The truth behind the nation’s massive fiscal problem
Political narratives are precious things these days. They give people a story line, an explanation for why the world is as it is and why their side isn’t to blame. And at the moment, the right’s most important narrative is that the nation’s dangerous and unsustainable budget deficit is the fault of Barack Obama.
Well, it isn’t, as the chart on the right demonstrates. “Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years,” Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney conclude in a study published by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
The CBPI is a liberal policy-analysis group, and those who are more interested in preserving their faith in conservative narrative than in discovering the truth can and will dismiss its findings on those grounds alone.
But numbers are numbers. If the numbers driving this chart are “liberal,” if the assumptions behind those numbers are “liberal,” then it should be possible for conservatives to explain how and where they’re wrong. The center “shows its work,” as our math teachers used to say, which should make it possible for others to come along and rebut it.
Take, for example, the impact of the economic downturn on the deficit. As the CBPI report notes, the Congressional Budget Office issued projections on Jan. 7, 2009 — two weeks before President Obama even took office — putting the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion.
“The recession battered the budget, driving down tax revenues and swelling outlays for unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other safety-net programs,” the CBPI reports. “Using CBO’s August 2008 projections as a benchmark, we calculate that the changed economic outlook accounts for over $400 billion of the deficit each year in 2009 through 2011 and slightly smaller amounts in subsequent years. Those effects persist; even in 2018, the deterioration in the economy since the summer of 2008 will account for over $250 billion in added deficits, much of it in the form of additional debt-service costs.”
Significant tax cuts enacted in a time of war — the first time in U.S. history that such cuts have been enacted — also had a predictable effect:
“Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers.
Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the previous administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade. That would have put the nation on a much sounder footing to address the demographic challenges and the cost pressures in health care that darken the long-run fiscal outlook.
Of course, what happened in the past doesn’t get President Obama off the hook for what happens next. If Obama did not create this problem, he will certainly be judged on whether and how he gets us out of it. Ruffing and Horney also acknowledge that fact.
“While President Obama inherited a dismal fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them,” they write. “Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s long-term deficit problem.”
That’s going to require both serious budget cuts and significant tax increases, neither of which will be politically popular. But after the G-20 summit in Toronto, Obama noted that a bipartisan deficit-reduction commission that he appointed is expected to produce its report this December, setting the stage for real debate.
“I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it,” Obama said. “And I think it’s the right thing to do. And people should learn that lesson about me, because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I’m calling their bluff. And we’ll see how much of that — how much of the political arguments they’re making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics.”
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451 comments Add your comment
Outhouse GoKart
June 29th, 2010
10:56 am
Dave
June 29th, 2010
10:36 am
BRAVO!! *Applause*
Kelly
June 29th, 2010
10:56 am
SoCo,
Notice that I did not say that military funding was perfect or that there weren’t areas that could or should be cut. I’m sure that some money is spent in ways that I would not agree with. However, since I am not conducting a line-item review of each portion of the budget, I am speaking in generalities. In the same way, I don’t advocate totally cutting welfare. My family was on it briefly when I was a child, and I am so grateful that it was there. However, my mother, who worked several jobs to get us out of welfare and on our won, is the exception. Most people maintain entire lifestyles on welfare and spend their days trying to game the system. I know–I have been there and seen it. So while welfare is good for those who use it properly, it can and should be reformed. I feel that is it much more wasteful than many other areas.
You are right that policement, firefighters, and teachers are the first to get axed. I have never agreed with this but always understood it. The smart thing to do would be to cut benefits to those who aren’t providing services to the community. However, those who are working to protect us and teach our children are cut first. Why? Because, as I said, those who receive government benefits do not like to lose them. They learn to depend on them and get very angry (and show it at the voting booth) when they are taken away. So the right thing to do isn’t the politically expedient thing to do.
@ Jay
I think that’s kind of a silly sweeping generalization that you yourself know is not intellectually honest. To say that Republican = conservative is like saying Democrat = liberal. Not always. Generally, we think of it that way, but it’s not always true. I have voted for Democrats before (locally of course) that were more conservative the the Republican. And I’ll do it again in the future, I’m sure.
Outhouse GoKart
June 29th, 2010
10:56 am
101ST!!
YEA BABY!!!
WHO’s ya daddy!
pat
June 29th, 2010
10:56 am
Really Jay?
“Growth in Federal Tax Revenues From 2003 to 2006
Total federal revenues grew by about $625 billion, or 35 percent, between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2006.”
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8116/05-18-TaxRevenues.pdf
Is the CBO one of your “hysterical” soruces?
Huckabee The Next POTUS 2013
June 29th, 2010
10:56 am
You know what kind of blog it will be when Jay starts it out with “The Truth”, what a joke.
DEEP THROAT
June 29th, 2010
10:56 am
Jay 10:38,
You are always giving enough fact and omitting enough fact to make your side look like something it is not. At the end of Clinton’s term we were sliding into a recession. Although that recession started under Clinton’s watch you and all this other bleeding heart liberals blamed Bush.
Such hypocrite’s.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
10:57 am
“Real Jobs Create Wealth” … much better than fake ones.
BOSCH!!! Mon Ami!!! been waiting for you so I could share yesterday’s Daily Mail headline:
“If ‘The Few’ had defended us like the England team, we’d all be speaking German now”
Bosch
June 29th, 2010
10:57 am
USinUK,
Wow, those headlines in the UK were hard core!!!!!
Southern Comfort
June 29th, 2010
10:57 am
BryanW
June 29th, 2010
10:54 am
Polite golf clap, followed by a loud GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! (in honor of the World Cup)
Bosch
June 29th, 2010
10:58 am
USinUK,
Yes, I saw that one…..wow, you guys don’t mix words.
Fix-It
June 29th, 2010
10:58 am
Gator Joe,
You and your ilk always think that cutting spending only means slashing social security, Medicare and Military cuts. Here is a 2 step program that even a liberal could understand, first, social security, Medicare and Military retirement money that is collected is used ONLY for that purpose. Second since the PEOPLE of this country are having a tough time so should our government jobs, cut all government workers pay by 15% across the board. That is pretty simple why won’t they do it?
Outhouse GoKart
June 29th, 2010
10:59 am
The Obama stimulus was supposedly going to keep unemployment below 8%.
But lettuce not quibble. ITS BUSHs FAULT!!!
Obama is not gonna raise taxes…he is just gonna let the Bush tax cuts expire…ITS BUSHs FAULT!!!
Jay
June 29th, 2010
11:00 am
SoCo, Gov’t DID help create Norfolk Southern’s wealth. The vast giveaways of federal land and other subsidies to the railroad companies contributed enormously to the values of those companies. Gov’t heavily subsidized railroads in the 19th century as a matter of course. Atlanta was built around a railroad that the Georgia Legislature created and subsidized with taxpayers’ money back in the 1830s and 1840s.
ConYea West
June 29th, 2010
11:00 am
George Bush hates black people. ITS BUSHs FAULT!!
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:00 am
pat – “Total federal revenues grew by about $625 billion, or 35 percent, between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2006″
geez, pat – nice of you to totally ignore the 2 Bush recessions.
pat
June 29th, 2010
11:00 am
Call me a liar will you….
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200
Put in pipe, smoke away. Spending is the problem, not income. If you spend more than you make you go in to debt….Not Quantum Mechanics we’re talking about.
Kamchak
June 29th, 2010
11:01 am
USinUK
Funny that they don’t identify exactly what this “goal line technology” is.There has been talk about micro-chipping the ball, and I remember hearing several years ago that Adidas had already developed a chipped ball.
Instant Replay—HELL NO!
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:02 am
Bosch – “Wow, those headlines in the UK were hard core!!!!!”
as are our football fans.
heck, even the BBC commentators were saying they were pathetic, shambolic, dreadful … talk about not mincing words!
Southern Comfort
June 29th, 2010
11:02 am
Kelly
I’m following you better now, but didn’t Clinton and his Republican Congress overhaul welfare? From a pure budget point, we could completely eliminate all welfare (to include subisdies), and that would still not have a signigicant impact on our budget. The problem is that we have chickensh*t politicians who choose to kick the can down the road instead of making serious and sometimes hard decisions on the spot.
We’re responsible for this though, as we keep electing the same breed of idiots over and over.
Miss Informed
June 29th, 2010
11:02 am
Washington, D.C.- The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) conducted a poll of people leaving the AmericaSpeaks 21st Century Town Meeting sessions on June 26th. The poll of 74 participants revealed a surprising lack of knowledge among people who had just sat through a 6.5 hour-long discussion of the budget.
For example, the vast majority had no idea how large the budget deficit had been in the years just before the recession sent it soaring. 84.2 percent believed that the country had large budget deficits (greater than 2.0 percent of GDP) just prior to the recession began at the end of 2007. Only 10.5 percent realized that the deficit was relatively small (1.9 percent of GDP in 2006 and 1.3 percent in 2007) in the years just before the downturn. Fully 48.7 percent answered that the deficit was more than 5.0 percent in the years just before the downturn, which would imply a very large deficit.
This lack of knowledge on key issues raises questions about the usefulness of the exercise. It is striking that people would have such a long period of time to devote to learning about and discussing the country’s budget and economic problems and yet were still seriously misinformed on several key issues. It appears that this effort was not very successful in educating the participants.
Peadawg
June 29th, 2010
11:02 am
“Anyone who thinks Obama and the Dems are the only ones to blame for the deficit is not a serious person.”
Anyone who thinks Bush and the Republicans are the only ones to blame for the deficit is not a serious person. There, fixed your typo!
pat
June 29th, 2010
11:03 am
USinUK, first recession was inherrited by the “New economy” as touted by Clinton. The “dot bombs” if you will.
Aside from that fact, I was talking the raw numbers of pure tax uptake by the government.
Naturally tax revenues drop durring recessions.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:04 am
Kam – there are 2 different technologies in question, I think:
1) goal line cameras and
2) chipping the ball
when our 1H goal wasn’t recognized, the first words out of the commentators’ mouths were “Fifa says they can’t afford the technology – I wonder how much profit they’re going to make from the Cup” …
I think the days without instant replay (at a minimum) are numbered.
(as it should be)
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:05 am
Pat – “first recession was inherrited by the “New economy” as touted by Clinton”
ahhhhh … so this recession WAS Obama’s fault, but the Bush recession was Clinton’s fault.
gottit.
thanks.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:06 am
Pat – “Aside from that fact, I was talking the raw numbers of pure tax uptake by the government”
and, again, you limited your purview to the 3 years (out of
in which there was growth rather than the entire tenure.
cherry-picking …. it’s not just for terrorism intel, anymore.
Southern Comfort
June 29th, 2010
11:06 am
Ok, you got me on that one Jay. However, I believe that the government creates the environment for the companies to flourish most of the time. Whether it’s done because of “campaign contributions” or for the general benefit of the public is up to debate.
pat
June 29th, 2010
11:09 am
USinUK, look at the other link.
Kelly
June 29th, 2010
11:10 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
Here’s the 2010 budget (don’t you love Wiki??). Notice the “Other Mandatory” category. From previous budgets, you can see this includes mainly welfare and unemployment. It was $571 billion in 2010. The “mandatory” category (which I don’t see as mandatory at all, but I digress…) total is $2.2 trillion, including SS, Medicaid/Medicare, and welfare and unemployment. To get rid of those programs or pare them back would be a HUGE help to the deficits, both budget and national.
And I would totally agree with you on our politicians. I wish we had term limits instead of these morons whose only care is the next election. They care nothing about what is best, only what their name is remembered for and reelection.
Nothing is Free
June 29th, 2010
11:11 am
Lord Help Us
The economy failed under that Congress. And now in order to justify that, you want me to list what they did to diminish consumer confidence? Do you really think that is a reasonable question? Do I really need to list the legislature that they enacted?
How about if you list the legislature that the Republicans enacted between 1994 and 2006 that caused what you believe to be the decline of the economy, even though it was still strong when the dims took over.
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2010
11:12 am
the truth, the kind of thing you discover when you cite historical sources rather than hysterical sources.
filed under “why I keep coming back to this otherwise Gawdforsaken place.”
Jay
June 29th, 2010
11:12 am
Pat, if you want to select a particular time frame and look only at that time frame, fine. But the overall numbers for gov’t revenue under Bush are dismal, as I documented. Again, it took five years for revenue to recover just to even.
It seems that you too want to excuse Bush on the grounds of a relatively minor recession that he inherited from Clinton, while refusing to do the same for Obama, even though he inherited a collapsing economy that was in far more serious shape, the worst since the Great Depression.
Why is that?
TM
June 29th, 2010
11:12 am
As I read the chart Bush’s tax cuts make up a substantial part of the deficit after they expire in 2011. Souldn’t that part of the chart be removed after 2011?
Grumpy
June 29th, 2010
11:13 am
Those Fannie and Freddie figures are fantsay. They’re going to be far more damaging than these clowns predict.
Kelly
June 29th, 2010
11:13 am
I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea (except those who are receiving it, of course). It is essentially a Ponzi scheme, where you collect from the young and cross your fingers you have enough left in the pot to give it back to them when they are 62. Amazing that Madoff can get arrested for that, but the government just goes on about its business.
Seriously, reform is needed. Of course, Bush tried that, but no one liked the “everyone save for yourself the way a responsible person would” idea. Personal responsibility? What’s that??
Nothing is Free
June 29th, 2010
11:14 am
Jay
**I also find it fascinating to see you forgive Bush on the grounds that he took office as the internet bubble was bursting, while conservatives absolutely refuse to extend that same forgiveness to Obama, who took office during an economic calamity that makes the internet bubble look like nothing.**
I find it interesting that you continue to want to blame the economy on Bush while ignoring the role that Congress played. Obama inherited a Democratic Congress that had already had two years to screw up the economy.
BADA BING
June 29th, 2010
11:15 am
Huckabee, I agree with you. Whenever someone begins a sentence with “OK, I am going to tell you the truth”, THE NEXT WORDS THAT WILL COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH WILL BE LIES.
Outhouse GoKart
June 29th, 2010
11:15 am
Regardless of fault it will be fun watching Obama attempt to con his way out of this mess.
Jay
June 29th, 2010
11:15 am
“Anyone who thinks Bush and the Republicans are the only ones to blame for the deficit is not a serious person.”
Peadawg, I agree.
BryanW
June 29th, 2010
11:16 am
Peadawg, we have a big budget deficit because the country lives beyond its means, spending more than we take in. The big areas we spend money on are Medicare, defense, Medicaid and interest on the debt. If we are ever to get it under control, people have to make hard choices about spending. We have to ask, for instance, whether we can afford the massive unprecedented defense commitments we have made. But most people don’t understand where the money goes and politicians have told them they can have their cake and eat it too.
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2010
11:16 am
It’s misleading to the point of lying to pick and choose your facts like this, Jay.
[...]
Our current Democratic Congress, which writes the budget, has been in control since 2006.
since 2006?
And you’re accusing Jay of lying?
Outhouse GoKart
June 29th, 2010
11:16 am
Fannie and Freddie need BILLIONS more just to break even.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:17 am
pat – I did look at the other link – and I saw a 27% increase in revenues from FY 2001 to FY 2008 vs, a 75% increase from FY 1993 to FY 2000.
ty webb
June 29th, 2010
11:17 am
OBAMA 2010! Hope…Change…Inherited!
Okay, I’ll concede that this is the bush administratiions fault. their policies set this in motion. Since it’s already been brought up by another commenter, who’s national defense policies preceded Bush’s and just how far into bush’s 1st term did 9/11 happen? If we can hang the current deficit around bush’s neck, Surely we can hang 9/11 around clinton’s. Anyone…Anyone…Bueller…I won’t hold my breath. And I’ll save amvet some time and just say “neocon”.
josef nix
June 29th, 2010
11:17 am
Okay, punching in…time keeper has been reviewing records of our time on blog…
Bosch–There you are!
SoCo
The government created the wealth from the railroads, eh? Even the FEDERAL government…hmmm…
The thread…? The only thing I ever learned about the whole concept of economics was, if you spend more than you take in, it’s in the red and that’s not good. If you spend less than you take in, it’s in the black, and that’s good.
Normal
June 29th, 2010
11:18 am
Bosch, Good Morning!
Got a kitty story for ya. I was in was mart to pick up a bag of litter when I saw one of those laser light thingies that shine the red dot on the floor for cats to chase. I bought it but on the way home I started worrying about a couple of my kitties. One, Hero, is such a scaredy
cat and Baby is souch a “blonde”, I didn’t think they’d like it.
Long story short, my biggest cats, Bubba (19lbs) and Stewart (18 lbs),
and Tiger, (18lbs), took one look at the light moving and ran like their tails were smokin’. Hero, Baby and Taz acted like cats and chased it all over the living room. The funniest thing to me was I would run the light into the fireplace and turn it off. They would sit on the hearth and look all over for the “critter”. What a hoot! Cats, gotta love ‘em…
The reat
Outhouse GoKart
June 29th, 2010
11:18 am
Thats a wrap! LUUUNNNNCCHH!!!!!
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:18 am
“since 2006? And you’re accusing Jay of lying?”
yep. the minute they won the election, they drove up to DC and took over. in fact, the minute they won the election, they hopped in the way-back machine and took over Congress as of 1 January 2006 – that’s just how powerful they are …
oy.
Drifter
June 29th, 2010
11:18 am
You might be right that it’s going to take a combination of reduced spending and tax increases. For many years, I bought into the premise that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and actually increase revenue. Maybe it did, but the Republicans always increased spending or cut taxes further to negate that affect. All you have to do is look at who was in office when the deficit went up and down to see that the only ones who address the deficit are Democrats. I hope Obama gets a handle on it, but so far all he’s done is add to it.
BADA BING
June 29th, 2010
11:19 am
Everyone (including me), look in the mirror. You and I are why this country is failing. Either by our direct action, or inaction. Change your fiscal habits, save more money, use less resources, demand honest government, work harder.
mrs. w.
June 29th, 2010
11:19 am
Okay. It’s Bush’s fault. If I concede that will you kindly tell me where the accountability is at this point with the Obama administration? He is currently the POTUS so he has to have some accountability. Why are we still spending so much of our tax money on so much B.S.?
500 mil. for ex jailbirds to be rehabilitated into being better fathers – how many billion to Brazil? And for what? You know as well as I do that this list could go on and on. You may say that 500 mil. isn’t that much but I wonder how many hours, how many tax payers have to work to pay that much in taxes. It all adds up. We need to only be dealing with the critical issues at this point and STOP using tax payer funded programs to buy votes which is what much of these programs are for in my opinion. Fix what is broken, no matter who broke it and then deal with the less pressing issues.
Kelly
June 29th, 2010
11:19 am
@ ty
Bahaha! Nice Bueller reference.
Doggone/GA
June 29th, 2010
11:19 am
“However, I believe that the government creates the environment for the companies to flourish most of the time.”
Soco…*I* would say: that’s how it SHOULD be, but the problem is that too often the government only creates an environment where SOME companies flourish.
Scooter (the Original)
June 29th, 2010
11:20 am
Bush, Bush, Bush and no mention of Congress… who controls the purse strings and enacts legislation. Factually, there is record of Bush saying that congress needed to tighten oversight of Fannie and Freddie. There is also recors of Barney Frank saying that was the same old GOP unduly picking on poor people, like a typical democrat, and Nancy Pelosi saying democrats shared no part in creating the mess, again, like a typical democrat. Well those toxic assets entered the financial markets somehow and most of them came through Freddie and Fannie. We are trying to blame the financial markets for what they did with a toxin that was delivered to them by liberal underwriting policies.
Ultimately, Bush’s TARP intended to stabilize the financial markets and the stimulus was centralized control over a recovery. The financial markets are wobbly but steady and the green shoots are… where? If Bush was responsible for 9/11 and its economic fallout, as well as recovering from the dot com bust, Obama is responsible for this. Don’t get it twisted Jay.
mm
June 29th, 2010
11:20 am
I believe NIF is really Rush in drag. Never sees a fact he can’t lie his way out of.
neo-Carlinist
June 29th, 2010
11:20 am
when are you people going to wake up and smell the rose colored glasses? I hate to get all Carlinist on your behinds, but why do you think Rahm Emmanuel said, “never let a good crisis go to waste”? (cue Jeopardy music) – because every crisis we’ve endured has been planned, or at the very least “managed” by those who benefit most from a crisis (politicians and their corporate masters). the very of the world “fault” is pointless. this is how we roll (or how “they” roll) in Washington. let’s look at the housing debacle. whether greed, or in response to Clinton’s push, banks began to write loans. in order to “profit” from this, the banks securitized these debts and sold them which made them assets, but the buyers wanted “insurance”. intersetingly enough, the buyers knew this was a bad investment, but they also knew the “insurance” was worth more (think of the $90 million in TARP money that flowed through AIG to Goldman Sachs). I have been hyper-critical of Bush for many things – tax cuts and war cannot be ingored, but does anyone think he was capable of undertstanding this? Hank Paulson (his Sec Tres) understood. The same with the wars. Everyone knew Bush was going to invade Iraq. The dems/liberals who supported him made a cynical, political choice; without considering the economics because, like Cheney and Reagan, to a politician, “deficits don’t matter”. The “boom and bust” nature of our economy is in its dna. It is the rule, not the exception. What do you folks think is behind “short selling”? Investors (actually, gamblers) are betting an asset or business will lose value, and with the power of hedge funds, they can almost make the act a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’re through the looking glass, folks; assets (owning stock, real estate) are liabilities and debts are cash cows for those who trade them.
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2010
11:20 am
Total federal revenues grew by about $625 billion, or 35 percent, between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2006.”
But there was some major, huge, real-big additional expense from Team Bush that swallered up all them recovery-revenue gains, can’t remember what it was… think it rhymed with “kayak”… help me out here…
Southern Comfort
June 29th, 2010
11:22 am
To get rid of those programs or pare them back would be a HUGE help to the deficits, both budget and national.
Those programs have been cut and robbed from so often, I don’t think anyone knows the real purposes for them anymore. Getting rid of them would ease a lot of financial strain on the budget. However, I think the personal finance strain for many Americans would increase at the same time. There’s places where people depend on those programs to survive. Not because they are lazy and choose not to work, but because they’re too old to work or jobs are scarce in their area.
As much as I love Alabama (my home state), I would not move back right now even if I were forced by gunpoint. There’s no way I could work and provide for my family there. The amount of jobs available and the corresponding pay is nowhere near what I have available here in the Metro Atlanta area. I think there’s a need for those programs, just as there’s a need for some of the military spending. We have to have sensible people at the controls to know the difference between good and bad spending.
BADA BING
June 29th, 2010
11:23 am
To all politicians;……When you are in a hole, STOP DIGGING!
jewcowboy
June 29th, 2010
11:23 am
ty webb,
9/11 was 8 months into Bush’s term, and the economic collapse we are trying to dig ourselves out of now was in Bush’s term…
But neither were strictly the fault of Bush and Republicans, and neither are they strictly the fault of Clinton/Obama and Democrats…
I'm here from the government and I'm here to help
June 29th, 2010
11:23 am
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…
Any questions?
Grumpy
June 29th, 2010
11:24 am
TM, you are 100% right, but the lefties don’t have any spine. If those tax cuts are so horrible, they should fully let them expire! CALL THEIR BLUFF, as President Obama has said!
TaxPayer
June 29th, 2010
11:24 am
Kelly,
Your monthly prebate check is in the mail. Sorry for the delay.
pat
June 29th, 2010
11:24 am
Tax reciepts between 2000 and 2008:
2000 2,025.2
2001 1,991.1
2002 1,853.1
2003 1,782.3
2004 1,880.1
2005 2,153.6
2006 2,406.9
2007 2,568.0
2008 2,524.0
The intake in 2008 was 25% higher than in 2000. 2001 – 2003 were recession years. Between 2005 and 2008 it increase signifigantly.
Again for all to see:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/Content/Excel/fed_receipt_sum_historical.xls
scrappy
June 29th, 2010
11:24 am
mrs. w – the 500mil was just proposed and not actually implemented. scratch that one off of your whine list
Nothing is Free
June 29th, 2010
11:24 am
mm
If you have an argument, please post it. If you want to continue to whine, knock yourself out.
I don’t expect a valid argument. If you had what it takes to stage a valid argument, you wouldn’t be posting this same old crap that you always post.
Doggone/GA
June 29th, 2010
11:24 am
“how many billion to Brazil?”
Gotta keep them lies going. Try this answer: none
Sandra
June 29th, 2010
11:25 am
Matti,
You are absolutely correct! Thanks for the courage to say so. When will we look to solutions instead of blame? When will we look to working together instead of espousing political positions that most likely have nothing to do with the pure facts of a situation.
Jay, you were trying to state the facts. Unfortunately, most people never let facts get in the way of politics and hatred.
BADA BING
June 29th, 2010
11:25 am
Don’t boycott BP, keep them in business so they can pay for the spill. Boycott LA and San Fran, support AZ.
John Birch
June 29th, 2010
11:25 am
The Obama administration and Dem congress could have overturned the tax cuts before they were scheduled to run out next year, and O added to the war costs by sending more troops into Afghanistan instead of brining everyone home. Or you could just put up a graph showing the SS and Medicare annual outlays alone exceed the entire deficit every year for the next hundred years. But you won’t because the Dems (Roosevelt and Johnson) are responsible for those debacles.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:25 am
BadaBing – I never thought I’d say this, but well said for your 11:19.
ty webb
June 29th, 2010
11:25 am
Jewcowboy,
nice. you almost sound like a reasonable person. j/k
Southern Comfort
June 29th, 2010
11:26 am
Doggone @ 11:19
Agreed!!!
Kelly @ 11:13
If you can, find someone old enough to remember the Great Depression. You’d be amazed at the viewpoints you’d get from elders who have lived thru different historical events.
pat
June 29th, 2010
11:26 am
I agree Stands for Decibles Bush spent too much, and obama is spending way, waaaaaay waaaaaaaaaay, too much.
Gordon
June 29th, 2010
11:28 am
Jay,
In at least two of your responses, you noted that government revenues adjusted for inflation reached the same level in 2006 as they were in 2001. In other words, the government had the same level of income WITH LOWER TAX RATES. People had more money in their pockets (a good thing), and the government had just as much money (a good thing).
Obviously, tax cuts produce a short term revenue hit to government, but your data seems to confirm that in the long term helps government revenue (or at least not have a detrimental effect). I think it is also true that the more effeciently an economy is performing, there are less negative effects to raising taxes or postive effect to lowering taxes.
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2010
11:28 am
the minute they won the election, they drove up to DC and took over. in fact, the minute they won the election, they hopped in the way-back machine
now that’s a lie.
Everyone knows it was actually the WABAC machine.
ken R
June 29th, 2010
11:29 am
Jay,
The only thing that I learned about Obama is that he is a outright liar, this is what we learned from him.
If this was a conservative chart and it didn’t read what you wanted it to read it sure as hell wouldn’t be on this site.
Please tell the rest of us exactly when you and other liberals will stop the blame game and take responsibility for your actions?????????
The only thing that will help our country is after November when the conservatives take over and create a gridlock, this is what happened during the Clinton era and we were in pretty good shape fiscally.
Please show us that chart.
ty webb
June 29th, 2010
11:30 am
my wayback machine is broken down. Looking on ebay for a cheap flux capacitor.
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2010
11:31 am
I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea
I do.
This guy does.
Neither of us are currently receiving a dime from it. So that’s two you’ve met, now.
Nothing is Free
June 29th, 2010
11:31 am
Sandra
Please learn the difference between blame and causes. We can’t fix anything until we learn why it happened.
Economy booming in 2006. Congress is taken over by Democrats in 2007.
Economy still booming in 2007.
By 2008, the economy had started slowing considerably. Now two years later and being under complete Democratic rule for two years and Congressional rule for almost four years, the economy is in the crapper.
Perhaps a Congress that got in office to FIX things should have actually FIXED things, if anything was actually wrong.
A private sector employee
June 29th, 2010
11:31 am
“I also find it fascinating to see you forgive Bush on the grounds that he took office as the internet bubble was bursting, while conservatives absolutely refuse to extend that same forgiveness to Obama, who took office during an economic calamity that makes the internet bubble look like nothing.
Why is that?”
I can’t speak for Conservatives, I can only reiterate what I wrote previously further up the page:
Obama gets a pass for the first year…
….. and then he has to take the fall for continuing huge unsustainable deficits, entrenched unemployment that was supposed to be solved by a trillion in stimulus spending, rising medicare costs that were supposed to be tamed by cuts that have not materialized, and for a failing war in Afghanistan that he has pretty much neglected.
If my wife charges up our credit cards, I can’t blame her if I then max them out. Bush charged up the nation’s credit card, and Obama is maxing it out. Obama doesn’t get by with saying, “well Bush charged it up so I HAVE to max it out”.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:31 am
“Between 2005 and 2008 it increase signifigantly”
um. well. 17% of 27% is significant, yes … but a 17% increase in and of itself isn’t much to break out into showtunes for (particularly when you compare it to the 51% growth we saw during the Reagan recovery or the 45% growth we saw during the 1977-1980 recovery)
mike
June 29th, 2010
11:32 am
LOL. Jay’s hypocrisy is laughable as usual.
He starts off by sneering, “They give people a story line, an explanation for why the world is as it is and why their side isn’t to blame.”
Then he goes right on to give an explanation for why the world is as it is and why their side isn’t to blame, all the while foolishly sneering at his peers on the right who are doing the exact same thing. Apparently, Jay lacks any sense of self-awareness.
If there is a teeny part of Jay’s brain that functions beyond repitilian partisnship perhaps he would understand that he is exactly the person who he lives to hate, just a liberal version of them.
So of course silly people like Jay or Olbermann will say it is all Bush’s fault and their peers on the right Michael Savage and Glenn Beck will say it is all Obama’s fault. Then the rational and/or gown up people will roll their eyes and wish that all of the above clowns would all just shut up and let serious people try to solve problems. Let the partisan hacks go off on an island where they can live the fantasy that their stupid rigid ideology is the right one and everyone who does not subscribe to it is not only intrinsically wrong, but probably dumb and/or evil too. The rest of us would be far better off without their ignorant partisan dreck.
ken
June 29th, 2010
11:32 am
16,000 employees at the Dept. of energy. What the hey do they do? STOP THE SPENDING. STOP TRYING TO BUY VOTES.
Our government leaders could not run a 10 cent lemonade without messing it up.
jewcowboy
June 29th, 2010
11:33 am
Kelly,
“Of course, Bush tried that, but no one liked the “everyone save for yourself the way a responsible person would” idea. ”
Considering I’ve lost over 40% of the market value of my IRA since 2007, and have just recently started to see it growing again, I would rather not trust my entire fiscal well being when I no longer have earning potential to Wall Street.
Bush’s “reform” was simply a way to reward Wall Street contributors with a government mandated windfall…look at our current health reform for a Democrat example of this if you need one.
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:33 am
dB (and Ty) – so THAT’S how you spell it!!
ahhhh … Rocky and Bullwinkle
which leads to the question – were 2 of the people caught in the spy ring Natasha Fatale and Boris Badinov???
Russ555
June 29th, 2010
11:34 am
Facts don’t like. The figures are accurate. But the past is past. Thing to do now is fix the deficit. Starting next year with the new Congress. We will see who is serious and who is blowing smoke.
josef nix
June 29th, 2010
11:36 am
“I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea”
Allow me to introduce myself…
When we were raising the boys after their parents died, those checks were certainly welcome and made our job a LOT easier…
TaxPayer
June 29th, 2010
11:36 am
So, if we get rid of Social Security and Medicare and the corresponding taxes, exactly what impact will that have on the deficit.
Gordon
June 29th, 2010
11:37 am
Jay write:
“Now remind me again — how did conservatives ACTUALLY behave when they had control of government for so long?”
You mean Republicans. Conservatives wouldn’t have created Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, or the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Democrats run into problems because they do what they say they are going to do. Republicans run into problems because they DON’T do what they say they are going to do.
pat
June 29th, 2010
11:37 am
USinUK, I have already been called a liar by Jay, so I can clearly show that I was in fact correct.
Throwing strawmen at me is not going to falsify the actual, raw numbers.
mike
June 29th, 2010
11:38 am
“Considering I’ve lost over 40% of the market value of my IRA since 2007, and have just recently started to see it growing again, I would rather not trust my entire fiscal well being when I no longer have earning potential to Wall Street.”
Yeah, I want my retirement tied to the fiscal solvency of the US. We all want our fate in the government’s hands and fiscal management. LOL
Better yet, I want my retirement to come from that magical money tree that liberals seem to think exists somewhere. It’s great that you don’t want your money tied to the economy’s performance and all, but let me know when you find that investment vehicle that is not subject to the economy’s performance.
Doggone/GA
June 29th, 2010
11:38 am
““I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea”
I do
mike
June 29th, 2010
11:40 am
“Democrats run into problems because they do what they say they are going to do. Republicans run into problems because they DON’T do what they say they are going to do.”
And mindless partisans make gross overgeneralizations. LOL
neo-Carlinist
June 29th, 2010
11:41 am
I’m here from… yeah, I have a question; what is a job? We keep hearing how this person created X number of jobs, and that one lost Y number of jobs. what is a job? One cannot “create” a job. The market creates jobs and if a person’s skills are no longer required by the market the job vanishes and never comes back. How many blacksmiths do you know? There are a few blacksmith gigs here and there, but Bush didn’t elimninate them (maybe Henry Ford, who was a capitalists, capitalist). Or, when a job can be performed for less, by somebody else (locally, or abroad), the job doesn’t go away. Excuse me, I have to get back to my job.
mike
June 29th, 2010
11:41 am
Doggone/GA –
How do we make SS solvent? Any clue?
Southern Comfort
June 29th, 2010
11:42 am
And mindless partisans make gross overgeneralizations. LOL
You deserve a high-5 for that one!!!!
USinUK
June 29th, 2010
11:42 am
“Throwing strawmen at me is not going to falsify the actual, raw numbers”
strawmen?
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
it isn’t a strawman to refute your labelling 17% growth as “significant”- it’s a comparison to other recoveries which shows that 17% is actually pretty puny – in fact, it’s less than half the growth of the last 3 major recoveries …
… and it was then followed by the worst recession this country has seen in generations.
… “but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play” …
mike
June 29th, 2010
11:43 am
“Or, when a job can be performed for less, by somebody else (locally, or abroad), the job doesn’t go away. ”
Don’t forget when jobs are eliminated due to automation and improved productivity. There is no government plan that can address that.
josef nix
June 29th, 2010
11:43 am
USinUK
“Boris! You fool!”
I had a professor in college who used Boris and Natasha in his class on propaganda and the left’s circumvention of the McCarthy era…
jewcowboy
June 29th, 2010
11:44 am
mike,
“Better yet, I want my retirement to come from that magical money tree that liberals seem to think exists somewhere.”
That is not what I said, and I would hope you would realize that.