Heritage: Past Deficits v. Obama's Deficits

[spursncowboys]

Past Deficits vs. Obama’s Deficits in Pictures


[/URL]


http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/obama_budget_deficit_2010.jpg (http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/05/past-deficits-vs-obamas-deficits-in-pictures/print/)
Releasing his budget this Monday, President Barack Obama told the American people (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-budget):

We won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight, given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help. … Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century.
But not only does President Obama’s budget fail to reduce deficits “overnight”, his budget actually moves them in the opposite direction. President Obama’s budget would (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2787.cfm):


Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;
Borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010;
Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020;

The chart above compares the President’s budget deficit projections to the Congressional Budget Office’s budget deficit projections under current law. In other words, the policy changes embodied in President Obama’s 2011 Budget puts our country $2.5 trillion deeper in debt by 2020 than it other wise would be if current law were left unchanged.


Now the President is apparently arguing that his trillions of dollars in additional deficit spending are needed to “invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century.”


This statement goes to the core of the fundamental difference between leftists and conservatives in this country: liberals belief economic growth comes from wise investments by government experts; conservatives believe that economic growth stems from millions of Americans having the freedom to make their own economic decisions everyday.

President Obama’s bailouts, massive stimulus spending, and other dangerous interventionist policies (some of which began in 2008) have made Americans less economically free. The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom (http://www.heritage.org/Index/) analyzes just how economically “free” a country is, and this year America saw a steep and significant decline, enough to make it drop altogether from the “free” category, the first time this has happened in the 16 years we’ve been publishing these indexes. The United States dropped to “mostly free.” As the Index shows, lack of freedom has a direct, negative effect on job growth. It should be no surprise that President Obama’s policies have taken us down the path to fewer jobs and record deficits.
[url]http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/05/past-deficits-vs-obamas-deficits-in-pictures/

[mogrovejo]

And Obama's revenues projections are wildly optimistic.

[Winehole23]

They were last year, too. Surprised?

[boutons_deux]

Heritage stink tank chimes in with all the other Repug/right-wing noise-makers, politicizing the deficit to harm Magic Negro, while blocking his attempts to right the economy, to regulate Wall St.

It's nothing but sinister, hypocritical, distracting scare-mongering, which is the only "policy" Repugs have to offer.

Where were the stink tanks when Repugs were ballooning the deficit (and handed to MN) with two botched wars and cutting taxes, and handing out corporate give-aways?

They were fucking nowhere, since it was their side running up the deficit.

[TeyshaBlue]

Heritage stink tank chimes in with all the other Repug/right-wing noise-makers, politicizing the deficit to harm Magic Negro, while blocking his attempts to right the economy, to regulate Wall St.

It's nothing but sinister, hypocritical, distracting scare-mongering, which is the only "policy" Repugs have to offer.

Where were the stink tanks when Repugs were ballooning the deficit (and handed to MN) with two botched wars and cutting taxes, and handing out corporate give-aways?

They were fucking nowhere, since it was their side running up the deficit.

lol @ Obama regulating Wall Street. :lmao

[boutons_deux]

The Repugs are blocking all attempts by anybody to regulate Wall St, while Wall St is intimidating politicians who talk about regulation by threating to give 10s of $Ms to their business-friendly opponents.

What is the Repug "policy" proposal for regulating Wall St?

[coyotes_geek]

boutons once again forgetting which party is in control of the white house and congress............

[TeyshaBlue]

The Repugs are blocking all attempts by anybody to regulate Wall St, while Wall St is intimidating politicians who talk about regulation by threating to give 10s of $Ms to their business-friendly opponents.

What is the Repug "policy" proposal for regulating Wall St?

I am not aware of one. But, I'm also unaware of a political party that goes by the name "Repug".

Are the people blocking all attempts strictly "Repugs", or are "Repugs" a member of the un-named population that is blocking attempts? Let's see what you can see.

[DarrinS]

The Repugs are blocking all attempts by anybody to regulate Wall St, while Wall St is intimidating politicians who talk about regulation by threating to give 10s of $Ms to their business-friendly opponents.

What is the Repug "policy" proposal for regulating Wall St?


_MGT_cSi7Rs

[mogrovejo]

I can't wait for Sen. Schumer (D) to run on a "more regulation and taxes on Wall St." platform this November.

[Winehole23]

Are you clairvoyant about the results too? Don't leave us hanging

http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/zoltan1.jpg

[TeyshaBlue]

http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/zoltan1.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/teyshablue/zoltan1.jpg

[Winehole23]

Yeah. I should probably take a break. Even for me that's unusually cheap.

[TeyshaBlue]

More in reference to the phone. My MSPaint skillz aint all that.:lol

[Winehole23]

Yeah, I think Zoltan talks to you on the phone, even though he's *sitting* right in front of you.

[TeyshaBlue]

Tom Hanks disagrees. :lol


*edit* Pffft. THat was Zoltar that Tom Hanks talked with. :depressed

[Winehole23]

Movie reference?

[TeyshaBlue]

edit....doh!

[spursncowboys]

down down baby down by the roallercoaster.
sweet sweet baby sweet sweet don't let me go.
...

[spursncowboys]

Also in BHO budget is the lowest pay raise for the military in a long time.

[Winehole23]

Big?

[TeyshaBlue]

Yup.

[Winehole23]

fWZ4c66V1P4

[TeyshaBlue]

fWZ4c66V1P4

Rub it in why don't ya? :lol

[Winehole23]

Don't sweat it. Close enough. Zoltar works just as well.

[mogrovejo]

http://keithhennessey.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/obamabudget2011spending_thumb.png



Again, green is last year’s proposal, blue is this year’s proposal, and dotted pink (30-years) and red (50-years) are historic averages.
We can conclude:


The President is proposing significantly more spending than he proposed last year: 1.8% of GDP more in 2011, and roughly 1 percentage point more each year over time.
Spending is and will continue to be way above historic averages.

At its lowest point in the next decade federal spending would still be 1.7 percentage points above the 30-year historic average. Over the next decade, President Obama proposes spending be 12% higher as a share of the economy than it has averaged over the past three decades.

Remember that fiscal policy is not just about the budget deficit, the difference between spending and taxes. It’s also about the size of government: how much is the government spending, and therefore taking from the private sector?


http://keithhennessey.com/2010/02/01/bigger-budget/

[Winehole23]

Yeah, well the fracaso was epochal so go figure.

[Winehole23]

You can't really leave out the epochal socialization of risk. The finance and banking sectors were bailed out of default. We almost had failure of our system of payment, according to lore and legend.

[Winehole23]

Can you really imagine what that means to a citizen of the US?

[Winehole23]

Everything is predicated on the promise to pay.

[Winehole23]

In God we trust all others pay cash.

[boutons_deux]

cherry picking, ie, picking the Magic Negro "deficit" plans out of context of the Banksters' Depression and the resulting HUGE LOSS in tax revenues.

Just another tactic from the stink tanks to blame Magic Negro for everything, while hiding/exonerating the true culprits (who finance the stink tanks).

[Winehole23]

The true culprits who finance the stink tanks do what again?

Private money can do whatever it wants. That's why we love philanthropy, public art and so forth. What's wrong with stink tanks?

[Wild Cobra]

http://keithhennessey.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/obamabudget2011spending_thumb.png

I wonder what the 30 and 50 year averages are if you do a 1 sigma statistical average? More like 18% to 19% aren't they?

[Winehole23]

You wonder? Post it.

[boutons_deux]

"stink tanks do what again"

... get paid to put out toxic propaganda supporting the oligarchy's objectives of destroying government, destroying democracy (disenfranchisement of citizens), promoting the corporatocracy, destroying the rule of law, siding with the wealthy in the class/wealth war.
"What's wrong with stink tanks?"

bona fides think tanks are useful. Conservative stink tanks? see above

[boutons_deux]

http://www.truthout.org/sites/all/themes/truth/images/logo.gif (http://www.truthout.org/)

MONDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2010


The Budget Deficit Crisis Crisis

Monday 08 February 2010
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
(http://www.truthout.org/the-budget-deficit-crisis-crisis56749?print)
The country faces a serious crisis in the form of a manufactured crisis over the budget deficit. This is a crisis because concerns over the size of the budget deficit are preventing the government from taking the steps needed to reduce the unemployment rate. This creates the absurd situation where we have millions of people who are unemployed, not because of their own lack of skills or unwillingness to work, but because people like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke mismanaged the economy.

The basic story is very simple and one that we have known since Keynes. We need to create demand in the economy. The problem is that, as a society, we are not spending enough to keep the economy running at capacity. Prior to the collapse of the housing bubble, the economy was driven by booms in both residential and nonresidential construction. It was also driven by a consumption boom that was in turn fueled by the trillions of dollars of ephemeral housing bubble wealth.

With the collapse of the bubbles, both residential and nonresidential construction have collapsed. There is a huge amount of excess supply in both markets, which will leave construction badly depressed for years into the future. Together, we have lost well over $500 billion in annual demand from the construction sector. In addition, the loss of the ephemeral wealth created by the bubble has sent consumption plummeting, leading to the loss of an additional $500 billion a year in annual demand.

The hole from the collapse of construction and the falloff in consumption is more than $1 trillion a year. The government is the only force that can make up this demand. However, this means running large deficits. To boost the economy, the government must spend much more than it taxes.

The stimulus approved by Congress last year was a step in the right direction this way, but it was much too small. After making adjustments for some technical tax fixes and pulling out spending for later years, the stimulus ended up being around $300 billion a year. Even this exaggerates the impact of the government sector, since close to half of the stimulus is being offset by cutbacks and tax increases at the state and local level.
The answer in this situation should be simple: more stimulus. But the deficit hawks have gone on the warpath insisting that we have to start worrying about bringing the deficit down. They have filled the airwaves, print media and cyberspace with solemn pronouncements about how the deficit threatens to impose an ungodly burden on our children.

This is of course complete nonsense. Larger deficits in the current economic environment will only increase output and employment. In other words, larger deficits will put many of our children's parents back to work. Larger deficits will increase the likelihood that parents can keep their homes and provide their children with the health care, clothing, and other necessities for a decent upbringing. But the deficit hawks would rather see our children suffer so that we can have smaller deficits.

In spite of the deficit hawks' whining, history and financial markets tell us that the deficit and debt levels that we are currently seeing are not a serious problem. The current projections show that, even ten years out on our current course, the ratio of debt to GDP will be just over 90 percent. The ratio of debt to GDP was over 110 percent after World War II. Instead of impoverishing the children of that era, the three decades following World War II saw the most rapid increase in living standards in the country's history.

We can also look to Japan, which now has a debt to GDP ratio of more than 180 percent. Investors are not running from Japanese debt. They are willing to hold long-term debt at interest rates close to 1.5 percent. In our own case, the 3.7 percent interest rate on long-term Treasury bonds remains near a historic low.

The story is that we are forcing people to be out of work - unable to properly care for their children - because people like billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson and his followers are able to buy their way into and dominate the public debate. The reality is that we have an unemployment crisis today, not a deficit crisis. The only crisis related to the deficit is that people with vast sums of money (i.e. the people who wrecked the economy) have been able to use that money to make the deficit into a crisis.

===========

The deficit "crisis" is manufactured now by deficit hawks who were perfectly silent as dubya manufactured his own deficit by converting Clinton's budget surplus into deficit by starting and botching two wars while simultaneously cutting taxes and keeping inflating the housing bubble by blocking states' attempts to stop predatory lending.

[TeyshaBlue]

The true culprits who finance the stink tanks do what again?

Private money can do whatever it wants. That's why we love philanthropy, public art and so forth. What's wrong with stink tanks?

If boutonsky doesn't like them, then they're wrong. Honestly, you didn't already know this?:lol

lol @ truthout.borg as objective.:lmao:lmao

[boutons_deux]

"If boutonsky doesn't like them, then they're wrong"

Please list what conservatives and Repugs have gotten right?

[TeyshaBlue]

"If boutonsky doesn't like them, then they're wrong"

Please list what conservatives and Repugs have gotten right?

I don't know about Repugs. Never heard of em.

I'm sure truthout.borg can help you out tho.:lmao

[mogrovejo]

The basic story is very simple and one that we have known since Keynes. We need to create demand in the economy. The problem is that, as a society, we are not spending enough to keep the economy running at capacity.

http://www.greek-islands.us/athens/athens-history/athens2004.gif

[Winehole23]

Too oblique. Again.

Just guessing, the Greek crisis isn't even on the radar for most of the posters on this forum.

[coyotes_geek]

Too oblique. Again.

Just guessing, the Greek crisis isn't even on the radar for most of the posters on this forum.

A safe assumption.

[Winehole23]

mogrovejo seems to prefer to be oblique and hoard the knowledge, rather than sharing with all of us. In another thread, I posted a link to it because he did not.

[Winehole23]

For some reason, he prefers not to share.