Posted on 10/18/2009 3:52:48 PM PDT by Son House
Back on October 7, when the Congressional Budget Office reported that the federal deficit had ballooned to a massive $1.4 trillion during President Obama’s first year on the job, Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News did not tell viewers. But Couric finally caught up to the bad news after the Obama White House put out its final numbers on Friday afternoon.
Couric disclosed the news in a brief item on the October 16 Evening News that never mentioned Obama by name: “It’s the biggest IOU Uncle Sam has ever written. Government figures out today show for the last fiscal year, which just ended, the United States spent a record 1.4 trillion dollars more than it took in. That’s three times more than the year before.”
On Saturday, New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes noted that Obama’s deficit is much larger as a percentage of GDP than during the 1980s, when Democrats attacked Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts as fiscally reckless:
Economists generally agree that annual deficits should not exceed 3 percent of the GDP, and that is the level President Obama had vowed to reach by the end of his first term in 2013.
But subsequent spending and tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and lower-than-expected revenues as the recession deepened before bottoming out, combined to push the administration’s deficit forecast to 4.6 percent of GDP for the fiscal year 2013.
At 10 percent of the gross domestic product, the 2009 deficit is the highest since the end of World War II, when it was 21.5 percent. At that level, it already has become a bigger economic and a political issue than any time since the late 1980s.
As to President Obama’s vow to slash the deficit by the end of his first term, perhaps more media skepticism would be warranted. The Heritage Foundation produced an illustrative chart last March (before the big health care debate) comparing the deficits under President George W. Bush, which President Obama frequently derides as “the mess” he inherited, and those projected for the next ten years under Obama’s policies. It shows Obama’s red ink towering over the over-spending of the last eight years.
Of course, if President Obama’s solution is to tax the rich, tax health insurance, tax energy and anything else that moves, the deficit may be smaller as a percent of GDP but the government’s share of the economy would be much larger, supported by a shrinking private sector.
At 10 percent of the gross domestic product, the 2009 deficit is the highest since the end of World War II, when it was 21.5 percent.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14306
“The federal government’s promise to extricate the U.S. economy from this recession involves more spending (increasing public debt) and more subsidies for consumers, such as car rebates and home buying incentives (more private debt). In other words, more debt is supposed to solve the problem of over-indebtedness.
The truth is that this policy merely indentures its citizens further without providing any income for repayment of debt.
Here’s a link to the Heritage article;
Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
What’s driving Obama’s unprecedented massive deficits? Spending. Riedl details:
President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
President Bush began a string of expensive finan cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade.
President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern ment health care fund.
President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi dent Obama would double it.
President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in creased this spending by 20 percent.
President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
Wow, that's worthy of a million or few as an anchor.
Katie who?
The reason the private sector is shrinking is that the public sector is growing. Interestly, though, the state and local sectors are also shrinking. The feds are making a pig of themselves at the expense of the states and the private sector.
Alas, one has to believe that she is as stupid as she looks.
Thanks to you Couric...
Analysts have described President Obama's budget as a repudiation of the past 25 years of economic pol icy. In doing so, the President has rejected the most prosperous economic period in American history.
Between 1953 and 1982—a period of high tax rates, spending growth, and applied Keynesian eco nomics—the economy was in recession 21 percent of the time, inflation reached 13 percent, interest rates hit 19 percent, and the stock market grew only 5.4 percent annually.
However, beginning around 1982, tax rates were dramatically reduced, and federal spending began decreasing as a share of the economy. In the 26 years following this major policy shift, the economy has been in recession only 10 percent of the time (including the current recession), inflation has never topped 5 percent, interest rates have never exceeded 12 percent, and the stock market (despite increased volatility) has soared 7.0 percent annually, even including the recent 50 percent drop.[25]
The United States has created enormous wealth over the past 25 years. For President Obama to pro pose returning to economic policies of the Carter Administration, which brought stagflation and mal aise, is unfathomable. Lawmakers should reject this budget and instead reduce tax rates for families and entrepreneurs, restrain runaway government, and reform unaffordable entitlements.
Bookmark for later.
ROTFLMAO!! (gasp)
It's in the works and before he is tossed from the Oval Office in 2012, martial law will be enacted and an extended term for the messiah (unelected) will be dictated.
On purpose.
That is not a flattering photo of her to say the least
How many people are not going to get pay raises or bonuses this year or next.
That is the latest hit. Everyone I have spoke to says that their employers are NOT giving any raises etc.
I guess this is the O admins ode to Socialist Utopia. EVERYONE must make the SAME wage.
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK...mmm mmm mmm
/s
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