Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Whose Spending Problem??

It took a while to find a short and sweet item which lays out the spending-problem.  So here it is.

...During Bush’s tenure from 2001 through 2009, liberals cite the doubling of the national debt as proof of his profligacy. The debt did indeed double, but not all of it can be attributed to Bush policies. For example, Bush’s first year in office was plagued by an inherited recession and 9/11, which, coupled with other technical and economic revisions, Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl calculated cost $3.8 trillion through 2011. Surely he can’t be held responsible for those unforeseen events.

Yet Bush can and should be held accountable for his policies. According to Riedl, the prescription drug bill passed in 2006 is projected to add nearly $400 billion in its first decade. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts cost $1.7 trillion during the past 10 years. Add on the cost of the war on terror, which sums to about $1.3 trillion since its inception, the 2008 stimulus and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and there is plenty of fiscal responsibility for the former president.

Yup.  And we were clear on that when it was happening.  GWB is a Tommy Thompson follower.

What about 2009 and the beginning of ObozoNomics?

...Factcheck.org [...] concluded that Bush deserves most of the culpability for the staggering deficit: “The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 — for which the president [Obama] is sometimes blamed entirely — was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office.” Yet Factcheck.org maintains that about 14.5 percent of the 2009 deficit is attributable to Obama, which is no small contribution

...Factcheck.org also notes that “spending under Obama remains at a level that is quite high by historical standards. Measured as a percentage of the nation’s economic production, it reached the highest level since World War II in fiscal 2009 and has declined only slightly since.”

Bush may have been a drunken sailor, but Obozo is a sot 24x7.

...Revenue is projected to return to its historical average of 18 percent of the gross domestic product by 2016; meanwhile, spending is projected to stay well above the 20 percent of GDP historical average, swallowing nearly 25 percent as far as projections show...

Let's not forget the complicit criminals in Congress, either.
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5 comments:

  1. Jim7/31/2012 12:33 PM

    Let's not forget the complicit criminals in Congress, either.

    Correct. And don't forget the Ryan plan which doesn't balance the budget for another 25-45 years.

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  2. J Strupp7/31/2012 1:55 PM

    Again, the vast majority of the debt spike over the past 4 years can be attributed to the fall in tax revenues, increase in spending on UI, food stamps, emergency aid to states and other economic stabilizers needed followwing the financial crisis and depression that resulted. These debt levels can be assigned to President Obama but they would exist no matter who was elected President in 2008.

    The long run debt issues facing this country are due to our disasterous health care system. Had we adopted a single payer system like almost every other westernized nation in the world, we would not be facing these massive health care liabilites in the future.

    The rest of the deficit isn't a big deal as the debt market as signaled for the past 4 years. Uncle Sam is currently being paid to issue debt up to a 10 year maturity.

    In general, we don't have a short run deficit problem, we have an AD, growth and unemployment problem with a long run health care cost crisis.

    This data is easily available to anyone who wants to put aside their dogma and read about it.

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  3. Dad297/31/2012 9:39 PM

    Had we adopted a single payer system like almost every other westernized nation in the world,...

    Umnnnhhhh....

    You mean the ones like in Britain and the Netherlands where they simply kill off the problems, or the one in Canada which doesn't work too well?

    The "health care problem" is CERTAINLY being resolved by the single-payer Medicaid, right?

    Or was it Medicare?

    I forget.

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  4. J. Strupp8/01/2012 1:27 PM

    I hesitate to link to a related story (considering the links that some of the resident crazies have been posted recently)but the WSJ actually has a good one regarding this issue:


    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/07/31/government-cutbacks-separate-this-expansion-from-others/?mod=WSJBlog

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  5. Anonymous8/01/2012 3:08 PM

    Ummnhhhh...yes.

    Kinda cute, the way he mentions that 'consumer spending' is ALSO anemic. Since it's 70% of the economy, it prolly has more impact than a few minor Gummint cuts.

    By the way, Gummint spending was--and IS--out of control. Far more important than one Statist/Socialist President is the long-term survival of the country,

    IOW: too bad for Obozo, and GREAT news for the grandchildren.

    ReplyDelete