The Obama Deficit

[dude1394]

This definitely deserves it's own space. It's criminal in fact and alludes to the fact that our inexperienced socialist president is charting something quite unprecedented. Since barry pushed out the budget report to summer this is a good primer for the upcoming data dump.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ers_97951.html

[quote]
Understanding the Upcoming Deficit Numbers

By Keith Hennessey
The Mid-Session Review is a budget document released by the Administration each summer. It updates the Administration’s economic and budget forecasts. It shows the budgetary effects of any laws enacted since the President’s budget was released, as well as any new policies proposed by the President.
Within the next week the Obama Administration will release the Mid-Session Review. Next Tuesday morning the Congressional Budget Office will release their updated budget and economic forecast. Here are some things to watch for in these upcoming releases.

1.New deficit numbers
The headline of the MSR is always the new deficit forecast. CBO will update their forecast as well. Here are the numbers to be updated:

2009 deficit

2010 deficit

Administration (March forecast)

$1.75 trillion

$1.17 trillion

Congressional Budget Office

$1.67 trillion

$1.14 trillion

These are staggeringly large numbers. They are more analytically useful when we compare them to the size of the economy.

2009 deficit

2010 deficit

Administration (March forecast)

12.3% of GDP

8% of GDP

Congressional Budget Office

11.9% of GDP

7.9% of GDP

Over the past two decades the U.S. government averaged a deficit of 1.9% of GDP. Current deficits are four to six times larger than average. These are dangerously high levels. Deficits this year and next are abnormally large primarily because of the fiscal policy actions taken by the government last Winter: the $700 billion TARP (Trouble Asset Relief Program) and the fiscal stimulus law, which will increase deficits by $787 billion spread out over several years. The TARP was broadly bipartisan, while the fiscal stimulus was mostly partisan.
In addition, the U.S. economy has been weaker than forecast and government revenues are coming in lower than predicted. The projected deficits will increase – the big question is how much?
What you’ll see: Headlines with the topline 2009 and 2010 deficit figures: “Administration/CBO projects higher budget deficit of $1.X trillion…”
What really matters: How much of an increase above 12% of GDP and 8% of GDP are the new projected 2009 and 2010 budget deficits?
Why it matters: Budget deficits crowd our private borrowing and raise interest rates. It costs more to get a mortgage, a car loan, or a student loan. Higher interest rates and their effect on the dollar cause the U.S. economy to grow more slowly, meaning fewer jobs are created and wage growth slows.
2.New economics forecast
While the 2009 and 2010 deficit forecasts will likely dominate the headlines, the updated economics forecasts are even more important in the short run. Here are the numbers to be updated:
Projected Economic Growth

2009 real GDP

2010 real GDP

Administration (March forecast)

-1.2%

+3.2%

CBO (Jan forecast)

-2.2%

+1.5%

In January CBO forecasted a sharper economic decline in 2009 and a slower recovery next year than the Administration projected. Forecasts of the unemployment rate look similar:

2009 avg unemployment rate

2010 avg unemployment rate

Administration (March forecast)

8.1%

7.9%

CBO (Jan forecast)

8.3%

9.0%

Actual through July (BLS)

8.8%

It’s tough to tell much about the timing of the projected recovery from annual averages, but these two tables show the Administration was more optimistic about a strong 2010 recovery than was CBO.
We know now that both forecasts for 2009 were too optimistic.
What really matters: We will be able to tell the Administration’s and CBO projected GDP growth for the last four months of this year from the new 2009 numbers. How much worse are the 2010 forecasts than those made earlier this year?
What reporters should ask the Administration and CBO:
1. When do you think the unemployment rate will peak? When do you project it will begin to steadily decline?
2. When did you “lock” this forecast? Does it include the more positive July jobs data?
3. Does this change your forecast of employment levels for 2009 and 2010? If so, by how much?
3. New policies
I do not expect the President to roll out major new policy initiatives in this MSR, especially since his team seems to be trying to bury the bad deficit news in the dog days of August when many in Washington are on vacation. The President has his hands full right now.
More important than new policies are the legislative realities that have developed since the President proposed his budget in March. The deficit projections I gave above are for the baseline – what we expect if the law is not changed. The projected policy deficits are higher. CBO projects that the President’s policies would increase the deficit above the baseline deficits by 1.1% of GDP in 2009 and another 1.9% of GDP in 2010.
In the real world those projected policy deficits are too optimistic because they assume three policy changes that Congress has rejected:
1. The President proposed spending about $600 B over ten years on a new health care entitlement. Pending legislation adds another $400 B -- $600 B to that amount.
2. Congressional Democrats quickly killed the President’s proposal to raise taxes by $318 B over ten years on high-income people who itemize deductions.
3. The President assumed that $526 B over ten years from cap-and-trade revenues would reduce the deficit. The cap-and-trade bill passed by the House would spend all the revenues collected.
These Congressional realities mean you should expect medium-term deficits even higher than those projected by CBO and the President.
What this means: Assuming the MSR leaves these proposed-but-rejected policies in place, the Administration’s display of projected medium-term deficits will significantly understate what’s likely. That’s standard budgeting practice, but it makes the information conveyed by the MSR too optimistic and somewhat less useful.
What you should care about: The President needs to show a credible path to returning to budget deficits that are economically sustainable. Bad economic news combines with deficit-increasing policy proposals to undermine that credibility.
4. The Administration’s deficit message
The President has stressed three fiscal policy messages so far:
1. I inherited a huge deficit.
2. All of my proposed policies will be paid for and will not increase the deficit.
3. The biggest deficit problem is the long-run one driven by health care costs. Health care reform will bring down long-run budget deficits.
His first point is true, although the President omits that as a Senator he voted for the $700 B TARP and the annual spending bills.
The second point is inconsistent with legislative reality. The $787 B fiscal stimulus increased the deficit. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office paints a bleak picture: $4 trillion more debt over the next decade if the President’s policies were enacted.
The President has boxed himself in with different messages on fiscal policy and health policy. He argues we must slow the growth of long-term health spending, but has not offered policies that unbiased analysts say would achieve that goal. In health care reform, Congress is in no mood to make the painful choices needed to reduce future deficits, so the President has fallen back to a more modest goal of not increasing future deficits. If health care reform should actually become law this year, expect the long-run budget picture to get dramatically worse. Pending bills would create a rapidly-growing enormous new spending commitment that would quickly outstrip the proposed spending cuts and tax increases. In an effort to rescue health care reform the President has shifted away from a cost control message. Congress will read this signal and look for ways to avoid the pain of deficit reduction, knowing that the President will sign any bill that reaches his desk.
What to expect: A lot of talk about the past: “We inherited …”
What to listen for: How does the President plan to reduce future deficits? Do unbiased observers think pending health care legislation will make unsustainable future deficits better or worse?
5. My view
The President entered office in an extraordinary fiscal policy situation. He began his term with a large budget deficit primarily resulting from the bipartisan TARP and a severe drop in GDP. The long-term spending pressures of retiring Baby Boomers and exploding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs are only a few years away. Economic recovery and addressing long-term spending pressures should be his top priorities.
Instead he tried to do everything at once, including an ordinary liberal policy agenda. The fiscal stimulus included long-term spending increases unrelated to short-term economic growth. The cap-and-trade bill will not reduce the budget deficit as the President proposed. Health care reform that begins with a massive expansion of entitlement spending will not reduce costs. By pursuing his non-economic policy goals, he is exacerbating a bad macroeconomic and deficit picture.
The President’s social policy agenda is throwing gasoline on a deficit fire.

checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); Keith Hennessey served as a senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush from 2002-2009. He can be reached at rcp@keithhennessey.com.

[Mavdog]

first, let's start out by saying that we are in total agreement on the need, the necessity, that the deficits must be reduced and what I believe is a shared opinion that a balanced budget is good for our nation.

a point that I want to make: the deficit includes the $500B or so that has been spent on TARP. that's almost half of the deficit, and the issue is this money wasn't given away, it was money that was spent in exchange for equities and cdo's....therefore they have value, and this value will hopefully be returned to the account when they are sold. so far there have been gains realized on the sales, and that may very well continue.

so the message is it isn't as bad as it looks at face, but yes the question is how are we to see this deficit corrected?

[dude1394]

You go barry...Sometimes I think I'm in a twilight zone episode.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...120524166.html

Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

Too bad it's not in U.S. waters.

You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.



The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.



The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

[dude1394]

A classical historian looks at our exploding debt. Our inexperienced president is getting a quick lesson in reality.

Divine Debt Trumps All
The U.S. is broke and its ability to borrow ever more trillions of dollars is ending.

By Victor Davis Hanson

In Greek mythology, even Olympian gods and heroes were subject to a higher divine power known loosely as “fate” — an allotted moira, or destiny, that could not be changed even by thunderbolt-throwing Zeus.

In modern America, debt — whether national, state, or trade — now plays the same overarching role as the ancient Greek notion of fate. And the president, Congress, and the states for all their various agendas are impotent since they must first pay back trillions that have long ago been borrowed and spent.

Politicians in their hubris who believe they can ignore debt or wish it away are sorely disappointed — as we see now with the plummeting approval ratings of both the administration and Congress.

Take the issue of health-care reform proposals, in which the issue of debt looms large. We are told that more people will be insured, costs will go down, and care will not be rationed. But this rhetoric cannot disguise the reality of taking on even more debt.

To cover more Americans, a broke federal government will have to either borrow more or curtail the level of coverage that the currently insured enjoy. Numbers do not lie, and our government must explain either how a radical expansion in medical care will cut back on existing choice and service or where the additional revenue will come from.

The spiraling budget deficit also now trumps all discussion of tax policy. We are told the government will not raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans. Yet aside from billions for corporate bailouts, new entitlements will go largely to this group and will increase the annual budget shortfall to nearly $2 trillion.

The wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who currently pay over 40 percent of the aggregate income tax, simply are not numerous enough to provide the necessary additional revenue — despite having taxes raised to 40 percent of their income, along with proposed Social Security payroll tax increases and health-care surcharge hikes.

Most likely, the administration soon will have to impose a value-added tax that will fall on everyone, or make Americans who now pay no federal income taxes start paying them. We may casually talk of all sorts of new programs and “stimulus,” but the vast trillion-dollar collective national debt and rising annual deficits will insidiously hamstring almost everything we plan to do.

Debt also will overshadow energy policy and, for now, trump green politics and politicians. Administration officials lecture grandly about wind and solar power to come. But both are still expensive and now constitute less than 5 percent of our energy production. Instead, our electrical power and transportation fuel overwhelmingly come from more pedestrian oil, natural gas, coal, and hydro and nuclear power.

Due to the recession, the United States has been given a rare reprieve, as decreased global consumption has led to increased supplies abroad and a radical — though temporary — fall in energy prices. We have a brief window of salvation in which to start developing additional energy inside the United States — whether nuclear, untapped coal, offshore oil, new natural-gas fields, shale oil, or tar sands — that could ensure that the country does not go broke when energy prices rise again, and we slowly transition to new renewable sources of power.

Yet the current policy seems to be that the United States can arrogantly ignore the cost of imported energy. We continue to dream of inadequate, expensive solar and wind power, while not expanding traditional domestic sources of energy — even as we borrow to consume imported oil and natural gas.

President Obama has put forth an ambitious agenda of radical health-care reform, cap-and-trade legislation, new energy proposals, and expanded entitlements. But no matter how brilliantly the president describes his progressive agenda, it can’t escape our fiscal fate: The country is broke and its ability to borrow ever more trillions of dollars is coming to an end.

Asian and European creditors are becoming wary of lending so much at such low interest to such an encumbered debtor. And why shouldn’t they be?

In short, Americans will have to either raise massive taxes, postpone new spending programs, or cut existing expenditures — and most likely all three at once.

Ultimately, even we Americans must bow before debt, whose unchangeable laws trump even our Olympian president and Congress.

[dude1394]

That was then....

Obama vows to cut huge deficit in half



By MIKE ALLEN | 2/22/09 6:58 AM EST
Text Size:


President Obama will announce Monday that he plans to cut the nation’s projected annual deficit in half by the end of his first term, a senior administration official said Saturday.

And six months later...this is now.
.

Obama to raise 10-year deficit to $9 trillion
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.


The higher deficit figure, based on updated economic data, brings the White House budget office into line with outside estimates and gives further fuel to President Barack Obama’s opponents, who say his spending plans are too expensive in light of budget shortfalls.


Politically, the deficit has been an albatross for Obama, a Democrat who is pushing forward with plans to overhaul the U.S. healthcare industry — an initiative that could cost up to $1 trillion over 10 years — and other promises, including reforming education and how the country handles energy.

[dude1394]

Something bad is about to hit the fan.

Their rosy scenarios aren't convincing the Chinese who are cutting their holdings of American debt due to worries about possible inflation.

China reduced its holdings of US government debt by the largest margin in nearly nine years in June, according to data from the US Treasury.

China holds more US government debt than any other country and cut its holdings of US securities by more that 3% in June, said the BBC's Chris Hogg.

[kg_veteran]

At least somebody is finally talking about the fiscal problems facing our country. The national debt is not sustainable as it is; continuing to add to it through deficit spending is madness.

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

At least somebody is finally talking about the fiscal problems facing our country. The national debt is not sustainable as it is; continuing to add to it through deficit spending is madness.

You worry too much. The hyper-inflation will bring it down naturally. Where was your outrage when Bush wasted trillions of dollars in an immoral and illegal blood for oil war? LOL.

[dude1394]

This is going to end badly.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ics_98087.html

Until recently, the borrowings, though usually undesirable, were not alarming. But the recession and an aging population signify that we have crossed a threshold where actual and prospective borrowings are so huge that no one can foresee the consequences. The best measure of debt burden is its relation to the nation's annual income, or gross domestic product. The same approach applied to a household with $25,000 of debt and $50,000 of income would produce a debt-to-income ratio of 50 percent.


In 1946, after World War II, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to GDP was 108.6 percent. Since then, the economy (our income) has generally grown faster than the debt. In 1974, the debt-to-GDP ratio reached a post-World War II low of 23.9 percent, and even in 2007, it was only 36.9 percent. That was manageable.


By contrast, today's prospective colossal borrowings dwarf likely economic growth. The Obama administration's latest projections, released last week, show nearly $11 trillion of borrowing from 2009 to 2019. In 2019, the debt-to-GDP ratio would be 76.5 percent. This could be too optimistic, because it assumes some spending restraint and tax increases. A projection by the Concord Coalition, a watchdog group, adds about $5 trillion in borrowing in that period. In 2019, the debt-to-GDP ratio could be roughly 100 percent.


Because such borrowings would be unprecedented in peacetime, they might go badly. It's easy to imagine problems. Some might become full-blown crises. It might be impossible to refinance maturing federal debt (average maturity: 51 months) except at much higher interest rates. The Federal Reserve might be pressured to inflate away the debt by buying boatloads of Treasury bonds; high inflation would be ruinous, as it was in the 1970s. The mere fear of uncontrolled deficits might trigger a flight away from the dollar on stock, bond and foreign exchange markets.


But none of these calamities has yet occurred. Precisely the opposite. Low interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds, about 3.5 percent, suggest ample investors. Though huge deficits pose long-term hazards, cutting them sharply now might threaten economic recovery. Any action -- spending cuts or tax increases -- ought to be prospective. Facing few insistent pressures to confront deficits, politicians don't.
What unites Democrats and Republicans is an unwillingness to have a serious debate about how big government should be. Spending is the crucial issue, because it determines taxes and deficits. If they become too large, the resulting depressed economy may make paying for government even harder. Ideally, liberals would see that spending needs to be cut substantially; if it isn't, tomorrow's tax increases or deficits will be horrendous. Ideally, conservatives would accept that taxes must ultimately rise; no plausible spending cuts can bridge the gap between government's promises and its tax base.
There is no sign of this. Liberals and conservatives agree to evade. Spending for the elderly dominates the federal budget, but no one discusses who among retirees deserves government subsidies and at what age. Liberals would increase spending (aka, President Obama's health proposal) even before addressing existing deficits. President Bush and congressional Republicans could have curbed spending. But they increased it even while cutting taxes, and Obama would keep most tax cuts except for people making over $250,000.


Placid deficits have abetted all these evasions and inconsistencies. As the path of least resistance, they encouraged permissiveness. But with deficits swelling, this easy road may soon close. We may learn how much debt is too much.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by aquaadverse

You worry too much. The hyper-inflation will bring it down naturally. Where was your outrage when Bush wasted trillions of dollars in an immoral and illegal blood for oil war? LOL.

You obviously haven't been paying attention.

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

You obviously haven't been paying attention.

And your humor bone needs calibration. It's amazing the comments in general news boards and websites that play the Iraq card as if it's an actual answer to concerns about the current fiscal drift.

And it's inflation ignorance that's really surprising. Not even in the general conversation. The tech boom saved our ass coming out of the 70's, boosting productivity and rewiring the world in our last non-bubble sprint of kickass.

[kg_veteran]

I thought you were claiming that I wasn't opposed to feckless spending and fiscal mismanagement as long as it happened during the Bush administration. If that was your attempt at humor, I apologize. Next time, I'll try to recognize it and laugh.

[Mavdog]

speaking of the TARP money...
---------------------------------------------
TARP Scorecard: Paybacks Have Yielded Total Return of 10.16%.Critics of the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the government was simply giving away taxpayer funds when it invested in all those financial institutions last fall.

The government insisted the investments would show a profit.

Who was right?

So far, it seems the government was right, according to a report from data provider SNL Financial.

As of this month, 22 banks have paid back TARP and redeemed warrants. Those firms were recipients of $40.6 billion in government money. Including warrants and dividends, government has received $44.7 billion from those banks. The total rate of return to the Treasury for all companies that have repaid TARP funds and redeemed their warrants has been 10.16%, according to SNL data. The warrant repurchases have accounted for a large portion of the returns–7.15%. On an annualized basis, the Treasury’s investment in the 22 banks that have redeemed the preferred shares and warrants yielded 12.74%.

Since last Oct. 13, when the government told nine banks it would be injecting billions of dollars into them, the DJIA has had a total return of 4.82%.

The biggest returns are chalked up from Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and American Express, which yielded returns to Uncle Sam of 14.18%, 12.68% and 12.23%, respectively, according to SNL data.

Not surprisingly, the redemptions that generated the biggest returns for the government came in July and August. That was after shares of banks had jumped and criticism from the Congressional Oversight Committee over the value of early warrant redemptions resulted in later transactions being more favorable to the Treasury, SNL writes.

To be sure, the complete story of government investments isn’t yet written, as plenty of large financial institutions–Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo to name a few–have yet to repay the government. And this analysis doesn’t include huge government investments in American International Group or the mortgage giants Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, let alone TARP funds funneled to auto makers General Motors and Chrysler.

Still, the Treasury’s investment in Citigroup does look well timed. Taxpayers have netted a paper profit of almost $11 billion on its 34% stake in the banking giant. On top of that, the Treasury has collected a combined $7.3 billion in dividend payments from the about 500 banks that received TARP funds

[dude1394]

Barry puts a huge hammer to the deficit.

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/84380/

OBAMA ASKS FEDERAL WORKERS TO SACRIFICE — By 0.4 percent! “Citing the current economic recession — and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks eight years ago — President Obama says he will use emergency powers to cut the programmed across-the-board January increase in federal employees’ pay from 2.4 percent to 2.0 percent, according to a letter he sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday.” Given that lots of people in the private sector — and even in state and municipal goverments — are facing no raise at all, or actual pay cuts, I don’t think this will impress many folks out there.

[chumdawg]

That's ridiculous. They should be taking an actual pay CUT. He should cut his own salary, too...and by a hell of a lot more than .4 percent.

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

I thought you were claiming that I wasn't opposed to feckless spending and fiscal mismanagement as long as it happened during the Bush administration. If that was your attempt at humor, I apologize. Next time, I'll try to recognize it and laugh.

I'll make my LOL larger.

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Barry puts a huge hammer to the deficit.

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/84380/

What a joke...I've taken a 40% cut from 08 to 09 and I'll be fortunate to stay flat for 2010.

Now most government workers don't make a ton of money, thus I would be reluctant to see across the board cuts...but perhaps one year with no raises across the board. Then if anyone is making above 100K per year, they should take a 10% cut, anyone above a 200K should take a 20% cut etc...

Again, this is just for Government workers.

On that note, I also believe that all Military personnel should be 100% Tax Exempt!!! Back when I served, I often qualified for the EIC...we should do a better job of lowering the tax and financial burden on our soldiers...especially the lower enlisted who have a very limited income.

On the flip side, President Obama could go a LONG way towards restoring confidence in America and Americans, but cutting COST...stop the spending and quit pouring money that he nor any of the government actually has.

Quit giving tax dollars to "Community Organizations"...again let private funds support these groups.

Heck, lead by example...cut down on perks associated with the President, the white house and influence other politicians to cut back drastically.

This would go a long way to being an example of how to manage finances under a tight budget.

How cool would it be to see the President out there mowing his own lawn, rather than paying someone to mow it for him?

There is so much that this President could be doing, but instead he insists on spending like a drunken sailor (No offense to drunk sailors, we know you are better than the current President)

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by aquaadverse

I'll make my LOL larger.

Thanks.

I mistook your LOL for crazed, anti-Bush laughter instead of just the "I was just making a funny" LOL that it really was.

My bad.

LOL

[dude1394]

This is going to end badly...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_opinion_main

Warning: The Deficits Are Coming!

The former head of the Government Accountability Office is on a crusade to alert taxpayers to their true obligations.

David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer," he tells a meeting of the National Taxpayers Union, the nation's oldest anti-tax lobby. "Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!"
.....
His group calls itself strictly nonpartisan and nonideological, and that seems to limit how tough and specific it can be. Last year, it released a documentary "I.O.U.S.A.," that followed Mr. Walker as he toured the country on his fiscal "wake up" tour. The solutions the film proposes for the debt crisis are either glib or gray: The country should save more, reduce oil consumption, hold politicians accountable and get more value from health-care spending.



But in its diagnosis of the problem the film scores a bull's-eye. Among the fiscal hawks featured in the film is Rep. Ron Paul, who memorably tells Alan Greenspan that if doctors had the same success rate in meeting his goals as the Fed has had, patients would be dead all over America.
Mr. Walker's own speeches are vivid and clear. "We have four deficits: a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit," he tells one group. "We are treating the symptoms of those deficits, but not the disease."



Mr. Walker identifies the disease as having a basic cause: "Washington is totally out of touch and out of control," he sighs. "There is political courage there, but there is far more political careerism and people dodging real solutions." He identifies entrenched incumbency as a real obstacle to change. "Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats where they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them," he laments. He believes gerrymandering should be curbed and term limits imposed if for no other reason than to inject some new blood into the system. On campaign finance, he supports a narrow constitutional amendment that would bar congressional candidates from accepting contributions from people who can't vote for them: "If people can't vote in a district not their own, should we allow them to spend unlimited money on behalf of someone across the country?"
.....
As for this year's likely deficit of $1.8 trillion, Mr. Walker suggests its size be conveyed thusly: "A deficit that large is $3.4 million a minute, $200 million an hour, $5 billion a day," he says. That does indeed put things into perspective.

[dude1394]

wow...this photo just about encapsulates the barry administration and what he's doing to the REST of the baby's yet to be born.



http://reason.com/blog/2009/09/30/an...year-older-and

The Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget celebrates the end of Fiscal Year 2009 with a breakdown of the year's most appalling financial and budget statistics. Some highlights:

• $1,650,971,205,167 added to the national debt, bringing the total to $7.5 trillion.
• 99 banks taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Company.
• 684 banks receiving support from the Troubled Asset Relief Program that doesn't buy troubled assets.
• 11.2 percent: the percentage of the federal deficit to GDP. This is the highest that ratio has been since Japan surrendered in 1945.
• $164 billion spent out of the entire $787 billion in stimulus funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Most of this has gone to Medicaid, unemployment and the Making Work Pay Tax Credit.

And a whole lot more. Happy Fiscal 2010.

[dude1394]

Happy Days are here again for our inexperienced left-wing community organizer.

[Mavdog]

apparently you do not know which president's administration wrote and submitted to congress the budget from october 2008 to october 2009.....hint: it wasn't who you mention in the above post.

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

apparently you do not know which president's administration wrote and submitted to congress the budget from october 2008 to october 2009.....hint: it wasn't who you mention in the above post.

Yep. Obama just had bad luck inheriting this mess of a Dem Congress. But they're cleaning it up. Unfortunately when Polosi grabs the broom she rides it.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by aquaadverse

Yep. Obama just had bad luck inheriting this mess of a Dem Congress. But they're cleaning it up. Unfortunately when Polosi grabs the broom she rides it.

did the "dem congress" submit the 2009 budget? or did they approve the submitted budget?

edit: and did pelosi sign the 2009 appropriations bill, or did george bush?

it was certainly not barack obama btw.

[dude1394]

Obama supporters...nothing to see here move on.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Obama supporters...nothing to see here move on.

Why did you stop there? Why didn't you point them to the thread for the anti-Obama ?

That's all you are interested in, after all. of the god that pleases you.

You are so embarrassing.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Why did you stop there? Why didn't you point them to the thread for the anti-Obama *****?

That's all you are interested in, after all. ***** the ***** of the god that pleases you.

You are so embarrassing.

Ouch that really hurts coming from a bigot.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Obama supporters...nothing to see here move on.

it's revealing to see that while you enjoy posting comments that attack the obama administration, you never address the response that points out inaccuracies.

so tell me, which administration wrote and submitted the 2009 federal budget that has the $1.4 trillion deficit?

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

it's revealing to see that while you enjoy posting comments that attack the obama administration, you never address the response that points out inaccuracies.

so tell me, which administration wrote and submitted the 2009 federal budget that has the $1.4 trillion deficit?

The assertion you keep hammering on that Presidents don't revise the budgets their predecessors submitted is flat out wrong. Just because he chose not to doesn't relieve him of having the option.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...6tmUBARLIPm1ig

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by aquaadverse

The assertion you keep hammering on that Presidents don't revise the budgets their predecessors submitted is flat out wrong. Just because he chose not to doesn't relieve him of having the option

no, that might be an asertion that you wish to make, but I've never made such. obama did use the revision processs to submit the fy 2010 budget in feb 2009

my assertion is the budget under which the federal government has operated over the last 12 months was not a product of the obama administration. that is accurate.

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by dude1394

You go barry...[bold]Sometimes I think I'm in a twilight zone episode. [/bold]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...120524166.html

Something we can agree on!

[GermanDunk]

1,4 trn. $ is much money.

[wmbwinn]

For those that don't know about history. Here is a condensed version:

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals, and
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can was invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food is standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history:

It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it.

A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to tick them off.

And there you have it. Let your next action reveal your position.

[chumdawg]

Why did you leave out the part about conservatives aiming to keep women and black people "in their place?"

[wmbwinn]

not everything is racist. Do you really think I am racist? If you do, then why?

go back through my numerous posts over time and find some evidence of racism.

This post was just funny. And, race was not part of it.

[chumdawg]

If you paint with a broad enough brush--as you did--then yes, you are racist. And don't forget sexist.

The post wasn't funny. It was provincial.

[wmbwinn]

ah, yes. every thing that might be viewed as opposed to the policies of Master Obama is racist.

and anything that might be opposed to extreme feminism is sexist. Hell, Sarah Palin is sexist by that definition. Damn woman succeeded in every way the original feminist movement wanted but she went and did it with a conservative approach that is galling to the extreme feminist left. That woman is a sexist...

those definitions aren't found in the dictionary.

I asked you for a specific example of racism.

There is no example of racism in the joke/history parody I posted.

[chumdawg]

You are missing the point entirely. At the core of your post was the idea that one said group is superior to another, based on some rather specious logic such as "conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud." That is exactly the sort of logic that fuels racism and sexism.

It has nothing to do with Obama, and I didn't have to go back and search for a single other post. You did it all in one take.

[wmbwinn]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

You are missing the point entirely. At the core of your post was the idea that one said group is superior to another, based on some rather specious logic such as "conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud." That is exactly the sort of logic that fuels racism and sexism.

It has nothing to do with Obama, and I didn't have to go back and search for a single other post. You did it all in one take.

the difference in the two divided groups is simple:
1)productive persons
2)leaches

has nothing to do with race.

Again, I think you would call Sarah Palin sexist and call Michael Steele a racist.

on another point, too bad we couldn't get Kaman to Texas where he belongs:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/bal...urn=nba,199089

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by wmbwinn

the difference in the two divided groups is simple:
1)productive persons
2)leaches

"leaches"????

apparently one of the differences in the divided groups is a good grasp of vocabulary.....

not to mention the clear fault of applying a generalization across all members of one group as if it were true.