Deficit at Highest Level Since End of World War 2

Thanks to all you Dems. You've run the House and the Senate for years, and now the Executive branch too, and to such an extent that if your reps vote as a block even the Repubs cannot stop any legislation. So much for checks and balances. It's handout the payoff money time...

In January 2004, Bush vowed to "cut the deficit in half over the next five years" as a percentage of GDP.

But the cost to the public of Bush policy has been a return to the exploding deficits of the Reagan years. Bush blew through Clinton’s 236 billion surplus in his first year. The 2008 deficit reached $459 billion, a record. Still, its real size is masked by the fact that Bush has shifted $150 billion from the Social Security trust fund in order to make the shortfall look smaller. Both sums have to be repaid, so the real amount borrowed is the $459 billion “nominal” deficit plus the $150 billion from Social Security or $609 billion. This shell game with federal trust funds taints all official forecasts about Bush’s deficits going forward.

The current deficit comes mainly from four broad categories: the business cycle, Bush's policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Obama.

The first category -- the business cycle -- accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing (the difference between the Clinton surplus and the Bush deficit). It's a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists' assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq and Afganistan wars and tax cuts for households making more than $250,000. Such policies -- together with the Wall Street bailout, which was requested by Bush and supported by Obama -- account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Obama's agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, called the deficit projections "a legacy of the Bush administration." Nevertheless, it is apparent that while this deficit now belongs to Barack Obama, it was handed to him by George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

Record Whopper FY '09 was spent beginning 10/01/08 and the expected $1.84T deficit was reduced by the Obama administration by more then $400M including declining deficits, unlike the record borrowed & spent by w, exceeding all other Presidents, combined on the heels of Fiscal Conservative Clinton's 4 consecutive surpluses. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/index.php?year=2000

Also Omitted by Drake; The overall National Debt, which is the accumulation of annual deficits, is nearly $12 trillion, and projected deficits for the next decade will add an estimated $9 trillion more.

Administration officials say two-thirds of that is due to Bush administration policies http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html — chiefly tax cuts, wars and the Medicare prescription drug benefit — not paid for with other savings.

Thankfully Deficit Neutral Health Care Reform & Renewable Energy are already included in FY'10, begun 10/01/09 and $800B less than w's record whopper.

I see the issues from the two party's viewpoints and am not in a position to split the blame. The point is, WE NEED TO CHANGE THE DEFICIT SPENDING POLICIES. They weaken the country, regardless of whose social agenda's you want to pursue. Foreign or domestic, we are weakened and it needs to be pushed back. There are states in the US that have learned how to do it, and those (Calif.) that do NOT. Case studies ready to hand.

Thankfully Deficit Neutral Health Care Reform & Renewable Energy are already included in FY'10, begun 10/01/09 and $800B less than w's record whopper poated by Pundit
I don't know how you can say it's deficit neutral when it cost over a billion dollars and cap and tax will cost every consumer big time. But I guess you work for someone who will pick up your bills. We however have to work for our money.

When the Justice Department and the IRS finishes skullf#@*ing all those "patriots" who hid their Bush-era ill-gotten gains in overseas banks and offshore money laundering enterprises, that will reduce the deficit and the debt by qute a bit.

Whether it's $1.00 or $1 gazillion dollars, the decision makers who make there fortunes on the backs of the taxpayers aren't going to find jobs as CEO's in China or Japan either.

So we better vote for better decision makers.

I don't know who vetoed for what for whom. Did he have a record for passing bills without consideration or did he threaten to veto more bills than any other president.

One way he was reckless in passing every bill no matter what which leads to the initial conclusion that let spending go wild.

The other way he was forcing Dems to write only bills that he would pass and passed anything that had Republican sponsorship.

Either way;

I know that spendable income went up under Clinton and back down under Bush.

I know that Clinton left a budget surplus and Bush left a deficit.

I know that Bush started with a budget surplus and Clinton started with a budget deficit.

I know that the economy started to tank in 2005 with the housing market and then further in 2007 with the Dow.

I know that it took Bush four years to go from a growing deficit to getting it back under control.

I also know you can't compare 2008 dollars directly to 2001 dollars because you have to adjust for inflation and the devaluation of money.

I know that you have to account for population, working population, and inflation. If your using chained GDP and nominal deficit, that's got the wrong units. If your using nominal GDP and nominal deficit, that's got the wrong units too. You should be using chained GDP and deficit adjusted for the CPI.

And if you don't state it, your not making a solid presentation. If you don't state that your adjusting for inflation, I have to assume it's because you don't know. If you did, you'd state it. I don't believe you because I have to go work it out myself.

I know that right wingnuts and left wingnuts are each right half of time. I also know a broken clock is right twice a day.

If your going to convince those with an education in business, finance, statistics and economics. Your gonna have to prove yourself not to be a wingnut first.

I know that the basic rules of macroeconomics include;

I know there is an optimal level of taxes. At 0% taxes, there is no fire service, military, SSI, SSDI, Medicare, etc. At 100% taxes nobody bothers to work. If it's to high or to low, revenue goes down.

I know that there are two columns in a balance sheet, income and expenses. I hear the Republicans talking about fiscal responsibility but I don't see they have a voting record that demonstrates that. And you can't possibly be fiscally responsible if you keep claiming "lower taxes" when they are as low as they can go.

I know that people on with SSI and Medicare paid for it for 50 years of working. I know that nearly half of the population are kids, the elderly, and the disabled. The number of people on welfare is so low it simply means nothing.

I know that my wife was in a head on collision at 29 years old and would work if she could but every time she has tried, she's ended up back in the hospital for surgery as a knee or ankle collapsed. I know that she's not the only one that would rather work than be on SDI.

I know that tax money doesn't disappear into a black hole. When the government spends money on projects, even having people dig holes and fill them back up again. Those people spend their income on food, rent, utilities, Viagra, whatever. That money then gets churned again.

I know there are two sides to micro economics, the supply and the demand sides. Whatever "supply side" economics is, it seems to be missing the other half of the equation.

I know that the Glass-Segal act was implemented after the great depression and the first stock market crash. I know that it has been dismantled a piece at a time and the majority of Presidents have been Republican.

Alan Greenspan said different things at different time. He believed that markets are efficient. He coined the phrase "irrational exuberance". And he said he was wrong about believing that financial players were rational. He can't have it both ways. You can't say one thing one day, the opposite the next, then pick the one that suits you so you can claim you "warned people".

And he managed to stabilize the economy from crashing for an incredible amount of time. He was simply too good at stabilizing the illusion of growth in the financial markets.

Growth is limited. You can't get exponential return on an investment forever. Any one that thinks so is clueless about physics and beneath all the monetary issues, the entire system still rests on physics. People eat, plants grow, oil gets burned, solar energy is about 300 watts per square meter (or something like that), stuff moves from one place to another. There's only so many people in the market. There is a limited amount of actual dollar bills to represent prices and goods. It all takes energy and energy doesn't go up exponentially except in a nuclear explosion. Otherwise, it crashes and oscillates. It crashed because it was too high. Investment income crashed. Prices crashed. No other reason.

It seems that the Obama people have prepared posts in advance of this news article. Posts which blame Bush. But anyone with common sense knows that what is going on is all Obama's fault. Trillions for a health care plan to reduce the quality of service, politics dictating to science, and denial of the intentions of foreign adversaries have things in an uproar. Obama intends to steal the election in 2010.