About Obama’s ‘inherited deficit’
Every time President Obama is criticized for a federal budget deficit that reaches 13 digits, a familiar chorus shouts back:
“It’s Bush’s fault!”
Well, one of George Bush’s former economic advisers is taking issue with that response. Very detailed issue.
Keith Hennessey, who blogs smartly about a number of topics, including health care legislation, takes on White House budget director Peter Orszag for a speech Orszag gave this week in New York. Hennessey’s rebuttal of Orszag’s claims, about how little control the current administration has over the budget deficit, is long but worth reading in its entirety. Here is a basic summary:
ORSZAG: All told, the entire $9 trillion deficit reflects the failure to pay for policies in the past and the cost of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and the steps we had to take to combat it.
This is brazen. Translation: $9 trillion of deficits over the next ten years are not our fault.
I have three problems with this:
1. The [$9 trillion] number is made up. CBO [the Congressional Budget Office] says it’s half as big.
2. You support continuations of most of the policy changes you attack.
3. You will be in office for (at least) the next four years and can do something about it.
4. Your policies would make the problem you describe worse. CBO says much worse.
As I said, Hennessey’s explanations on each of these points are thorough. And he doesn’t attempt to whitewash the Bush years, though he does recall occasions when the White House tried to be more fiscally responsible than both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. (”More” of course means more responsible relative to Congress, not as much as I, and a number of readers here, would like.)
The bottom line is that it’s within President Obama’s power to reverse some of the decisions he’s effectively complaining about — or at least not to make matters worse.
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17 comments Add your comment
Road Scholar
November 6th, 2009
6:37 am
So if he’s right a $4.5 B deficit is OK? Shoots the heck out of the conserves rantings against any deficit. Oh, by the way, how was Bush going to pay for the Iraq and Afgan war again? The drug bill passed under his watch?
Admittedly the budget deficit has grown, esp due to the stimulus/bailout. But weren’t these also an “unfunded” program initially determined by Bush?
It’s about time to stop looking back, assigning blame, and beating your chest. How will the country reduce our debt? What do the repubs propose not counting healthcare?
Sighko Sis
November 6th, 2009
8:17 am
So true, Road Scholar. And let’s not forget the enormous tax cuts for the wealthy.
jconservative
November 6th, 2009
8:46 am
The way the Federal government keeps books makes Bush’s defenders job difficult. The FY 2009 which just ended 9/30/2009 belongs to Bush per the governments book keeping. Bush introduced the FY 2009 budget in March 2008 & it belongs to him.
Take out the TARP & the Stimulus spending and the deficit, although extremely high, would not be the “through the roof” it is today.
Joan
November 6th, 2009
9:26 am
Pouring good money after bad hasn’t solved anything either, so why do the liberals keep on doing it. How long do they think they can piggy back off of George Bush? What a bunch of twits.
Intown Lib
November 6th, 2009
9:37 am
Must we fall into this conversation in the first couple years of EVERY Presidential administration? Reagan said the debt was the fault of tax & spend Democrats. Democrats blamed Reagan’s budgets. Really it was every administration since WWII (Dems and Repubs alike). Clinton blamed Reagan-Bush then handed W. a balanced budget but still a huge national debt. W. recklessly lowered taxes and allowed huge deficits to pay for 2 wars and to overstimulate consumer spending. Obama and W. spent huge sums to avoid another Great Depression. Now Repubs suddenly are fiscally conservative again, just in time to oppose a Democratic president’s Keynesian economic policies. This whole conversation is just intellectually boring.
David Axelfraud
November 6th, 2009
10:43 am
Yep, everything is Bush’s fault.
On another note, America has had its first terrorist attack under Barrack Hussein Obama.
Ft. Hood suspect reportedly shouted `Allahu Akbar’
FORT HOOD, Texas – Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — an Arabic phrase for “God is great!” — before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091106/ap_on_re_us/us_fort_hood_shooting
Cynthia Tucker has a $hitty column about how Islam is not bad.
David Axelfraud
November 6th, 2009
10:51 am
“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction,”
Barrack Hussein Obama
Chris Broe
November 6th, 2009
12:04 pm
KW is…RIGHT!! If you take out the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, and ignore the bailout, then the deficit is hardly worth mentioning.
Like the way the conservatives leave out the cost of food/fuel when it figures the CPI. It’s encouraging to know that there ain’t never been no inflation for nobody, no how. (no way)
When did the Germans stop blaming Der Heetler for the split-condition of their country after WW2? East Germany. West Germany. I can imagine an election debate in 1952 Germany: “Du bist ein sweinhunt! Ich been ein decider!” —— NEIN! Der Heetler ist ein decider!!!!
(the crowd starts rioting in their leiderhosen)
David Axelfraud
November 6th, 2009
12:21 pm
Obama’s Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting
A bad week for Democrats compounded by an awful moment for Barack Obama.
President Obama didn’t wait long after Tuesday’s devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a “shout-out” to “Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner.” Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/A-Disconnected-President.html
Joan
November 6th, 2009
1:15 pm
Axelfraud: Obama was late in discussing the Ft. Hood situation because his teleprompter had to be refreshed. He couldn’t pick his nose without it.
NetBanker
November 6th, 2009
2:37 pm
I’m with Road Scholar on this one. Who gives a hoot who spent more?! The fact of the matter is that we have a massive debt and have been borrowing to fund our government for too long and it’s affecting our economy and chances of recovery. No one is talking about how weak the dollar has become and how foreign investors are becoming very unwilling to continue to lend the U.S. money to keep funding spending we can’t afford to pay for. Eventually the bill comes due, but our government isn’t doing a blessed thing about it! This nation’s financial house needs to be put in order or we’re heading for bankruptcy and a major decline.
Fraud-Bama
November 6th, 2009
2:50 pm
Joan – good for you, you are right on point. Fraud-bama has been spending plenty over the last 10 months. There is a great cartoon that is so true – it’s a picture of Obammy sitting at his desk with his feet up, he has no papers in his in box, none in his out box, but his Blame Bush box is filled to the top. Change in 2010 and 2012, Change we are looking forward to.
David Axelfraud
November 6th, 2009
3:12 pm
Joan, on the contrary, I think he went off key. His teleprompter would have told him to stay on course but he had to dismiss it and open up by showing his true communistic narcissistic colors.
bob
November 6th, 2009
4:56 pm
jconservative, good idea, just take out the defecit spending and the defecit is really not bad. Lets just ignore the 9 trillion projected also, without it, the defecit is not bad.
dewstarpath
November 8th, 2009
2:15 pm
- I think I’ve figured David Axelfraud out.
He (or she) suffers from an impediment – not of speech,
but of thoughtful analysis of even the simplest variety,
and seeks to explain his distorted world view with insults
and data so obscure and irrelevant it would make even
the most wonkish Sunday-morning political pundit cringe.
I have a new name for this phenomenon – it’s called IVONICS.
IVONICS – (n.) 1. A portmanteau of “ivory” and “phonics”.
2. The use of extreme rhetoric in a manner that judges
every issue discussed using race or political bias to win
an argument.
Handicapping health-care legislation’s odds in the Senate | Kyle Wingfield
November 9th, 2009
3:13 pm
[...] Hennessey, to whom I linked last week talking about Bush deficits vs. Obama deficits, today writes a more dispassionate take on the odds of different scenarios. This is an update on [...]
MrLiberty
November 10th, 2009
1:42 pm
The only real take home message here is that both Republicans and Democrats care little about the limits the Constitution was supposed to impose on the Federal Government. As a result, their records on size and spending are both appalling. Unfortunately it is only the folks who gave up on the failed two party system a long time ago and now work for principles instead of politics that have enough objectivity to admit these sordid truths.
Since the founding of the Federal Reserve in 1913, this country’s government, under both republican and democrat administrations has spend away the future and the productivity of its citizens all to the benefit of the bankers and Wall Street. There has been no free market, and aside from libertarians, there has been no serious force even working for one.
It is truly sad when the essence of real discussion in this country consists of comparisons of who was worse on spending along with reminders of how much worse other countries are as far as civil liberties are concerned. Never is brought up whether we still respect the constitution, whether any of this government is authorized under it, whether any of the spending is worthwhile, or why our country has drifted SO far from the freedoms it once enjoyed.
Far too many Bush supporters want to just forget the past 8 years as old hat, but the truth is that most of his blind loyalists that voted for all this wasteful and economy destroying legislation (and wars) are still in Congress now claiming to be for small government and less spending (of course only because the president is now a democrat).
We must look back at history so we know which idiots deserve to be thrown out of office (and brought up on charges if there was any justice in this country).
Look in the mirror and see what you were willing to support under Bush. How much have those agenda items cost us, and how much will they cost in the future? How different really are they from the horrible proposals from these jerks?
Our country didn’t sink every further under every administration because the people rose up and stood up for the constitution and their rights. They bent over like every other generation before them and said “yessir masssir you are all knowing because you are a republican/democrat.”
Obama isn’t to blame. Bush isn’t to blame. America is to blame.