Can someone explain why this is called a "stimulus"

[Underdog]

The problem isn't how we're taxed so much as how we spend our taxes (which obviously dictates how we're taxed)... I want an itemized receipt accounting for every taxed penny spent and a mandatory death sentence for anyone who lines their own pockets with our tax dollars...


We'd be out of this financial debacle in a week...

[Arne]

Originally Posted by Underdog

The problem isn't how we're taxed so much as how we spend our taxes (which obviously dictates how we're taxed)... I want an itemized receipt accounting for every taxed penny spent and a mandatory death sentence for anyone who lines their own pockets with our tax dollars...


We'd be out of this financial debacle in a week...

Quite true. But still, you don't want this limited amount that they would still tax you to be taken in thousands of different taxes. One sales tax does it as well.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

finally, we have come to the core of the issue !

It's true...I don't understand the definition of hypocrisy anymore. Maybe there's an obama dictionary and a regular person dictionary.

Does anyone have a copy of the obama dictionary so I can understand newspeak?

[Mavdog]

you don't want to understand. you refuse to go with anything obama says or does.

you support the idea of federal spending cuts, yet you atttack obama for saying that very thing.

hmm, who looks hypocritical...

obama submits his first budget at the end of this month. let's see what he actually proposes to determine if he's just talking, if he proposes cuts in spending will you give him due credit?

[dude1394]

I just don't get it mavie. He talks about spending cuts while increasing the deficit by 1 trillion dollars.

And I'm somehow criticizing him unfairly? If he wants to cut spending all he had to do was NOT sign that stimulus...

[dude1394]

[dude1394]

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/70751/

WELL, IT SHOULD BE EASIER TO HALVE IT NOW THAT IT’S SO BIG: Obama wants to halve budget deficit.

[DirkFTW]

The taxman cometh.

[dude1394]

Who woulda thunk it. Half the deficit by....raising taxes in what is the worst recession in our lifetime.

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq …

[Mavdog]

there were about $250B in tax cuts in the stimulus bill btw.

this was a part of his platform, rescinding the tax cuts on $250K and above. the business taxes aren't known yet, the statements from the administration say no new taxes on business, better enforcement and ending exemptions.

guess we'll see next week.

[wmbwinn]

a lot of the tax cuts are:
1)payroll tax elimination which gives you 8-64 dollars per pay period depending on your salary. Big Whoop
2)tax credits which is another way of saying welfare. It is giving money to people who don't pay taxes anyway. It is turning the IRS into an agent of the welfare state

___________________________

the primary mechanism to "reduce the deficit from GW Bush by half" is to:
1)cut the military budget by 25%
2)eliminate loopholes and other mechanisms for the business world to avoid taxation

Obama intends to fund his social agenda by gutting the military and effectively increasing business taxation. Technically, you can accurately say that he said he would leave the corporate tax rate alone. But, by changing the code to eliminate deductions and other legal mechanisms to avoid taxation, you are effectively raising taxes. No matter how you spin it, Obama intends to remove money from the economy, taking it from the business sector.

Huckabee and McCain slaughtered Romney in the primary race over the same issue where Romney had eliminated tax loopholes but "did not raise the tax rate" (Romney quote). Huck and Mac accurately pointed out that the effect is a tax hike.

[wmbwinn]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

you don't want to understand. you refuse to go with anything obama says or does.

you support the idea of federal spending cuts, yet you atttack obama for saying that very thing.

hmm, who looks hypocritical...

obama submits his first budget at the end of this month. let's see what he actually proposes to determine if he's just talking, if he proposes cuts in spending will you give him due credit?

Oh, he is going to try to live up to his words. He intends to "halve the deficit spending" by gutting the military budget and effectively raising the business/corporate tax rate by eliminating legal loop holes. 1/4 of the military budget is a ton of money. And, he will rake in another ton of money by effectively increasing the corporate tax rate in a recession (bad, bad idea).

Classic far Left wing ideology. Military bad. Big business owes us.

[dude1394]

So can I call theOne unpatriotic yet?

http://www.dcexaminer.com/politics/O...-spending.html

Back in 2006, when Democrats were hoping to win control of the House and Senate, party leaders worked themselves into a righteous outrage over the issue of out-of-control federal spending. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the Republican budget “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” because it increased the amount of U.S. debt held by foreign countries. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of going on “an unprecedented and dangerous borrowing spree” and declared GOP leadership “the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of our country … no other president or Congress even comes close.”

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, are seen in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009, before they addressed the National Governors Association regarding the economic stimulus package. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

You won’t find too many defenders of George W. Bush’s record on spending these days, even among Republicans. But a check of historical tables compiled by the Office of Management and Budget shows that the spending that so distressed Pelosi and Reid seems downright modest today. After beginning with a Clinton-era surplus of $128 billion in fiscal year 2001, the Bush administration racked up deficits of $158 billion in 2002, $378 billion in 2003, $413 billion in 2004, $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006, $162 billion in 2007, and $410 billion in 2008.

The current administration would kill to have such small numbers. President Barack Obama is unveiling his budget this week, and, in addition to the inherited Bush deficit, he’s adding his own spending at an astonishing pace, projecting annual deficits well beyond $1 trillion in the near future, and, in the rosiest possible scenario, a $533 billion deficit in 2013, the last year of Obama’s first term.

And what about the national debt? It increased from $5 trillion to $10 trillion in the Bush years, leading to dramatically higher interest costs. “We pay in interest four times more than we spend on education and four times what it will cost to cover 10 million children with health insurance for five years,” Pelosi said in 2007. “That’s fiscal irresponsibility.”

Now, under Obama, the national debt — and the interest payments — will increase at a far faster rate than during the Bush years.

“We thought the Bush deficits were big at the time,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, told me this week as he prepared to attend Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit. “But this is going to make the previous administration look like rank amateurs. We could be adding multiple trillions to the national debt in the first year.”

At some point last week, the sheer velocity of Obama’s spending proposals began to overwhelm even experienced Washington hands. In the span of four days, we saw the signing of the $787 billion stimulus bill, the rollout of a $275 billion housing proposal, discussion of Congress’s remaining appropriations bills (about $400 billion) and word of a vaguely-defined financial stabilization plan that could ultimately cost $2 trillion. When representatives of GM and Chrysler said they might need $21 billion more to survive, it seemed like small beer.

The numbers are so dizzying that McConnell and his fellow Republicans are trying to “connect the dots” — that is, to explain to the public how all of those discrete spending initiatives add up to a previously unthinkable total. Obama’s current spending proposals, Republicans point out, will cost more than the United States spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the general war on terror and Hurricane Katrina in the last seven years. And that’s before you throw in the $2 trillion fiscal stabilization plan.

“This is big government, man,” McConnell exclaimed, his matter-of-fact manner giving way to sheer amazement. “It makes previous attempts at big government pale in comparison — they’re going to go beyond the New Deal and the Great Society by far.”

The new spending guarantees that the problems that so disturbed Pelosi and Reid just a couple of years ago — high interest payments and an increasing number of foreign debt-holders — will get worse. Yet so far, the Democratic leaders have refrained from using words like unpatriotic, irresponsible and dangerous to describe Obama’s budget.

Of course, they would never use such phrases to attack their own team. But the most important thing to understand about Pelosi and Reid is that while their rhetoric has changed, their substance hasn’t. Back in the Bush days, when they were denouncing Republican over-spending, they were also pushing the congressional leadership to spend more, not less, on just about everything. Now, returned to power, they’re doing the same thing. Only bigger.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

So can I call theOne unpatriotic yet?

You can call yourself unpatriotic for standing against your president (lord knows I was called that more than once after standing against Bush for 8 years...)

You're the bad guy now - you hate America...

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Underdog

You can call yourself unpatriotic for standing against your president (lord knows I was called that more than once after standing against Bush for 8 years...)

You're the bad guy now - you hate America...

Love america...can't really stand socialism. Sorta fundamental differences to me...

Hell I've been called a heck of a lot worse than patriotic from a heck of a lot better folks than yourself.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Love america...can't really stand socialism. Sorta fundamental differences to me...

Hell I've been called a heck of a lot worse than patriotic from a heck of a lot better folks than yourself.

If America is socialist and you hate socialism...... doesn't that mean you hate America?


Also - I think you meant "unpatriotic" as opposed to "patriotic" in your last statement (or was that a Freudian Slip?)

[mcsluggo]

i wouldn't necessarily call dude unpatriotic.... i would call him this guy:

(go to the 1:03:46 mark)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...anie+submarine

<<< although dude's arguments lack the nuance and subtlety of the blue guy with the green chin >>>

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Underdog

If America is socialist and you hate socialism...... doesn't that mean you hate America?


Also - I think you meant "unpatriotic" as opposed to "patriotic" in your last statement (or was that a Freudian Slip?)

Where did I say america was socialist? Only that our current president is one.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Where did I say america was socialist? Only that our current president is one.

Where did I say that America was a bunch misguided, blood-thirsty, power-hungry murderers? Only that our former president was one...

(but that certainly didn't stop anyone on Team Red from calling me unpatriotic for the last 8 years, did it?)


Welcome to the ass-end of Democracy - now STFU and take your medicine like a big boy for the next 4 years...

[Arne]

Countercyclical Quackery

by Morgan Reynolds


"In medical science, practices that have no chance to cure but are likely to kill a patient would be declared quackery," declares author Michael Lundeen, "but in ‘political science,’ quacks like Greenspan and Bernanke are the go-to guys to keep the entrenched bureaucracy – entrenched."

Very true and this insight highlights the most mind-boggling aspect of all the ongoing, disastrous Keynesian interventions, namely, the collective failure to learn from obvious past experience. Professional economists are the most guilty parties of all. For many years dominant professional opinion held that postwar prosperity, although characterized by mild downturns, was a Keynesian tour de force. Then its reputation began to fade because of the "stagflation" of the 1970’s, an inexplicable phenomenon under basic Keynesian theory, plus the incoherence and ad hoc nature of Keynesian and neo-Keynesian theory. Today however it seems as if none of that happened and Keynes is back, bigger than ever.

But have we misunderstood Keynes? Not at all. In his watershed 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he argued that classical analysis did not apply to "the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous" (p. 3). The cause of depression, Keynes concluded, is that "effective demand is deficient" (p. 380). Keynes dismissed blaming overpricing of labor for mass unemployment as well as distorted pricing fueled by credit expansion as the cause of malinvestment, boom and bust. He explicitly denounced "competitive wage-rate reductions" and competitive international wage cutting. He claimed the world would not "much longer tolerate the unemployment which, apart from brief intervals of excitement, is associated – and, in my opinion, inevitably associated – with present-day capitalistic individualism" (p. 381). He found that "a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment will prove the only means of securing an approximation to full employment" (p. 378).

Prices performed no explicit coordination role in Keynes’s theory (and this guy is declared a "great economist"?) aside from an interest rate that might bring saving and investment into equality, though not necessarily at a full employment level. According to Keynes, investment must be stimulated to the point that corresponds to full employment through low-interest rate policies. Sustained, artificially low interest rates? Sounds familiar. An artificial boom followed by an inevitable bust? Not in Keynes’s world, no, because the cycle "is mainly due to the way in which the marginal efficiency of capital fluctuates" (p. 313) in its mysterious way. So Keynes leaves us with no causal theory of the trade cycle except that, putting aside his evasions and ambiguities, investment spending fluctuates.

Many sensible authors have recently cited the Great Depression and post-1990 Japan to show that Keynesian "remedies" not only fail to restore the market economy back to health but rather deepen the disease. Equally instructive is the conversion from a U.S. wartime economy that took place from 1945 to 1947. The full story is available in the pathbreaking book, Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America (1993) by Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway.

Back in the day, Keynesian economists had predicted a severe postwar depression once the stimulus of government spending on war ended. Fiscal policy swung dramatically from "stimulus" to "contraction" in Keynesian terms. The 1945 deficit was a staggering 22 percent of GDP, equivalent to $3 trillion today, and the deficit had been even higher at 28 percent of GDP in 1943. In 1947–49, however, there were budget surpluses. By the first quarter of 1946, government purchases dropped by two-thirds! Overall, federal spending plunged from $93 billion in 1945 to $55 billion in 1946 and $35 billion in 1947. But the predicted depression never came; there was, instead, a rather smooth adjustment to peacetime full employment. Common predictions of 9 million unemployed turned out to be four times too high.

Keynesian economists then devised an ad hoc explanation – a "pent-up" demand for consumer goods – to account for the smooth adjustment to plunging government spending and expanding peacetime employment and production. Households supposedly spent and consumed America rich. How? Based on an inversion of Keynes’s corrupt statement of Say’s law of markets: namely, "demand creates its own supply." Yet the facts refute this interpretation. Between 1944 and 1947, personal consumption expenditures replaced only one-quarter of the decline in so-called autonomous expenditures – that is, the sum of government purchases of goods and services, gross private domestic investment, and net exports. Consumption spending remained below predicted levels all the way to mid-1947 after demobilization and conversion from military to civilian production had been virtually completed. Furthermore, consumption cannot precede production, to state the obvious. Consumers cannot purchase goods that do not exist. Before revival of mass production of civilian goods, producers had to convert from wartime to peacetime manufacturing and services, that is, they had to invest.

Why was the transition so smooth? Keynes’s prescription to spend ourselves rich is not only contrary to common sense but the facts and proper economic theory. By contrast, a classical analysis highlights three causes for postwar conversion:

Government retreated and thereby freed up the price system to perform its coordination function.
Government swung from massive, wasteful spending and borrowing to a smaller wastrel and even a net saver-lender, thereby reducing interest rates and stimulating a civilian investment boom.
Real wage rates fell, stimulating civilian reemployment because labor’s "price was right."
Keynes was right about one thing: "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else." Keynes is resounding proof of the power of wrong ideas. I leave it to the reader as an exercise to apply the lesson of the 1940’s to the consequences of today’s stimulus policies and their conceivable if unlikely cessation.

February 24, 2009

Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D. [send him mail], is professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, T

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds20.html

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Underdog

Welcome to the ass-end of Democracy...

quotable. ;-)

[mcsluggo]

that is a terrible article, that displays either the author's fundamental misunderstanding of "Keynesian stimulus" (whether you like those packages or not) or else the author's assumption that nobody else understands the idea, and that he would be able to draw a straw man and then have a gleeful ceremony burning his construct.

Keynesians believe that prices play no coordination role? in what universe?

He presents the case that expansionary spending had at best no effect in mitigating (or ending) the great depression as fact. There is certainly not a consensus viewpoint in his direction on this issue... if anyhing there is a near consensus on the opposite viewpoint.

Keynesians believe that stimuluses should go on forever? (and so "predicted a severe postwar depression once the stimulus of government spending on war ended.") I don't think so. Whether you believe them or not, Keynesians believe that prices coordinate the market in the long run, however occasionally the market can get temporarily trapped in a short run non-optimal sub-equilibrium below the full-employment level of output, or can get trapped on an adjustment trajectory where the return to full employment will occur at a pace slow enough to cause significant and undue short run costs. They believe you can provide an endogenous shock to the economy that will hasten the adjustment trajectory..... THEN they believe that you should continue the counter cyclical policies by REDUCING spending or INCREASING taxes in the good times (both to build up a war chest to pay for future recessions, and to reduce the imputus towards overheating).... whether or not Government can actually play this role in reality is a huge question (can governments actually cut spending and raise taxes in good times as Keynesians prescribe? Can they time the markets AT ALL?) but that isn't what the author discusses... (perhaps it isn't exciting enough) instead he makes up a position that nobody believes, and attacks that. Quaint.

Same story for the mumbo-jumbo about inversing Say's law. Yes, dude... there was a huge investment boom that went along side the consumption boom following WWII..... your point? Keynesians would state that the economy had broken out of the hysterosis "bad-equilibrium" and that the shock had worked... I am not at all sure whatthehell he is stating that his strawman Keynesians would claim.... ?


there is MUCH to criticize in the idea that govt policy (particularly fiscal policy) can routinely time markets and then effectively try to steer the economy away from a inefficient (temporary) equilibrium... but papers like this ignore the true issues and try to manhandle the debate into a more convenient bogey man debate. It is not useful at all.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Underdog

Where did I say that America was a bunch misguided, blood-thirsty, power-hungry murderers? Only that our former president was one...

(but that certainly didn't stop anyone on Team Red from calling me unpatriotic for the last 8 years, did it?)


Welcome to the ass-end of Democracy - now STFU and take your medicine like a big boy for the next 4 years...

Kiss my ass you foul-mouthed prick and sorry you take it from theOne...I'll pass.

[Underdog]

Obama is tearing this family apart!

(and he gave me the clap...)

[DirkFTW]

UD, 2012 is too far away. I want my free jet and Wagyu ASAP.

[dude1394]

Natives are restless.
http://reason.com/blog/show/131865.html

I yield to no ink-stained wretch in my vast and bottomless dislike of George W. Bush but let's hold Obama's feet to the fire here: He has consistently pledged to, you know, stop spending right after well, you know, he and Congress stop spending.

Seriously, we're really going to knuckle down and cut some "eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs" costing $2 trillion over the next decade. Spoiler alert: That comes to a whopping 5 percent or so of baseline projected spending over the next decade. Break out the champagne, 'cause happy days are here again!

If Obama is serious about restoring trust and confidence in the government's ability to live within its gargantuan means (and he should be), he should start by rewriting the $410 billion Omnibus Spending Bill that the Democrats have just dropped like a big, wet, steaming, stinking pile of...pork barbecue.

The "omnibus" spending package unveiled today by House Democrats would combine nine annual appropriations bills left over from last year that are needed to fund programs such as NASA and the national parks through September, the end of the fiscal year. Total spending on the programs would grow by $32 billion, or about 8.5 percent, from last year.

Democrats postponed work on the appropriations bills last year after they were unable to reach an agreement with former President George W. Bush on how much to spend on domestic programs. Bush had demanded lawmakers freeze most domestic spending.

Sure, the bill, which will fund expenditures for the rest of this fiscal year is about five months late and it should have been properly been executed under King George II, but it wasn't. It's in Obama's lap. It's on his watch.

Among other things, the bill would loosen restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba (that's good, but what took you so freaking long?), screw over Mexican trucks (because they are foreign trucks, taking American trucks' jobs, and besides, they don't speaka da English!), and jack up all sorts of mostly useless regulatory regimes. But mostly, it would jack up spending (see above). That's all on top of the record-breaking FY2009 deficit projections that have already been announced (and revised upwards, downwards, sideways).

Obama has gotten his (or more precisely, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi's) stimulus bill. He's getting the ability to spend tons of dough on rewriting mortgages (because he doesn't have enough to do). He's reinvigorated the war in Afghanistan with an open-ended commitment there.

And he really, really cares about not leaving our kids burdened with debt. If he's serious at all about cutting the federal deficit in half by the time he leaves office (or wins re-election to a second term!), he's got a perfect opportunity to just say no right now. On his watch.

[92bDad]

It's funny watching Obama INCREASE the federal deficit, so that he can claim to cut in half when he finishes his time in office...

Based on the recent spending bill, it appears as though the defecit in 4 years will be higher than it was when Bush finished...thus the cutting in half will only be an inconvenient lie.

[Mavdog]

it's funny that you don't understand the federal budget.

the fiscal year begins 10/1. the 2009 budget was submitted by bush, it's predicted to result in about a $1.3 trillion deficit. remember the tarp spending? george's.

what obama is setting as the goal is to reduce the deficit (the one he inherited btw) by one half this amount via the 3 budgets he will have submitted by the end of his current term.

so no, in answer to your post, if obama succeeds he will have reduced bush's deficit by one half, and he will have actually accomplished just what he set out to do.

[dude1394]

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

it's funny that you don't understand the federal budget.

the fiscal year begins 10/1. the 2009 budget was submitted by bush, it's predicted to result in about a $1.3 trillion deficit. remember the tarp spending? george's.

what obama is setting as the goal is to reduce the deficit (the one he inherited btw) by one half this amount via the 3 budgets he will have submitted by the end of his current term.

so no, in answer to your post, if obama succeeds he will have reduced bush's deficit by one half, and he will have actually accomplished just what he set out to do.

You can't borrow more money, increase spending and reduce the deficit. It's not mathamatically possible.

To lower the deficit, you must first slow down or stop the spending...next you have to take what is coming in without borrowing and apply that to the deficit.

As long as your borrowing, your are NOT reducing deficit.

Perhaps you can manipulate the numbers to make it appear as though one specific debt is going down...but at the end of the day, you still owe more money.

Republicans had made great steps on this issue, until we were attacked on 9/11...this changed things and thus the War on Terrorist. Needless to say the focus has been directed on National Security and with the war, certain costs went up.

It's no secret that I believe National Security is and always should be National Defense...thus spending money on our military and other such National Defense issues is very crucial to ensuring that you and I continue to enjoy the freedoms we have in this nation.

I believe that the Bush administration wanted and needed funds to support the troops and that Democrats used this to get other spending tidbits passed...thus the two fed off of each other.

The difference is that I believe the Bush team did so to support the troops and thus the betterment of the American People...meanwhile, I Believe the Democrats spent what they wanted for their own selfish intent...using the wacked out deficit as icing on the cake to try and diminish the legacy of President Bush.

Today, under President Obama, I fear that the spending will not stop, but rather increase...all the while any cost cutting will be at the expense of our military and thus our National Security.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

You can't borrow more money, increase spending and reduce the deficit. It's not mathamatically possible.

yep, you do not get it.

To lower the deficit, you must first slow down or stop the spending...next you have to take what is coming in without borrowing and apply that to the deficit.

As long as your borrowing, your are NOT reducing deficit.

Perhaps you can manipulate the numbers to make it appear as though one specific debt is going down...but at the end of the day, you still owe more money.

you confuse the deficit, which is the amount of spending greater the amount of revenue in any fiscal year, with the national debt, which is the compilation of the annual deficits.

see, there is no statement by the obama administration that they are going to reduce the national debt. the statement is they are going to reduce the deficit.

big difference. there is no way that with the current situation there is any hope that the budget will be managed in such a way to produce a surplus, which would be the way to reduce the national debt.

Republicans had made great steps on this issue, until we were attacked on 9/11...this changed things and thus the War on Terrorist. Needless to say the focus has been directed on National Security and with the war, certain costs went up.

WHAT? the last administration to have a budget surplus was...CLINTON! not republicans, but a democrat administration.

bush never balanced his budget, never had a surplus, even in his budget proposal that was before the 9/11 attack.

It's no secret that I believe National Security is and always should be National Defense...thus spending money on our military and other such National Defense issues is very crucial to ensuring that you and I continue to enjoy the freedoms we have in this nation.

I believe that the Bush administration wanted and needed funds to support the troops and that Democrats used this to get other spending tidbits passed...thus the two fed off of each other.

The difference is that I believe the Bush team did so to support the troops and thus the betterment of the American People...meanwhile, I Believe the Democrats spent what they wanted for their own selfish intent...using the wacked out deficit as icing on the cake to try and diminish the legacy of President Bush.

Today, under President Obama, I fear that the spending will not stop, but rather increase...all the while any cost cutting will be at the expense of our military and thus our National Security.

your beliefs are repudiated by the facts....

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I'ld add some rep...but it looks like I need to spread even more around...great post!!!

The only problem, I'm still paying for my mortgage, aint no bailout coming my way!!!

[92bDad]

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...26716&src=news

Nice little clip...Dave Ramsey has a way of making it clear...how many will listen to his view?

[DirkFTW]

Another $410 billion in spending was passed by the House? WTF. I guess Christmas comes three times a year now.

So that puts their "stimulus" at well over a trillion dollars. I wonder... how different does the emergency stimulus bill look from this bill which was a non-emergency carry-over from when Obama was still a senator?

Oh, I get it... the stimulus bill was the Max Power way.

[alexamenos]

$3.6 trillion federal budget, $1.8 trillion projected deficit.

In 2000 the federal budget was $1.8 trillion and the projected deficit around $0.

The federal government has managed to double itself in under a decade by borrowing more than 10% of GDP, all without raising interest rates one iota. Witness here the miracle of the modern printing press, an alchemic marvel which allows us to have our cake and eat it too (\sarcasm & \multiple mixed metaphors). The trajectory we're on, domestically and internationally, monetarily and fiscally, is quite astonishing.

The Banana Republicans can take great credit for this explosive growth in government, a doubling which shamed new dealers and great societies for their lack of governmental ambition. They can take credit also for making wild-eyed radicals of anyone who might suggest that the government at the end of the Clinton era was sufficiently large and a return to such a size, effective tomorrow, is entirely plausible.

The Obamunists think deficit spending right here and now is necessary to save the economy....witness now the benefits we reap from the past 8 years of massive deficit spending (war, war, massive government growth and "market" failure after "market" failure), then quadruple these blessings along with quadrupled deficits. (if deficit spending is such a boon I'm not sure why they're so eager to blame Bush for past deficits when they might reasonably take credit instead.) I actually give the obamunists a little credit -- accounting for the wars in the budget, plausibly reducing matters in Iraq....these aren't unsubstantial things, but their gross economic illiteracy combined with the fascist instincts of the modern liberal will trump the good intentions.

anyhoo....liberty is dead in the US, the corpse just hasn't yet started to stink. the banana republicans finished her off and the obamunists are lubing up for a little necromancy. the best hope is that the festering leviathon will crumble under its own weight and that isn't out of the realm of possibility in our lifetimes, maybe in the next decade.

[DirkFTW]

Education chief favors longer school year

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Those lazy days of summer may become a thing of the past if the new secretary of education has his way.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan suggests giving incentives to teachers whose students perform well.

Arne Duncan, the Cabinet secretary charged with overhauling America's educational system, is studying programs that keep kids in school longer to boost their academic achievements.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/27/education.school.year/index.html

Kids, you must work your butt off in school because you're gonna have to pay off the debt we're gifting to you. Play time is over.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

$3.6 trillion federal budget, $1.8 trillion projected deficit.

In 2000 the federal budget was $1.8 trillion and the projected deficit around $0.

The federal government has managed to double itself in under a decade by borrowing more than 10% of GDP, all without raising interest rates one iota. Witness here the miracle of the modern printing press, an alchemic marvel which allows us to have our cake and eat it too (\sarcasm & \multiple mixed metaphors). The trajectory we're on, domestically and internationally, monetarily and fiscally, is quite astonishing.

The Banana Republicans can take great credit for this explosive growth in government, a doubling which shamed new dealers and great societies for their lack of governmental ambition. They can take credit also for making wild-eyed radicals of anyone who might suggest that the government at the end of the Clinton era was sufficiently large and a return to such a size, effective tomorrow, is entirely plausible.

The Obamunists think deficit spending right here and now is necessary to save the economy....witness now the benefits we reap from the past 8 years of massive deficit spending (war, war, massive government growth and "market" failure after "market" failure), then quadruple these blessings along with quadrupled deficits. (if deficit spending is such a boon I'm not sure why they're so eager to blame Bush for past deficits when they might reasonably take credit instead.) I actually give the obamunists a little credit -- accounting for the wars in the budget, plausibly reducing matters in Iraq....these aren't unsubstantial things, but their gross economic illiteracy combined with the fascist instincts of the modern liberal will trump the good intentions.

anyhoo....liberty is dead in the US, the corpse just hasn't yet started to stink. the banana republicans finished her off and the obamunists are lubing up for a little necromancy. the best hope is that the festering leviathon will crumble under its own weight and that isn't out of the realm of possibility in our lifetimes, maybe in the next decade.

"lubing up for a little necromancy" lmao

you know, I don't agree with you very much, but your posts are fun to read with flourishes of phrases that make me laugh.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

"lubing up for a little necromancy" lmao

you know, I don't agree with you very much, but your posts are fun to read with flourishes of phrases that make me laugh.

very decent of you. thanks.

[alexamenos]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/bu...n.html?_r=2&hp

...in drawing up the budget, the White House assumed the economy would expand by a robust 3.2 percent in 2010, with growth accelerating to 4 percent over the next three years.

the budgets with gazillion dollar deficits are based on 3.2% and 4% gdp growth projections in the next few years??? how big are those deficits going to be if the economy continues to contract?

[Arne]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/bu...n.html?_r=2&hp



the budgets with gazillion dollar deficits are based on 3.2% and 4% gdp growth projections in the next few years??? how big are those deficits going to be if the economy continues to contract?

with those guys running the bank, i can really see the next boom coming...