They won control of the House, but not the Senate. There was a lot of rhetoric and hot air about they’ll do this or that to cut, cut, cut spending. It’s all about that new fangled concept called CHANGE. But what do you think they’ll really do or even be able to do? Given how many have ties to the businesses that got us into this mess, how much change is possible? Are we about to experience a new day in Washington, or just more of the same, different players?
Have we been fooled again?
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#28
And besides, if there was no surplus, wouldn’t that make Bush’s eagerness to spend it on tax rebates all the more irresponsible
Yes it was. Thus one of the many problems that fiscal conservatives had with Bush.
MikeN
When the previous budgets were misrepresentations by keeping the war spending as a special appropriation? Yes
When the opposition campaigned (and still does)on conservatism, yet increased the size of government and spend recklessly any way? Yes
When the money’s purpose was (arguably) necessary to bolster the economy in a time of supreme crisis? Yes
The right makes it sound like Obama’s deficit spending has been exponential and unending. It has been incremental compared to his predecessor, during a time of economic crisis. It is not unending, since hes begun to rein in spending by 9%. As the crisis abates, more work remains to be done.
#28, tcc3,
The federal government doesn’t count any obligations it accrues during the year that aren’t also paid out that year. If it actually reported its books the way it wants corporations to, we would have much larger deficits than we are currently fed, and no Clinton surplus either.
http://usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm
Ha, your link actually mentions this story at the bottom, and then proves he doesn’t know how to read the referenced report.
As an example, he claims that the 1998 budget, even under accrual accounting still had a surplus of $69.2 billion. But when you actually read the report and turn to page 89, you see that the unified budget surplus of $69.2 is the cash accounting surplus, the accrual accounting financial report listed a deficit of $133.8 billion.
Haha, great fact checking, factcheck.org
Thomas – interesting article. It may or may not be the case: it sounds like a difference in opinion/definition.
This is why I hate finance. Its hardly math at all. =)
The trillions on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were never in the budget, they were in “emergency discretionary funding” bills. One big reason why Obama’s first budget went up, was because the wars were figured into the budget. Defund the wars, and you will have much less of a deficit.
Now, do you expect the RepubliCONs to defund the military proportionately as much as they do everything else? They certainly should. They should also defund police and prisons, because crime is down. I don’t suppose that they would EVER consider cutting anything that they can use to control WE THE PEOPLE, after we find out that we are all part of a corporation, who has more “rights” than any people.
tcc3, you would have a point if the deficit had dropped by a much higher number than 10%, back to the level of a few hundred billion dollars a year. IT is not incremental change to go from 400 billion to 1.4 trillion.
Doing nothing is the best(!) you can hope for.
We’re between a rock and a hard place. If we go with austerity, it could get messy – because fairly basic social programs will be cut, like food stamps and the like. What will those people do then you think?
If we don’t go with austerity hows that any different from what’s going on now?
So most likely we’ll see some modest austerity measures, but there will still be ‘bailouts’ (like qe) and spending. Whats the choice?
Perversely the bush tax cuts may remain making a mockery of any pretensions of ‘austerity’. It’s going to be a whole new world of double speak, because the rhetoric is incompatible with reality, and you can’t fight reality and win.
So in summary – highly unlikely to get much better. Could get much much worse. But most likely won’t make much difference.
One thing I hope Republicans don’t do is embrace net neutrality. There was a Net Neutrality protection pledge, signed by 95 candidates. How did those guys do? Glad you asked!
0 for 95.
MikeN….take the wars out (again) and next year no stimulus. What’s the deficit forecast now?
I’m guessing it’s in that 400 Bn range or incrementally higher.
Nothing will be accomplished because neither side is interested in anything other than their own kind and the companies that back and profit from them.
Cursor_
Can anyone here supporting the Republican LOWER TAXES solution for every problem explain how after 6-8 years of the Pukes getting everything they wanted from BushtheMalignantRetard without a single veto and a by and large a cooperating Dumbocrat party that CREATED AND DUMPED the USA into the financial punji pit we have now be anything other than “proof” as much as there can be that the Republican Philosophy of limited government DOESN’T WORK!!!!!!
I mean–c’mon. Doesn’t reality inform your choices at all?
Just a little bit?
#45
Yes, the Republicans in Congress have done crap. So have the Democrats. However, the philosophy of limited Federal government is absolutely sound. The problem is that neither party at the Federal level really wants limited Federal government and so at best we get lip service to that effect. The Federal government has hijacked the commerce clause to do things over which it shouldn’t have any authority and has managed to dig itself a 13 trillion dollar hole. Frankly, at this stage, I’d be satisfied if the Federal government did absolutely nothing but pay down the entire debt and let the States do the rest themselves for their own constituents. The closer the government is to the people, the better it is on average and less impact corruption has on the rest of the country. When the corruption happens at the Federal level, it affects everyone and the people have far less ability to effect change.
Well Thomas you are stuck in the equivalency of complicated choices. Not that complicated though.
TAX CUTS is strongly cleaved to by the Pukes, not as much by the Dems.
DEREGULATION is strongly cleaved to by the Pukes, not as much by the Dems.
To make the didactic easy, we can limit discussion to those two items as “The Puke Party Philosophy.”
I don’t “really” understand how any rational person, lets even take you for example, can deny that the Republican Program is DEMONSTRABLY BAD, ie worse than the Dumbocraps, for the USA.
Its so clear to me: THERE it is!!!!
Any response that is pro Puke that I can think of either makes the false equivalency argument or segues into irrelevant red herrings.
You are up, if you are up?
> Have we been fooled again?
Obviously. But we knew that beforehand. Right?
Same AHole, Same Shit, Different Day.
#43 I think it would be in that range. Now the taking the wars out won’t happen. And of course the stimulus wasn’t taken out for the most recent budget. It seems to have been assumed as part of the new baseline.
GOP now has ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT to beat the Democratic Party with a stick into whatever direction the GOP wants, until the end of Obama’s term.
Bush DID commit impeachable crimes, like torture, rendition, aggression against Iraq, but Obama unwisely continued the same policies, so Obama’s whole party is now pwned by the GOP holding impeachment over Obama’s head.
The whole Democratic party got check-mated again….
All the Republicans care about is getting back to the front of the money line.
They know they can’t get the health care package pulled back with the votes they have. This way they are doing busy work and collecting money while neglecting the banks, wall street and unemployment problems.
I am looking forward to at least 2 years of divided government, meaning we’ll have frequent Federal shutdowns. If they were doing *anything* right this would be a problem, however, perhaps the next best thing is doing nothing.
#47
Tax cuts are simply another means to stimulus. I.e., it’s borrowing money that is then injected into the economy in the hopes that the economy will improve. Thus, tax cuts are basically an alternate form of the Stimulus Bill. Both increase the debt. So, given a choice, yes I’d rather have tax cuts than government spending because it less open to pork spending by Congress. I realize the economy is hurting however when the unemployment hit say 8% or lower, I would have Congress stop any tax cuts, tax increases, or stimulus and focus all its resources on paying down the entire debt. No new programs. No new tax cuts. No new tax increases.
Regulation or deregulation is really not as much as problem as enforcement. We have plenty of regulation and piss poor enforcement. Congress has no problem passing more regulation but they do so without considering the amount of funding necessary for proper enforcement. It also depends on the type of regulation that is meant to be removed. If the regulation is redundant red tape then I agree with removing it. If is represents serious consumer protections then that is a different story.
Thomas–do you think of the HOLES in your position before or after you post them?
Income Tax Cutting disproportionately benefits the rich who in the main do not spend the additional discretionary cash on stimulating the economy. Stimulus spending is targeted at the bottom of the pile giving the infusion of debt financed cash there a multiplier effect. I do assume you know this but prefer to pull your pud while BS’ing the Republican Voter?
Pukes are against regulation whether it is needed or not.
You have lost both arguments. Got anything better?
It’s like this. Now that Nancy, Reid, and Obama have resurrected the Repubs and given them the House the Repubs can pass just about anything and send it to the Senate where it can be blocked by the Dems but a lot of Dem Senators are in Blue states and they stand for election in two years.
The question becomes do they want to keep their jobs or fall on their swords for Nancy, Reid, and Obama like so much of the House did.
Of course Obama can still use his veto power but then he’s going to be falling on his sword and turning the White House over to the dasterds in 2012 if he does.
The Repubs are almost certain to get something through. The problem is nobody can touch the entitlements and survive and if we don’t this nation is the next Greece if it isn’t already.
Which state do you think goes under first? CA or NY? I got my doubts that the Repubs will bail out either one.
Republican voters got Pwnd again. For 30 or more years, the republican party has been promising a smaller government but have not lived up to their promise.
Atleast with the democrats, they do what they are known to do. Raise taxes and increase the size of the government.
The republicans just keep telling lies.
I want to see a republican put forth effort in reducing military spending by 30 percent, get rid of the money sucking bureaucracy called homeland security, get rid of the department of education, privatize NASA and quit financing useless military operations like Iraq. This being only the start of reduced spending.
But no republican politican will because they are too busy laughing at the republican voter for being suckers for so long.
HaHaHa!
We all know they’re going to spend the next 14 months investigating everything they can lay their hands on. They’ll be frisking down more people than, well, a Republican in an airport men’s room.
Welcome to a well scented Soviet Union.
Better question–what should Dems do now? How about offering to co-sponsor legislation eliminating earmarks?
Nothing changes.
The conservative will spectacularly bungle everything they put their hands to and blame it on liberals.
Absolutely nothing will happen in the next two years. No tax cuts, no stimulus, no bailouts, nothing.
Now I know many of you Cons will say that is exactly what you wanted, but many economists are saying that it was the stimuluses and the bailouts that saved the economy from total destruction. Voters have put a huge wager down that these economists are wrong, especially since conditions are ripe for a repeat of the 2008 crash.
A slide into a new Great Depression seems inevitable now, no matter who is in power.
Step back a moment: We spend way too much money vs. what we take in in taxes and borrow the difference. The obvious answer is to cut spending. However government spending is one of the few reliable engines of economic activity in a time of recession — you reduce it at the peril of the economy. Longer term, to make substantial (deep!) spending cuts you have to choose between guns and butter: either sharply reduce defense spending or dismantle huge sections of the social safety net (social security / medicare / medicaid). There are any number of countries in the world who have made the choice to spend on social programs, and they seem to be doing quite well (Sweden comes to mind.) America faces a choice and it is past time to give up the empire: you simply cannot spend untold billions supporting a far flung military operation in a dozen countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Serbia, Germany, etc.) It’s not about national security anymore, even on their best day all the Jihadis lumped together do not pose a credible threat to this country’s continued existence the way the Soviet Union once did. Continuous war is good for only a small fraction of the economy and squanders a precious commodity — our sons and daughters. The American treasure poured into the sand would have made the funding discussions on Social Security and health care unnecessary. All the arguments here are basically about the details of how to continue doing the same things, not to make fundamental changes in our national priorities.
Fleece the rubes and pander to the plutocrats. When something works stick with it.