 08:03 AM. )
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Feb 12, 2010, 07:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
It has been clear to me for a while that the Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal responsibility, and therefore they have no place on the high ground in preaching about deficit reduction and such.

Actual conservatives, sure, but Republican politicians? Harder pill to swallow...
You're right besson and of course the only thing to do in light of this is to allow any fiscally irresponsible measure passage in the interest of being consistent so as not to offend Democratic sensitivities.
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Feb 12, 2010, 02:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Allowed to remain by current President due to economic need in spite of calls from his base to eliminate them. This was enacted as stimulus, remained on as a continued measure of stimulus by the current President offering the same reasons for them, and they worked.
Really? I suppose "technically" you have a point. But it's interesting that you choose to completely overlook the fact that President Obama campaigned for nearly two years on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on those making more than 250K per year.

House Democrats say leadership has their work cut out in convincing the public to support a tax increase on those making more than $250,000.

Centrists and liberal Democrats told The Hill they support allowing President Bush’s tax cuts on those making more than $250,000 to expire, but said leaders must win public support by portraying the tax increase as reducing the nation’s record budget deficit.
House Dems want Bush tax cuts to expire, but say it's tough sell - TheHill.com

Originally Posted by ebuddy
Supported by Obama, the majority of the country, and the majority of Dems.
Regarding the Afghanistan War .... of course the public supported it. After the 9/11 attacks the mood in the country was retaliation. We invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban was harboring Al-Qaeda and they refused to give them up. Actually they did offer to give up Bin Laden but only in a third country. The honor code of their culture prohibited them from doing it directly. Regardless, President Bush wasn't trying to hear all that and invaded. Ok fine. The mission was to remove the Taliban from power and go after Al-Qaeda. Mission accomplished. I don't imagine the American public thought we'd still be involved in a full-scale military fight 8 years later seeing as how the main goals were accomplished in a matter of months. Of course, the Bush Administration dropped the ball on this one because of their obsession with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
Regime change doctrine from Clinton Administration, supported by the majority of the country, and supported by a majority of Dems in 2003.
Regime change doctrine from Clinton Administration? Uh huh. Ok. A source might be helpful on that one. But yes ... it was supported by a majority of the Dems. And the country. After the steady beating of the war drums by the Bush Administration filled with manipulated intelligence and downright lies. Months upon months of fear-mongering ... including telling a closed session of the Senate that Iraq had the capability of attacking the Eastern US seaboard with chemical and biological weapons delivered by unmanned aerial vehicles. Colin Powell's infamous WMD speech at the U.N. Only to find out that Iraq had no WMD ... and more importantly, that the Bush Administration had decided to go to war in Iraq regardless as soon as it came into power.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
Supported by Obama and the majority of Dems.
Ok now I have to call you out here regarding Medicare Part D. Normally you manage to present a decent challenge when it comes to political debate ... and on occasion you've even managed to get me to agree with you or concede a point. But there's no good way to say this other than to say that you are utterly, abjectly, and completely full of .. uh ... just wrong about this!

Supported by Obama? Didn't you just see where I pointed out that this legislation was passed in 2003 and Obama wasn't even elected to the Senate until a year later? Now I know I just said that! You see this is a prime example of what I mean when I say that our good friends on the right have this tendency to just say any old thing over and over again ... with no backup ... no proof ... sometimes even devoid of simple common sense ... and end up believing their own BS!

Furthermore, on what basis do you claim that this legislation was supported by the majority of Dems? Certainly not based upon their votes in the House and Senate!

In the House, Medicare Part D was passed by a vote of 220-215. What was the breakdown by party?

House Democrats: 16 Yea, 118 Nay
House Republicans: 204 Yea, 25 Nay
House Independents: 0 Yea, 1 Nay

GovTrack: House Vote on Conference Report: H.R. 1 [108th]: Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and...

In the Senate, Medicare Part D was passed by a vote of 54-44 with 2 not voting. What was the breakdown by party?

Senate Democrats: 11 Yea, 35 Nay, 2 Not Voting
Senate Republicans: 42 Yea, 9 Nay
Senate Independents: 1 Yea, 0 Nay

GovTrack: Senate Vote on Conference Report: H.R. 1 [108th]: Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and...

So please provide some semblance of an explanation for how a vote count like this translates into "supported by the majority of the Dems" on the planet you live on!

Oh and did I mention that this legislation will cost half a trillion over 10 years because it was not accompanied by any new taxes or spending cuts? Did I mention that this legislation was called a 9.4 trillion dollar unfunded liability over the next 75 years by the Medicare Trustees? I mean jeez ... there are even some conservatives who can see the blatant hypocrisy of the Republicans when it comes to the deficit:

"As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt," said Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He made his comments in a Forbes article titled "Republican Deficit Hypocrisy."

Bartlett said the 2003 Medicare expansion was "a pure giveaway" that cost more than this year's Senate or House health bills will cost. More important, he said, "the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers. One hundred percent of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit."

The pending health care bills in Congress, he noted, are projected to add nothing to the deficit over 10 years.
That, my friend, is what we call CHECKMATE!

"Good form" would be to simply move on. "Better from" would be to concede the point. "Bad form" would be to continue to embarrass yourself with more "supported by Obama and the majority of the Dems" comments.

It's up to you .....

Originally Posted by ebuddy
Broken record... rinse-repeat... The absolutely only reason for the limited amount of spending you cite in your lengthy post above is the fact that Obama cannot work with others and the majority of the country has indicated that they will entirely abandon ship on him and his party if he does what he wants.
Oh so you now acknowledge that your comments regarding Obama's spending were factually incorrect? The rest of this statement is rife with unsupported premises but I won't even go there. I'll just leave it at that. We'll see how long it takes you to repeat that BS claim in another thread though.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 12, 2010 at 02:40 PM. )
     
besson3c
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Feb 12, 2010, 04:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
You're right besson and of course the only thing to do in light of this is to allow any fiscally irresponsible measure passage in the interest of being consistent so as not to offend Democratic sensitivities.
ebuddy, you have really fallen off of your high pedestal I had put you on in my head as being one of the more civil, thoughtful, and reasonable posters here. Now, it seems like you can't resist some sort of temptation to pick fights and come out swinging with every one of your posts/rants/sermons, not to mention over stuff that you could clearly see is factually incorrect.

This was unnecessary.
     
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Feb 12, 2010, 04:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
You're right besson and of course the only thing to do in light of this is to allow any fiscally irresponsible measure passage in the interest of being consistent so as not to offend Democratic sensitivities.
You continue to suggest that the Republicans would improve things when it's being demonstrated left and right that they're almost if not just as bad. That's the hypocrisy. Both parties are bad. They all need to be swept out. But instead you're just blindly opposing one party and supporting the other. That's the problem. With that kind of attitude, we'll just swing between two brands of jarred excrement forever.
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Feb 12, 2010, 04:24 PM
 
How are they all going to be swept out, Chuckit? You said I was in fantasy land for expressing my desire to see government cut down to size. Throwing out both major parties is a bigger fantasy than slashing the size and cost of government, IMO.

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Feb 12, 2010, 06:14 PM
 
No, it's a prerequisite to slashing the size and cost of government. Right now we have a whole crop of leaders who are strongly in favor of a big, expensive government, even if they pretend not to be when the "other side" is the one doing it. If you're not in favor of that, you shouldn't be supporting them.

Once we get rid of them, making sure their replacements are better men is also hard, though, so actually fixing the government is the bigger fantasy.
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Feb 12, 2010, 06:31 PM
 
I don't understand the logic of "the government is corrupt, let's cut them down in size so that they will do less damage". This implies a foregone conclusion that there is no other solution, and maybe that's the case, but wouldn't it be better to say "the government is corrupt, let's replace members with members that aren't, or at least reduce the population of corrupt members by making it clear that this will not be tolerated?"

Government *still* as a job to do, whether it can be done with fewer people seems like a totally separate question to me, but reducing them in size because of their performance is sort of like defunding schools because of their performance. You either fix the problem or pull the plug entirely, but you don't cripple them as a form of punishment. What good does this do other than damage control? Are Republicans really this anti-government?

Since pulling the plug is not an option with government, why don't we focus our efforts on ways to actually *fix* things rather than just find creative ways to punish them by crippling them?
     
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Feb 12, 2010, 07:24 PM
 
I've always wondered how "the government is too big" crowd actually measures the size of government? Is it the number of people that work for the federal government? The number of laws passed? The amount of federal spending in absolute terms or as a percentage of GDP? The amount of tax revenues in absolute terms or as a percentage of GDP? The amount spent on social programs in absolute terms or as a percentage of GDP? Just wondering ....

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Feb 12, 2010, 11:35 PM
 
Maybe the number of pages of bills that are passed? How the length of bills became a metric for the merits of the legislation I'll never understand....
     
ebuddy
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Feb 13, 2010, 12:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Really? I suppose "technically" you have a point. But it's interesting that you choose to completely overlook the fact that President Obama campaigned for nearly two years on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on those making more than 250K per year.
Every bracket received a break from Bush's tax cuts, the $250k figure is the one Obama intends to break. (if you count certain "sin taxes", he's already broken it) BTW, the Bush tax cuts are generally accepted as having worked. Obama indeed vowed to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, but not without replacing them with similar tax cuts of his own and bucked his base in the meantime. So... a Bush tax cut for the majority of the country through all income brackets is reprehensible, but a similar Obama tax cut is not?

Regime change doctrine from Clinton Administration? Uh huh. Ok. A source might be helpful on that one. But yes ... it was supported by a majority of the Dems. And the country. After the steady beating of the war drums by the Bush Administration filled with manipulated intelligence and downright lies. Months upon months of fear-mongering ... including telling a closed session of the Senate that Iraq had the capability of attacking the Eastern US seaboard with chemical and biological weapons delivered by unmanned aerial vehicles. Colin Powell's infamous WMD speech at the U.N. Only to find out that Iraq had no WMD ... and more importantly, that the Bush Administration had decided to go to war in Iraq regardless as soon as it came into power.
Yup... Iraq had no WMDs and Afghanistan has no OBL. Fear mongering? Obama makes Bush's fear mongering look like cup runneth over optimism IMO. Global warming crisis, economic crisis, education crisis, housing crisis, terrorism, healthcare crisis... and that was in the first 4 or 5 months. What's the mantra of this Administration again, never waste a good crisis?

Video of Clinton with speeches on regime change in Iraq.

While we're at it, I'm actually aligned with Obama so far in his handling of Iraq and Afghanistan and believe this is his largest demonstration of growth. Last April for example, he requested an additional $83.4 billion dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan. The request funds an average force level of 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and an increase in contracting. It financed Obama's surge in Afghanistan troop levels to more than 60,000 from the current 39,000, and even throws in $2.2 billion for an overall increase in the size of the military.
Obama War Funding

Some of the not-so-proud moments of course include the $3.6 trillion dollar budget blueprint he delivered to Congress last year. A plan that projected a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion for 2009, or 12.3% of GDP, a level not seen since 1942 when we entered World War II. It passed. Let me give you some perspective here; the debt held by the public grew from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion under Bush. Obama's budget? Another $3.3 trillion. In 20 months, Obama has committed as much debt as Bush in 8 years per the Office of Management and Budget. If we're going to play these strict partisan rules, they should at least roll both ways. The facts would show they most certainly do.

Ok now I have to call you out here regarding Medicare Part D. Normally you manage to present a decent challenge when it comes to political debate ... and on occasion you've even managed to get me to agree with you or concede a point. But there's no good way to say this other than to say that you are utterly, abjectly, and completely full of .. uh ... just wrong about this!
I stand corrected on this count sir. Medicare Part D was implemented in 2006 and I can't find anything from Obama at that time. It was signed into law in 2003 as you said. Obama's reference to Medicare Part D is regarding the "doughnut hole" provision he negotiated with PhRMA. I will say there are some uncanny similarities between the tactics of Sr. Republicans at the time of MMA and the Sr. Democrats today. For one, upon reading about the process of passing MMA and in witnessing the current attempt at healthcare reform, you see; cutting deals with PhRMA for your own prescription drug entitlement, closed doors on most other than party faithfuls and lobbyists, strong-arming and/or making freakish deals with senators, attempts to hasten the process... In fact, it was interesting to find out that had they not timed their "closure" of the vote just-so on MMA, it would've failed. Interesting to note that even something as reprehensible as Medicare Part D enjoyed more bipartisan support than what this Administration is able to muster on their ideals.

I guess the good news depending on how you look at it are the differences such as one major Medicare reform Act and increase in entitlements to the tune of $1.2 trillion dollars under Bush and the other a proposed major healthcare reform at over $1 trillion dollars with increasing entitlements under Obama. Come to think of it, that's not such a difference between Bush and Obama after all. I guess that's why Obama once again doubled-down on Bush's folly of Medicare Part D by offering an expensive option of his own for prescription drug coverage within it.

That, my friend, is what we call CHECKMATE!
Not so much IMO.

"Good form" would be to simply move on. "Better from" would be to concede the point. "Bad form" would be to continue to embarrass yourself with more "supported by Obama and the majority of the Dems" comments.

It's up to you .....
I appreciate that and you know, I've come to the conclusion that your posts are little more than a stress reaction to the fact that this President has let you down a great deal. I realize it's uncomfortable trying to defend a man who has conducted himself more like W than the man you voted into office. It's no wonder you consider discussions like this a form of "combat". This mindset might serve you more effectively as the resident, hawkish liberal in another thread.

I'm not embarrassed and have no reason to be, but then I might be less unsure about the strength of my arguments than you.

Oh so you now acknowledge that your comments regarding Obama's spending were factually incorrect? The rest of this statement is rife with unsupported premises but I won't even go there. I'll just leave it at that. We'll see how long it takes you to repeat that BS claim in another thread though.
OAW
I maintain a doubling-down on Bush's folly. If you're not pleased enough with the incredible spending of this Administration OAW, give it more time.
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Feb 13, 2010, 12:37 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
You continue to suggest that the Republicans would improve things when it's being demonstrated left and right that they're almost if not just as bad. That's the hypocrisy. Both parties are bad. They all need to be swept out. But instead you're just blindly opposing one party and supporting the other. That's the problem. With that kind of attitude, we'll just swing between two brands of jarred excrement forever.
How does the post of mine you copy-pasted demonstrate partisan blindness? I'm often fascinated by the accusatory responses I get from the fact that I dared to respond to others' blind partisanship.
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Feb 13, 2010, 12:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
ebuddy, you have really fallen off of your high pedestal I had put you on in my head as being one of the more civil, thoughtful, and reasonable posters here. Now, it seems like you can't resist some sort of temptation to pick fights and come out swinging with every one of your posts/rants/sermons, not to mention over stuff that you could clearly see is factually incorrect.

This was unnecessary.
You place me on a pedestal when I'm either in partial or complete agreement with you. Otherwise, you're expressing some profound disappointment in me or posting little hit and runs under the guise of satire. It's not like I've ever gotten a decent breakfast out of you anyway.

When I'm factually incorrect, I have no problem admitting it. I don't think you could claim that I've substituted facts with zealotry any more than the posts I'm responding to. The fact that you take issue with my responses is not surprising. So I happen to have stronger feelings about the current direction of the country...

Maybe the problem here is that you're not nearly as critical or suspicious of the current Administration as you were the last and you've lost your passion. Should you care this much what I think of your allegiances?
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Feb 15, 2010, 02:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Some of the not-so-proud moments of course include the $3.6 trillion dollar budget blueprint he delivered to Congress last year. A plan that projected a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion for 2009, or 12.3% of GDP, a level not seen since 1942 when we entered World War II. It passed. Let me give you some perspective here; the debt held by the public grew from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion under Bush. Obama's budget? Another $3.3 trillion. In 20 months, Obama has committed as much debt as Bush in 8 years per the Office of Management and Budget. If we're going to play these strict partisan rules, they should at least roll both ways. The facts would show they most certainly do.
I see we didn't have to wait for you to repeat this BS, albeit slightly modified, claim in another thread. You just went ahead and did it in this thread.

So I see you are going down your "President Obama is proposing measures that X the prior administration's two terms in a quarter the amount of time" road again. Now the first time X = "outspend". But I thoroughly debunked that claim. Now you are simply recasting the same claim ... with this time X = "add to the public debt". Ok. Let's see if that claim has any more basis in fact than the last one.

First of all, where on earth do you get these figures? The public debt "grew from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion under Bush" you claim. Obama has committed $3.3 trillion in 20 months you claim. So the increase under Obama in 20 months exceeds that which took Bush 8 years to do. Well that would be true if your claims about Bush were accurate! The only problem is ... they simply are not!



Now per this graph the public debt was approximately 7 trillion at the beginning of the Bush Administration, and it was approximately 13 trillion at the end. Now that's a 6 trillion dollar increase. Now the Obama Administration is projected to increase that from 13 to 17 trillion during his first 24 months in office. That's a 4 trillion dollar increase. Now the last time I checked 4 trillion doesn't exceed 6 trillion. And that's with 4 extra months on the Obama side of the equation. And the 6 trillion on the Bush side is even worse when you consider that the public debt actually decreased by over 300 billion during his first two years in office because of the annual surpluses that were in place from the Clinton Administration. As well as the fact that 1.2 trillion of the increase during the beginning of FY 2009 was incurred by the time Obama was inaugurated.

You guys really need to just let this one go.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
I stand corrected on this (Medicare Part D) count sir.
QFT.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
I guess the good news depending on how you look at it are the differences such as one major Medicare reform Act and increase in entitlements to the tune of $1.2 trillion dollars under Bush and the other a proposed major healthcare reform at over $1 trillion dollars with increasing entitlements under Obama. Come to think of it, that's not such a difference between Bush and Obama after all. I guess that's why Obama once again doubled-down on Bush's folly of Medicare Part D by offering an expensive option of his own for prescription drug coverage within it.
And then, of course, you go and follow up with more foolishness. Not much difference? Well if you don't see the difference between a trillion dollar program that is NOT paid for ... vs a trillion dollar program that IS paid for then I suppose there's little hope for you. Medicare Part D under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress increases the deficit by the full amount. The Healthcare reform legislation proposed by Obama was projected to reduce the deficit by 132 billion over the next 10 years by the CBO. You can't simplistically compare the cost of a program and say there is not much difference because 1 trillion is "similar" to 1.2 trillion .... without factoring in if, when, and how that cost will be paid for.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
I appreciate that and you know, I've come to the conclusion that your posts are little more than a stress reaction to the fact that this President has let you down a great deal. I realize it's uncomfortable trying to defend a man who has conducted himself more like W than the man you voted into office. It's no wonder you consider discussions like this a form of "combat". This mindset might serve you more effectively as the resident, hawkish liberal in another thread.

....

I'm not embarrassed and have no reason to be, but then I might be less unsure about the strength of my arguments than you.

....

I maintain a doubling-down on Bush's folly. If you're not pleased enough with the incredible spending of this Administration OAW, give it more time.
Well I suppose since you have spectacularly failed to rebut any of my arguments ... let alone present any facts to the contrary .... you must now resort to psycho-babble "assessments" of my posts. Ok fine. Whatever. Tell yourself whatever you gotta to tell yourself dude.

OAW
     
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Feb 16, 2010, 09:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
First of all, where on earth do you get these figures?
The CBO and the Office of Management and Budget. Where are you getting yours, anythingforObama.com?

Here's the Debt held by the public to the penny;
- 1/20/09 when Obama took office = $6,307,310,739,681.66. WOW, how can this be? It's less than the figure you cited for Bush's FIRST DAY IN OFFICE. Zoinks man all you have to do is inaugurate Obama and the public debt drops by hundreds of billions of dollars!!!
- From first available data during W's term on 9/28/01 = $3,339,310,176,094.74
U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt

I see you've opted for an opportunity to build your own little graphs using the kind developer's handiwork at "governmentspending.com" who claim their official use of "government figures". I don't know what numbers you're using, but they certainly can't be reconciled by any official data. Unlike you, I've provided a link to the actual data. You seem to have trouble differentiating between gross national debt and debt held by the public. You wanna try again?

While this chart is not near granular enough in its scale, this gives you an idea of your confusion. Data from the
Office of Management and Budget- Historical Tables pdf.



Now per this graph the...
Yeah... no thanks. Your shamelessness in defending this Administration and in spinning and contriving whatever data you deem fit to do so is not going to pass muster my friend, but it is noteworthy. In your words;

You really need to just let this one go.
And then, of course, you go and follow up with more foolishness. Not much difference? Well if you don't see the difference between a trillion dollar program that is NOT paid for ... vs a trillion dollar program that IS paid for then I suppose there's little hope for you. Medicare Part D under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress increases the deficit by the full amount. The Healthcare reform legislation proposed by Obama was projected to reduce the deficit by 132 billion over the next 10 years by the CBO. You can't simplistically compare the cost of a program and say there is not much difference because 1 trillion is "similar" to 1.2 trillion .... without factoring in if, when, and how that cost will be paid for.
No, you're right OAW, you can't simplistically state anything. In fact, a concern for details would expose the fact that while you claim ObamaCare will reduce the deficit by $132 billion through the first 10 years, you've got the country paying for it the first 3 years out of the gate without it even being available. Brilliant!!! Let's see here, this includes a "Doc Fix" that never happened and Medicare funding fuzziness. (more on that in a minute)
Here's what the CBO had to say in their December 19th letter regarding the Senate bill you're touting;
Originally Posted by CBO
These longer-term calculations assume that the provisions are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades. However, the legislation would maintain and put into effect a number of procedures that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. Under current law and under the proposal, payment rates for physicians' services in Medicare would be reduced by about 21 percent in 2010 and then decline further in subsequent years. At the same time, the legislation includes a number of provisions that would constrain payment rates for other providers of Medicare services. In particular, increases in payment rates for many providers would be held below the rate of inflation. The projected longer-term savings for the legislation also assume that the Independent Payment Advisory Board is fairly effective in reducing costs beyond the reductions that would be achieved by other aspects of the legislation.

As if this doesn't already highlight the incredible stretch in logic by assuming static costs to inflation, the optimism required in the last statement is beyond laughable; The projected longer-term savings for the legislation also assume that the Independent Payment Advisory Board is fairly effective in reducing costs beyond the reductions that would be achieved by other aspects of the legislation.

You see OAW, The CBO runs factors provided it by those requesting the report. Regardless of the fact that I already corrected you on this point back on January 8th and never did hear back from you, you're just going to pop up somewhere else to make the same bogus claim? The CBO has admitted that they've essentially double-counted savings in the Senate proposal.. Medicare is funded from a separate trust fund and the savings from this fund do not go into the general budget that will fund ObamaCare. This means that instead of a $130 million surplus, we're really looking at a $170 million hole. The large print giveth, the small print taketh away. If you think ObamaCare is paid for, I've got a bridge to sell you, preferably one of the finer ones in Minnesota.
CBO- Trust Fund Accounting for PPACA

Well I suppose since you have spectacularly failed to rebut any of my arguments
You have no arguments and what you do present is crayon-drawing laughable. Keep it up though OAW. I look forward to hearing from you and your "charts" again.
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Feb 16, 2010, 07:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
The CBO and the Office of Management and Budget. Where are you getting yours, anythingforObama.com?

Here's the Debt held by the public to the penny;
- 1/20/09 when Obama took office = $6,307,310,739,681.66. WOW, how can this be? It's less than the figure you cited for Bush's FIRST DAY IN OFFICE. Zoinks man all you have to do is inaugurate Obama and the public debt drops by hundreds of billions of dollars!!!
- From first available data during W's term on 9/28/01 = $3,339,310,176,094.74
U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt
Ok. Now I get it. You want to play semantic games. Alright I'll bite. Let's review your claim:

Originally Posted by ebuddy
"the debt held by the public grew from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion under Bush. Obama's budget? Another $3.3 trillion. In 20 months, Obama has committed as much debt as Bush in 8 years per the Office of Management and Budget. "
So on the one hand you "qualify" and say "debt held by the public" and then in the next sentence you just simply say "debt". Now clearly even Stevie Wonder can see that I was talking about the overall public debt. Any particular reason why you are trying to hang your hat on just a particular portion of the overall public debt?

Originally Posted by ebuddy
I see you've opted for an opportunity to build your own little graphs using the kind developer's handiwork at "governmentspending.com" who claim their official use of "government figures". I don't know what numbers you're using, but they certainly can't be reconciled by any official data. Unlike you, I've provided a link to the actual data. You seem to have trouble differentiating between gross national debt and debt held by the public. You wanna try again?
No I don't have trouble differentiating. You just weren't clear on which figure you were referring to as I indicated above. But hey ... why not? Let's use your figures and see if your contention holds water.

Beginning of Bush Administration 1/20/2001.

Debt Held by the Public: N/A
Intragovernmental Holdings: N/A
Total Public Debt Outstanding: 5.7 trillion

8 months later 9/28/2001.

Debt Held by the Public: 3.3 trillion
Intragovernmental Holdings: 2.4 trillion
Total Public Debt Outstanding: 5.8 trillion

Beginning of Obama Administration 1/20/2009.

Debt Held by the Public: 6.3 trillion
Intragovernmental Holdings: 4.3 trillion
Total Public Debt Outstanding: 10.6 trillion

Latest Available Figures 2/12/2010

Debt Held by the Public: 7.8 trillion
Intragovernmental Holdings: 4.5 trillion
Total Public Debt Outstanding: 12.3 trillion

Interesting how your "official figures" don't even have "debt held by the public" figures available for the very beginning of the Bush Administration ... yet you go and make claims about it anyway. So let's talk about what we can do the math on based upon your figures. The Total Public Debt Outstanding grew from 5.7 trillion to 10.6 trillion during the Bush Administration. An increase of 4.9 trillion. So far under approximately 13 months of the Obama Administration this figure has grown from 10.6 trillion to 12.3 trillion. An increase of 1.7 trillion.

The Debt Held by the Public grew from 3.3 trillion to 6.3 trillion during the Bush Administration using the available figures which don't even count the first 8 months. An increase of 3 trillion. That same figure under the approximately 13 months of the Obama Administration has grown from 6.3 trillion to 7.8 trillion. An increase of 1.5 trillion. So you go and make claims about the "first 20 months" of the Obama Administration that your "to the penny" figures can't even support because they aren't even available. Then you certainly don't factor in the fact that the FY 2009 runs from Oct. 2008 - Sept. 2009. So the first 9 of the available 13 months of the Obama Administration were using a Bush Administration budget. Oh yeah. The same Office of Management & Budget (OMB) link you referenced that you erroneously claimed was "Obama's budget".

The United States federal budget for fiscal year 2009 was a spending request by President George W. Bush to fund government operations for October 2008-September 2009.
2009 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But hey ... let's keep it moving. Let's see if your own source supports your original claim.

End of FY 2001 - Debt Held by the Public: 3.3 trillion

End of FY 2008 - Debt Held by the Public: 5.4 trillion (estimated)

End of FY 2012 -Debt Held by the Public: 6.1 trillion (estimated)

These figures show that the Debt Held by the Public during the four fiscal years (not just 20 months) following the Bush Administration increases by 700 billion. How is this more than the 3 trillion dollar increase during the entire Bush Administration ... per your own figures? Let's not even get into how the OMB figures for the end of Obama's term are using estimated values that are even less than the actual Treasury Department figures you cited earlier for the beginning of Obama's term. That's mixing apples and oranges in and of itself.

And since you are all about using the "official figures", let's see what these numbers look like using the FY 2010 budget ... the first one actually submitted by the Obama Administration.

FY 2008 - Debt Held by the Public: 5.8 trillion

FY 2009 - Debt Held by the Public: 8.3 trillion

FY 2010 - Debt Held by the Public: 9.5 trillion

FY 2011 - Debt Held by the Public: 10.4 trillion

FY 2012 - Debt Held by the Public: 10.9 trillion

So let's look at your claim again ....

Originally Posted by ebuddy
"the debt held by the public grew from $3.3 trillion to $6.3 trillion under Bush. Obama's budget? Another $3.3 trillion. In 20 months, Obama has committed as much debt as Bush in 8 years per the Office of Management and Budget. "
Even if we count all four years between FY 2009 and FY 2012 that's only a 2.6 trillion dollar increase ... which, the last time I checked doesn't exceed 3 trillion and damned sure isn't 3.3 trillion. So your contention is even more ridiculous given your "20 month" timeframe! And it bears repeating .... FY 2009 is a Bush Administration budget on top of that!!

Dude. I'll say it again. You really need to give it up. Even using your own "official figures" your claim is utter and complete BS. How many times do I have to drive this point home to you?

Originally Posted by ebuddy
No, you're right OAW, you can't simplistically state anything. In fact, a concern for details would expose the fact that while you claim ObamaCare will reduce the deficit by $132 billion through the first 10 years, you've got the country paying for it the first 3 years out of the gate without it even being available. Brilliant!!!
I'll grant you that point. It's certainly a legitimate thing to note when it comes to projected deficit reductions.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
You see OAW, The CBO runs factors provided it by those requesting the report. Regardless of the fact that I already corrected you on this point back on January 8th and never did hear back from you, you're just going to pop up somewhere else to make the same bogus claim? The CBO has admitted that they've essentially double-counted savings in the Senate proposal.. Medicare is funded from a separate trust fund and the savings from this fund do not go into the general budget that will fund ObamaCare. This means that instead of a $130 million surplus, we're really looking at a $170 million hole.
Ok fine. I would just remind you of my overall point when it comes to this. We were discussing Medicare Part D in relation to the Healthcare Reform legislation being proposed. The former was not paid for by any stretch of the imagination. They didn't even pretend to. 100% of the cost adds to the deficit. The latter, even if we accept your point above, is still mostly paid for. So I'll make the point again ...

Republicans only care about the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House.

The Bush Administration / Republican Congress pushed through Medicare Part D even though it adds trillions of dollars of deficits over the next several decades. But as soon as a Democrat gets in the White House now all of a sudden they are deficit hawks. Complaining about the cost of Healthcare Reform that is either paid for or mostly paid for depending upon which figures you believe. Regardless of which figures you believe it is in no way, shape, form, or fashion even remotely close to the deficits being produced by Medicare Part D. So all these Republican lawmakers who voted for Medicare Part D but are now b*tching about Healthcare Reform on deficit grounds are hypocrites. Plain and simple. Furthermore, the utter silence of the Tea Party crowd during the Bush Administration about deficits along with their frothing at the mouth about it now during the Obama Administration is quite notable. Quite obviously, deficits are NOT the real motivation for their "anger".

You have no arguments and what you do present is crayon-drawing laughable. Keep it up though OAW. I look forward to hearing from you and your "charts" again.
"Crayon-drawing laughable"? This coming from the person who didn't even have sense enough to realize that the FY 2009 budget he cited was submitted by the Bush Administration? Oh that's pure comedy right there!

But let's tally up on your claims in this thread so far:

Obama voted for Medicare Part D: Thoroughly debunked.

The majority of Dems voted for Medicare Part D: Thoroughly debunked.

Obama is proposing measures that OUTSPEND the prior administration's two terms in a quarter of the time: Debunked.

Not much difference between 1.2 trillion dollar Medicare Part D under Bush and the 1 trillion dollar Healthcare Reform under Obama: "Not paid for at all" is "not much difference" than "paid for" or even "mostly paid for"? Laughable at best.

Obama's budget in 20 months adds as much debt held by the public as Bush in 8 years per the Office of Management and Budget: Debunked. Neither the Bush Administration FY 2009 nor the Obama Administration FY 2010 budget support this claim. It's not even close. And that's using your preferred Treasury Department and OMB "official figures".

You're 0 for 5 dude! At this stage in the game you can't credibly claim otherwise. A wise person once said ...

When you find yourself in a hole .... STOP DIGGING!

I suggest you take heed.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 16, 2010 at 08:21 PM. )
     
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Feb 19, 2010, 08:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Ok. Now I get it. You want to play semantic games.
First of all, I don't think it's semantics to argue using the publically held debt because that's the debt most relevant to you and I, credit markets, etc... (certainly not to marginalize the long-term affects of a debt ceiling we're looking to push up another $2 trillion), not the debt transferred between government entities. Anyway, I thought I was pretty clear about it. If nothing else, the figures certainly should've jumped out at you. I'd concede if nothing more than expediency, but then I don't think I'm as sporting about the discussion as you.

Interesting how your "official figures" don't even have "debt held by the public" figures available for the very beginning of the Bush Administration ... yet you go and make claims about it anyway. So let's talk about what we can do the math on based upon your figures. The Total Public Debt Outstanding grew from 5.7 trillion to 10.6 trillion during the Bush Administration. An increase of 4.9 trillion. So far under approximately 13 months of the Obama Administration this figure has grown from 10.6 trillion to 12.3 trillion. An increase of 1.7 trillion.
Okay, I'll bite. So... just to make absolutely sure I've gotten the figures correct, you're saying that in 13 months Obama has managed to grow the debt by 35% of what Bush grew over 8 years? Using this math, at this rate Obama will have grown the Total Public Debt by $13.6 trillion. That's almost 3 times what Bush wracked up. Yeah, I know he budgeted $10.9 trillion. Are you new here? Of course, this doesn't account for any variance in interest rates or any of the other expensive problems that happen as part of governing a large land mass. An Administration that has expressed it would never want a serious crisis to go to waste has published a budget, details available in April. It begins with having inherited... as Obama is now campaigning to be a one-term President.

To be clear: the numbers we're throwing around here including Bush from 2001 through Obama to the present make me heave just a little into my throat. Why are the details of FY 2010 important? Budget gimmickry. I'll pop back in here to claim I'm wrong in April.

The Debt Held by the Public grew from 3.3 trillion to 6.3 trillion during the Bush Administration using the available figures which don't even count the first 8 months. An increase of 3 trillion. That same figure under the approximately 13 months of the Obama Administration has grown from 6.3 trillion to 7.8 trillion. An increase of 1.5 trillion. So you go and make claims about the "first 20 months" of the Obama Administration that your "to the penny" figures can't even support because they aren't even available. Then you certainly don't factor in the fact that the FY 2009 runs from Oct. 2008 - Sept. 2009. So the first 9 of the available 13 months of the Obama Administration were using a Bush Administration budget. Oh yeah. The same Office of Management & Budget (OMB) link you referenced that you erroneously claimed was "Obama's budget".
What was the $400+ billion omnibus bill for example and under which FY budget did that fall? Who signed it? Now tell me what measures of Bush's from the FY 2009 budget Obama opposed. Thank you. This should be regarded as "doubling down on Bush's folly".

Anyway, you're saying here that Bush grew the Debt Held by the Public by $3 trillion over 8 years and Obama has met exactly half this in 13 months? At this rate again, should Obama remain this popular through a second term; he will have increased the Debt Held by the Public by $12 trillion. That's 4 times Bush's spree. See, I think Obama's problem right now is his PR. I know, his budget says...

And since you are all about using the "official figures", let's see what these numbers look like using the FY 2010 budget... the first one actually submitted by the Obama Administration.

FY 2008 - Debt Held by the Public: 5.8 trillion

FY 2009 - Debt Held by the Public: 8.3 trillion

FY 2010 - Debt Held by the Public: 9.5 trillion

FY 2011 - Debt Held by the Public: 10.4 trillion

FY 2012 - Debt Held by the Public: 10.9 trillion

So let's look at your claim again ....
This is the budget, yes. For starters, his forecast is contingent upon an ever-growing economy which is optimistic according to the CBO. Forget the fact that your figures also include an alleged $2 trillion in savings (from tax increases which generally aren't counted as savings- fuzzy math) that we're actually talking about a budget proposed that optimistically adds over $900 billion from 2010 to 2019. That's an additional $8 trillion. This is not a 9/11 or a Katrina, this is just government. The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.

Even if we count all four years between FY 2009 and FY 2012 that's only a 2.6 trillion dollar increase ... which, the last time I checked doesn't exceed 3 trillion and damned sure isn't 3.3 trillion. So your contention is even more ridiculous given your "20 month" timeframe! And it bears repeating .... FY 2009 is a Bush Administration budget on top of that!!
Short list of the measures in the FY 2009 budget Obama voted against? See, I don't think it's enough to simply blame all your problems on the prior Administration. You don't like the "3 times Bush's spending, etc, etc...", but you seem to be arguing for little to no improvement. Of course, this remains to be seen. You'd like to cite Obama's FY 2010 budget, but I'm not as optimistic as he and I'm looking forward to some analysis of it.

Dude. I'll say it again. You really need to give it up. Even using your own "official figures" your claim is utter and complete BS. How many times do I have to drive this point home to you?
I'll tell ya what OAW, I'll go ahead and drop it because it's not for me to sell to you. I hope your eyes are open, that's all I can ask.

"Crayon-drawing laughable"? This coming from the person who didn't even have sense enough to realize that the FY 2009 budget he cited was submitted by the Bush Administration? Oh that's pure comedy right there!
You're not even paying attention.

But let's tally up on your claims in this thread so far:

Obama voted for Medicare Part D: Thoroughly debunked.
No, you're right. He negotiated with PhRMA to double-down on it with a prescription plan of his own. I get 1/2 a point.

The majority of Dems voted for Medicare Part D: Thoroughly debunked.
Got me on this one.

Obama is proposing measures that OUTSPEND the prior administration's two terms in a quarter of the time: Debunked.
Not debunked. You're not paying attention. Obama's budget has an implication. There is no sunset on an Obama proposal OAW. His budget blueprint is calculated through 2019 and per CBO, projected to grow the debt by $6.5 trillion, not the claimed $1.2 trillion savings or $2 trillion or whatever. Not debunked. I'm looking forward to analysis of Obama's FY 2010 budget for FY 2011. $3.8 trillion anyone? Point mine.

The fact of the matter is that a 500 lb fat man can lose the first 100 lbs rather quickly. Obama inherited quite a mess yes, but he did not inherit the office he ran for. There's no reason he shouldn't be able to show marked improvement as the result of his policy and why this wouldn't pay huge dividends for him politically and otherwise. I don't see it on either front and neither do the American people. In terms of debt (any form of it you'd prefer to consider), there is no marked improvement. We fundamentally disagree on the merits of immense resuscitative spending and a promise to stop doing it eventually does not suffice. This is just government being government. This is not a 9/11 or a Katrina. So... yeah, I'll drop the whole Obama is spending 3 Xs more or "quadrupling" Bush etc, etc if it makes you feel better, but...

Not much difference between 1.2 trillion dollar Medicare Part D under Bush and the 1 trillion dollar Healthcare Reform under Obama: "Not paid for at all" is "not much difference" than "paid for" or even "mostly paid for"? Laughable at best.
C'mon OAW, "paid for"? We've been over this. This counts on Medicare savings they could just as easily adopt right now without having to use it as a selling point for additional spending. After all, we start paying for it 4 years in advance. No one believes the "paid for" or "mostly paid for" claim OAW, not anyone who knows who's really paying for it.

Obama's budget in 20 months adds as much debt held by the public as Bush in 8 years per the Office of Management and Budget: Debunked. Neither the Bush Administration FY 2009 nor the Obama Administration FY 2010 budget support this claim. It's not even close. And that's using your preferred Treasury Department and OMB "official figures".
All examples you've presented certainly show a President on track to increase the debt exponentially. So you don't like my verbiage? Fine, don't take my word for it. Again, this is government being government. There is no sunset on an Obama proposal OAW and this assumes absolutely nothing as part of governing a large land mass. Do you suppose Bush would've included 9/11 in his budget? Katrina? Fannie and Freddie? Various reactionary stimulus spending OAW? Of course not and neither does Obama.
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Feb 22, 2010, 12:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Okay, I'll bite. So... just to make absolutely sure I've gotten the figures correct, you're saying that in 13 months Obama has managed to grow the debt by 35% of what Bush grew over 8 years? Using this math, at this rate Obama will have grown the Total Public Debt by $13.6 trillion. That's almost 3 times what Bush wracked up.

....

Anyway, you're saying here that Bush grew the Debt Held by the Public by $3 trillion over 8 years and Obama has met exactly half this in 13 months? At this rate again, should Obama remain this popular through a second term; he will have increased the Debt Held by the Public by $12 trillion. That's 4 times Bush's spree.
Is the debt exploding? Indeed it is. You haven't see me in here claiming otherwise. What I have done is expound upon why it is exploding. And the policies that caused the explosion and who put those policies in place. More importantly, what we've been doing here as of late is debating the claims that you made.

You made specific claims about spending/deficits and timeframes against the Obama Administration in relation to the Bush Administration. All I did was dispute the specifics of your claims and prove that what you said was simply not true given the timeframes you cited. I've never claimed that spending/deficits aren't increasing at a faster rate under Obama than under Bush. Of course they are ... the stimulus bill does that on the spending side and the lingering effects of the Great Recession does that on the deficit side. I just showed that they aren't increasing as fast as you (citing the Republican talking points) claim they are.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
What was the $400+ billion omnibus bill for example and under which FY budget did that fall? Who signed it? Now tell me what measures of Bush's from the FY 2009 budget Obama opposed. Thank you. This should be regarded as "doubling down on Bush's folly".
You raise a legitimate point here. Normally, appropriations bills are voted on individually for the particular government functions that are supposed to fund (i.e. Defense Department, Justice Department, Interior Department, etc.). By the end of 2008 Congress had failed to approve 9 of the 12 appropriations bills. These were all bundled together in March 2009 as the "omnibus" bill. I'll address your questions:

What was it? The omnibus bill provided funding for the federal government to operate.

Under which FY budget?: FY 2009.

Who signed it? President Obama in March 2009.

What measure's of Bush's FY 2009 did Obama oppose? Not sure what you mean. In any event, there is the "budget" and there are "appropriations". The latter is how the government acts upon the former. So the "omnibus" bill was implementing the final Bush Administration budget. Having said that, it was a single bill so there was only an up or down vote in Congress for the measure in total. The President doesn't have a line item veto so he has to sign it or veto it in total as well. Not approving it meant a government shut down ... like what happened when Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton had that little pissing contest of theirs back in the 90s. Definitely not a good thing in the midst of the economic crisis Obama was facing when he came into office.

Some argue that Obama should have vetoed the measure because of the pork barrel spending and earmarks it contained. Some argue that March 2009 wasn't the time to risk a government shutdown by vetoing it ... not when the economy was shedding 750K jobs a month and federal spending was the only thing keeping it from sliding into another Great Depression. IMO there is no black or white answer here. Both sides have a legitimate point.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
I'll tell ya what OAW, I'll go ahead and drop it because it's not for me to sell to you. I hope your eyes are open, that's all I can ask.
Good. Now we can move on to better things ... like what to do about it.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
Not debunked. You're not paying attention. Obama's budget has an implication. There is no sunset on an Obama proposal OAW. His budget blueprint is calculated through 2019 and per CBO, projected to grow the debt by $6.5 trillion, not the claimed $1.2 trillion savings or $2 trillion or whatever. Not debunked. I'm looking forward to analysis of Obama's FY 2010 budget for FY 2011. $3.8 trillion anyone? Point mine.
Indeed, my friend, it is debunked. Completely. Again, you made a specific claim. You claimed that Obama is proposing measures that OUTSPEND 8 years of the Bush Administration in a quarter of the time. I've already proven that claim to be false. More importantly, you've yet to cite anything to back your claim up. You just made it. Repeatedly. As if saying it over and over again will make it true.

The problem here is that you and our other friends on the right like to use terms like "spending", and "deficits", and "debt" interchangeably. When the reality is that these are related, but very different things. On top of that you guys take a situation that is admittedly quite dire and then get all hyperbolic about it. That "Obama is doing X in a quarter of the time the Bush Administration did" claim simply isn't true no matter what you plug in for X ... spending, deficits, or debt! But let's address what you've just said here ...

Regarding the "sunset" on Obama's budget proposal, I'm not quite sure what you mean. What I will say is that the markedly increased deficits we are seeing under the beginning of the Obama Administration are primarily the results of two things. A) The precipitous drop in tax revenue due to the Great Recession, along with B) dramatically increased spending in the form of TARP and the Stimulus package. Now the "sunset" on A occurs when the economy recovers. And that has already begun to happen when one looks at GDP growth of approximately 6% a quarter as opposed to GDP decline of 6% a quarter when Obama took office. Job losses of 750K a month are now 20K per month. The economy is certainly not back to "booming" levels ... but one certainly can't credibly claim it isn't significantly improved over this time a year ago. That's just a fact! As it continues to improve then tax revenues will begin to increase and help to reduce the deficit. The "sunset" on B occurs when the TARP and Stimulus Package funds are spent. As I mentioned earlier, these are short-term provisions designed to shore up the economy. They simply are not ongoing programs that will continue contribute to deficits beyond the next year or two.

Furthermore, you talk about "growing the debt by 6.5 trillion, not the claimed $1.2 trillion or $2 trillion in savings or whatever". Well the fact of the matter is that the 1.2 - 2.0 trillion in savings is in reference to the deficit. Not the debt! What Obama's proprosal sets out to do is reduce the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term (or 2014 I can't quite recall off the top of my head) compared to what it is today. And as these annual deficits decrease the cumulative reductions are expected to add up to approximately 1.5 trillion over the course of 10 years ... compared to what the cumulative deficits would be at current annual deficit levels. But you have to remember, even if the annual deficit was only $1 the debt would still increase by that amount! The debt only gets reduced when the government runs an annual surplus. And that's simply not going to happen given the current economic conditions by the end of Obama's first term ... let alone by the end of his first year in office. So no my friend ... there is no contradiction here as you imply. The point is not yours. Sorry.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
The fact of the matter is that a 500 lb fat man can lose the first 100 lbs rather quickly. Obama inherited quite a mess yes, but he did not inherit the office he ran for. There's no reason he shouldn't be able to show marked improvement as the result of his policy and why this wouldn't pay huge dividends for him politically and otherwise. I don't see it on either front and neither do the American people. In terms of debt (any form of it you'd prefer to consider), there is no marked improvement.
Here's an analogy for what's facing the federal government ....

Uncle Sam is the household bread winner. He has a good job and he has household expenses. 85% of which are fixed expenses (e.g. Defense, Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, Interest on the national debt, and other Mandatory spending). All of a sudden he gets hit with a 30% pay cut (e.g. decline in tax revenues due to the Great Recession). At the same time, his discretionary expenses increase because of the cost of A) finding another job to elevate his pay (e.g. TARP, Stimulus Program), and B) the additional burdens of feeding his relatives that were laid off from their jobs (e.g. Extended Unemployment Insurance, Supplements to State Budgets, etc.). Now his fixed expenses don't go down just because his pay went down. The mortgage still needs to be paid as well as the car note, etc. And the members of his household still have to eat. So what does he do?

Well why doesn't he just cut his expenses you ask? Well again, 85% of his expenses are fixed. He can cut off the cable TV and stop going out to eat (i.e. discretionary expenses) ... that's under his control. The mortgage and the car note (e.g. fixed expenses) is not. He has to have a place to live. And he needs a car to get to work. Otherwise what's left of his income is in jeopardy. Well why doesn't he sell his house and car and get something smaller that's more affordable you ask? He could ... but he has to get his wife (e.g. Congress) to sign off on that. And she likes her house and her car because it makes her look good to her friends (e.g. Constituents) ... so she won't sell. And even if he eliminated all of his discretionary expenses, it wouldn't even put a dent into making up the shortfall because the fixed expenses ... the ones that the wife won't deal with ... are so large.

So what does Uncle Sam do when his pay is severely cut, his wife won't let him cut his fixed expenses, and divorce is not an option?

He has to use his credit card (e.g. Annual Deficits) to make up the gap until conditions improve. He has to convince his boss to restore his salary or find another gig that pays more or supplements his current income.

So there's a reason why the debt hasn't shown "marked improvement". It's because he's a President ... not a King. There's this little thing called a Congress he has to deal with in general... and a Republican minority therein in particular that has opposed every major initiative he's proposed in near universal lockstep. And they do this because all that "Country First" sh*t they talked was for the campaign only. When the rubber meets the road they feel that there is political advantage in opposing the President ... regardless of whether or not what he's proposing is good for the country or necessary. There's no point in denying this because there are those in the Republican leadership who have stated this publicly. These same Republicans opposed the restoration of the PAY-GO rules. They opposed the creation on the deficit reduction commission in Congress that would have binding recommendations. But in the meantime they complain about spending and deficits but won't sell the house or allow Uncle Sam to get another job!

Additionally, if there was a magic "Fix the economy" button in the White House don't you think the President would have pushed it by now? And how would you expect the massive deficits we are experiencing to show "marked improvement" given the decline in tax revenues due to the recession? I mean .... seriously? What would you suggest?

Originally Posted by ebuddy
We fundamentally disagree on the merits of immense resuscitative spending and a promise to stop doing it eventually does not suffice. This is just government being government. This is not a 9/11 or a Katrina. So... yeah, I'll drop the whole Obama is spending 3 Xs more or "quadrupling" Bush etc, etc if it makes you feel better, but...
That we do. All I can say is that the overwhelming majority of economists of all political persuasions have stated that the "immense resuscitative spending" prevented the economy from sliding into another Great Depression. That's a fact. If you oppose such efforts on ideological grounds that's fine I suppose. But something tells me that if President Obama had done nothing and allowed the economy to go to hell in a hand-basket our good friends on the right would be b*tching about that too. With some people you just can't win for losing.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
C'mon OAW, "paid for"? We've been over this. This counts on Medicare savings they could just as easily adopt right now without having to use it as a selling point for additional spending. After all, we start paying for it 4 years in advance. No one believes the "paid for" or "mostly paid for" claim OAW, not anyone who knows who's really paying for it.
Again, I think you are missing the point. This was a comparison between Medicare Part D pushed by the Bush Administration and Healthcare Reform advocated by the Obama Administration. You don't believe that Healthcare Reform is "paid for" or "mostly paid for"? Ok fine. Say it's "partially paid for" or "barely paid for". Take your pick. At the end of the day that's still better than "not paid for" .... which was the case with Medicare Part D. Let's break it down mathematically. Any positive number is greater than 0. N'est-ce pas?

Originally Posted by ebuddy
All examples you've presented certainly show a President on track to increase the debt exponentially. So you don't like my verbiage? Fine, don't take my word for it. Again, this is government being government. There is no sunset on an Obama proposal OAW and this assumes absolutely nothing as part of governing a large land mass. Do you suppose Bush would've included 9/11 in his budget? Katrina? Fannie and Freddie? Various reactionary stimulus spending OAW? Of course not and neither does Obama.
Again, I'm not sure what you mean by all that "sunset" stuff. TARP and the Stimulus by definition are not ongoing programs. As for whether or not other things are included in the budget ... I will say that President Obama is including the cost of the Afghanistan & Iraq Wars in his budget. Quite unlike President Bush who handled this with "supplemental" war spending. A big part of the reason why Obama's budget was so "eye popping" was that he chose not to play the game that Bush did and fund ongoing wars with a process that is designed to handled temporary, one-off type situations. Had Bush's budgets over his administration reflected the supplemental war spending that he knew good and well was going to be spent, the delta between his "official" budget and Obama's budget would not have been nearly as large.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Feb 22, 2010 at 12:33 PM. )
     
ebuddy
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Feb 23, 2010, 11:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Is the debt exploding? Indeed it is. You haven't see me in here claiming otherwise. What I have done is expound upon why it is exploding. And the policies that caused the explosion and who put those policies in place. More importantly, what we've been doing here as of late is debating the claims that you made.
Bush tax cuts bad
Obama tax cuts good

Bush debt bad and unnecessary through 9/11 and Katrina
Obama debt good and necessary because of Bush's debt and a market correction

Indeed, my friend, it is debunked. Completely. Again, you made a specific claim. You claimed that Obama is proposing measures that OUTSPEND 8 years of the Bush Administration in a quarter of the time. I've already proven that claim to be false. More importantly, you've yet to cite anything to back your claim up. You just made it. Repeatedly. As if saying it over and over again will make it true.
Oh, spending? See I thought I said that Obama has committed more to debt... I used debt held by the public. For example, If the debt held by the public rose by $2.5 trillion during the Bush term ending @ $5.8 trillion, and was shown to be @ $7.6 trillion in 2009 and is expected to rise to $8.8 trillion by the end of FY 2010 per CBO, that's another $3 trillion. So... Obama has committed more debt in less than 2 years than Bush committed to debt in 8 years. 8 divided by 2 is 4 or... a quarter of the time. That's absolutely beyond refutation mathematically. You can argue the CBO numbers are incorrect or that a third of FY 2009 passed before Obama even took office or argue very granular details of why this shouldn't count against Obama, but the fact of the matter is that it does. You always hear about the surplus Bush inherited for example, but very little about the burgeoning recession he inherited along with it. Why? Bush owned it. It's a heavy crown OAW. Obama didn't inherit the office he ran for.

As if any of this matters anyway. Your main points of contention regarding what Bush "left" for Obama? Tax cuts, Iraq, Afghanistan, TARP, Medicare Part D, etc... Well, Obama ran on and continues to tout tax cuts. Obama has since admitted that the "surge" was necessary in Iraq and crafted one of his own in Afghanistan. Instead of repealing any aspect of the reprehensible Medicare Part D prescription plan with a majority of Dems in Congress who also opposed it, only added to it. Obama supported TARP in a speech in 2008 calling for folks to "Step up and do what's right." While you think you're winning points by haggling over the term of a FY, there's absolutely nothing to suggest Obama would've reacted any differently. In fact, there's everything to suggest he's merely doubling down on Bush's folly.

The problem here is that you and our other friends on the right like to use terms like "spending", and "deficits", and "debt" interchangeably.
You mean like you did above??? It seems our friends on the left have trouble with the nuances of governmental budgeting.

When the reality is that these are related, but very different things. On top of that you guys take a situation that is admittedly quite dire and then get all hyperbolic about it. That "Obama is doing X in a quarter of the time the Bush Administration did" claim simply isn't true no matter what you plug in for X ... spending, deficits, or debt! But let's address what you've just said here ...
You simply don't equate debt increases due to provisions Obama supported as belonging to Obama. You're welcome to it, but this is not how Obama's effectiveness will be judged by anyone other than his most ardent supporters. The claims themselves are absolutely true.

Deficits are annual expenditures that exceed annual revenue collection. Debt is the accumulation of deficits. They are both very real numbers.

And that has already begun to happen when one looks at GDP growth of approximately 6% a quarter as opposed to GDP decline of 6% a quarter when Obama took office. Job losses of 750K a month are now 20K per month. The economy is certainly not back to "booming" levels ... but one certainly can't credibly claim it isn't significantly improved over this time a year ago. That's just a fact! As it continues to improve then tax revenues will begin to increase and help to reduce the deficit. The "sunset" on B occurs when the TARP and Stimulus Package funds are spent. As I mentioned earlier, these are short-term provisions designed to shore up the economy. They simply are not ongoing programs that will continue contribute to deficits beyond the next year or two.
This is resuscitative spending. If you have a paper cup with a small hole in it, I can pour water into it and it will be full... for a minute. This is what is occurring now. We are a consumption economy. When consumer confidence remains more pessimistic than optimistic, the hole in the bottom of your cup is not repaired. I can keep pouring water into it to make it appear full, but this is not sustainable. Particularly when we're running to China to borrow more water. I submit Obama's FY 2010 as proof that the call is for more water. I am hopeful yet doubtful that we are truly leaving our economic woes behind us in any meaningful way. I hope I'm wrong, I really do.

Uncle Sam is the household bread winner. He has a good job and he has household expenses. 85% of which are fixed expenses (e.g. Defense, Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, Interest on the national debt, and other Mandatory spending). All of a sudden he gets hit with a 30% pay cut (e.g. decline in tax revenues due to the Great Recession). At the same time, his discretionary expenses increase because of the cost of A) finding another job to elevate his pay (e.g. TARP, Stimulus Program), and B) the additional burdens of feeding his relatives that were laid off from their jobs (e.g. Extended Unemployment Insurance, Supplements to State Budgets, etc.). Now his fixed expenses don't go down just because his pay went down. The mortgage still needs to be paid as well as the car note, etc. And the members of his household still have to eat. So what does he do?

Well why doesn't he just cut his expenses you ask? Well again, 85% of his expenses are fixed. He can cut off the cable TV and stop going out to eat (i.e. discretionary expenses) ... that's under his control. The mortgage and the car note (e.g. fixed expenses) is not. He has to have a place to live. And he needs a car to get to work. Otherwise what's left of his income is in jeopardy. Well why doesn't he sell his house and car and get something smaller that's more affordable you ask? He could ... but he has to get his wife (e.g. Congress) to sign off on that. And she likes her house and her car because it makes her look good to her friends (e.g. Constituents) ... so she won't sell. And even if he eliminated all of his discretionary expenses, it wouldn't even put a dent into making up the shortfall because the fixed expenses ... the ones that the wife won't deal with ... are so large.

So what does Uncle Sam do when his pay is severely cut, his wife won't let him cut his fixed expenses, and divorce is not an option?
So you're saying Obama is hen-pecked by a majority Democratic Congress? Forget "reaching across the aisle" when he can't even find the end of his own.

So there's a reason why the debt hasn't shown "marked improvement". It's because he's a President ... not a King. There's this little thing called a Congress he has to deal with in general... and a Republican minority therein in particular that has opposed every major initiative he's proposed in near universal lockstep. And they do this because all that "Country First" sh*t they talked was for the campaign only. When the rubber meets the road they feel that there is political advantage in opposing the President ... regardless of whether or not what he's proposing is good for the country or necessary. There's no point in denying this because there are those in the Republican leadership who have stated this publicly. These same Republicans opposed the restoration of the PAY-GO rules. They opposed the creation on the deficit reduction commission in Congress that would have binding recommendations. But in the meantime they complain about spending and deficits but won't sell the house or allow Uncle Sam to get another job!
You've managed to bring this 'round full circle. Obama is hen-pecked by a majority Democratic Congress and obstructed entirely by a handful of Republicans. You're saying that Bush was more effective at reaching across the aisle than Obama or are you saying that Democrats aren't as beholden to political aspirations as Republicans? Nonsense, the whole lot of it nothing more than excuses for an ineffectual President. PAYGO advocates the potential increase in taxes to reconcile the budget, but there were only a handful of RINOs on board this plan in the first place. McCain, Snowe, etc... point OAW.

It is nothing more than a tax increase provision. Period. It should be opposed and more so under this Administration who refers to tax hikes as "fees". No thanks. I'd rather get a more complete picture of what this Administration has in store for the American people before I write them a blank check.

Additionally, if there was a magic "Fix the economy" button in the White House don't you think the President would have pushed it by now? And how would you expect the massive deficits we are experiencing to show "marked improvement" given the decline in tax revenues due to the recession? I mean .... seriously? What would you suggest?
I would've suggested less business as usual (Bush legacy) and a little more fiscal responsibility. This is too much to ask clearly because Obama is not in control of a handful of Republicans and in even less control of the majority of the Democrats, all looking towards political expediency. This was your assessment of Obama's adversity, not mine.

That we do. All I can say is that the overwhelming majority of economists of all political persuasions have stated that the "immense resuscitative spending" prevented the economy from sliding into another Great Depression. That's a fact. If you oppose such efforts on ideological grounds that's fine I suppose. But something tells me that if President Obama had done nothing and allowed the economy to go to hell in a hand-basket our good friends on the right would be b*tching about that too. With some people you just can't win for losing.
Of course. Economists are part mathematician. I can fill your cup with water and in fact your cup will be full. The problem is the small hole in the bottom of your cup. Economists are all over the place with the stimulus. They like to see the incredible influx of money into various sectors of course, but they've long warned that stimulus not directed at job growth and consumer spending is damning long term. I'm concerned that this is exactly what we're seeing. Obama has a plan for directing job growth, but joblessness is projected to remain at 9.8% through 2010. This is not job growth.

At what point can Obama be held accountable?

Again, I think you are missing the point. This was a comparison between Medicare Part D pushed by the Bush Administration and Healthcare Reform advocated by the Obama Administration. You don't believe that Healthcare Reform is "paid for" or "mostly paid for"? Ok fine. Say it's "partially paid for" or "barely paid for". Take your pick. At the end of the day that's still better than "not paid for" .... which was the case with Medicare Part D. Let's break it down mathematically. Any positive number is greater than 0. N'est-ce pas?
Right so if Obama and the majority of Dems in office found Medicare Part D so reprehensible, they could've been working the past year+ on repealing aspects of it. Did they? Of course not. This is not politically expedient. Who wants to be viewed as cutting Medicare entitlements? Obama added to it. Your complaints about Republicans' "Country First" mantra rings as hollow as anything I've heard to date. If you see the Republicans as nothing more than the party of "no", it's because they absolutely have to be. You will soon find out that they enjoy the majority of support in this country.
ebuddy
     
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Feb 23, 2010, 03:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Oh, spending? See I thought I said that Obama has committed more to debt... I used debt held by the public.
No my friend. You said "outspend". Seems like a reminder is in order since there appears to be a case of convenient amnesia going on ....

Originally Posted by ebuddy
And here is the million dollar question. If our new President is proposing measures that outspend the prior administration's two terms in a quarter the amount of time, when are we allowed to express concerns?
Now as I read that statement I don't see the word debt at all. Now granted, you did make a different statement later on regarding the debt held by the public. And I dealt with that assertion separately. But you did make the statement about spending above. I challenged it and showed it to be false. Simple as that.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
You mean like you did above??? It seems our friends on the left have trouble with the nuances of governmental budgeting.
Uhhh ... not so much. See above.

This is resuscitative spending. If you have a paper cup with a small hole in it, I can pour water into it and it will be full... for a minute. This is what is occurring now. We are a consumption economy. When consumer confidence remains more pessimistic than optimistic, the hole in the bottom of your cup is not repaired. I can keep pouring water into it to make it appear full, but this is not sustainable. Particularly when we're running to China to borrow more water. I submit Obama's FY 2010 as proof that the call is for more water. I am hopeful yet doubtful that we are truly leaving our economic woes behind us in any meaningful way. I hope I'm wrong, I really do.
You make a good point. I'm just on the side of the fence that believes that resuscitative spending was necessary ... despite its imperfections. Doing nothing would have made the situation even worse.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
So you're saying Obama is hen-pecked by a majority Democratic Congress? Forget "reaching across the aisle" when he can't even find the end of his own.
What I'm saying is that Congress is not inclined to address entitlements and defense spending. Neither Democrats nor Republicans. Any talk about "reducing government spending" is simply blowing smoke and political posturing if these areas which comprise 85% of federal spending are not on the table. And let's just be honest here ... these programs are popular, and neither Democrats nor Republicans want to touch them with a 10 foot pole.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
You've managed to bring this 'round full circle. Obama is hen-pecked by a majority Democratic Congress and obstructed entirely by a handful of Republicans. You're saying that Bush was more effective at reaching across the aisle than Obama or are you saying that Democrats aren't as beholden to political aspirations as Republicans?
No not at all. Bush put his signature tax cuts through using reconciliation. A procedure that doesn't require a 60 vote majority in the Senate. Let's not get it twisted and try to imply that Bush was "more effective at reaching across the aisle".

Originally Posted by ebuddy
It is nothing more than a tax increase provision. Period. It should be opposed and more so under this Administration who refers to tax hikes as "fees". No thanks. I'd rather get a more complete picture of what this Administration has in store for the American people before I write them a blank check.
PAY-GO says that new government legislation should be paid for, either by new revenues (taxes) or savings (spending cuts). It does not specify, as you imply, that it is only about raising taxes.

Originally Posted by ebuddy
I would've suggested less business as usual (Bush legacy) and a little more fiscal responsibility. This is too much to ask clearly because Obama is not in control of a handful of Republicans and in even less control of the majority of the Democrats, all looking towards political expediency. This was your assessment of Obama's adversity, not mine.
When I asked you the question "What would you suggest?" I was hoping that you would offer something substantive as an alternative. Fiscal responsibility? Saying this is akin to talking about "baseball, mom, and apple pie". It's a platitude and nothing more. See this is where the rubber meets the road. The Republicans oppose restoration of PAY-GO (which led to the only government surpluses in recent memory) because "it is nothing more than a tax increase provision" as you claim. But if you are not going to raise revenue the only other way to reduce deficits is to cut spending. And again, 85% of federal spending is off limits ... even to the Republicans who claim to be the "party of fiscal responsibility". So what would you suggest be cut to make up the shortfall? Specifically? IOW, what does "fiscal responsibility" look like to you?

OAW
     
BadKosh
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Feb 23, 2010, 03:50 PM
 
OK, so go back and compare the REASONS the spending went up or down such as Carter didn't spend a dime on the military in his 4 years so it had to be fixed, and 9/11 and such.

Why not add in the percentage of our income we are taxed over the decades as it relates to paying down the deficits.
     
 
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