TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT OBAMA'S INHERITED BUDGET DEFICIT!

LRCBlogger 23 months ago

I didn't get through your entire hub but there is a big factual mistake in there. Clinton's last budget in 2001 was 1.9 Trillion and he also layed out a plan for the debt to have been paid off by now.

By the time the Democrats took control of congress, the budget was already 2.8 trillion. So in 6 years, the Republican controlled congress and republican controlled white house increased the US budget by 33% and had a huge running deficit. Even with Dems taking control, the budget was still going to increase because the Republican controlled government had already spent us into massive deficits. All of this spending and deficits more than doubled our national debt.

The greatest expansion of government also took place during this Republican controlled era.

Both parties are very guilty of overspending but the reason Obama is constantly reminding people that he inherited the debt is because republicans are constantly blaming him for the debt. They had control, they did this.

LRCBlogger 23 months ago

Sheri, if you want to dispute any of the factual information I posted, please feel free to do so. There was nothing impolite in my post. I don't think you should dismiss someone's comments because they don't fit your 'narrative.'

LRCBlogger 23 months ago

Cornerstone, you are only partly correct on the debt from George W. Yes, it is from a war, but it is also from a massive tax break for the wealthy, a massive expansion of government agencies and employees, and massive increase in military contracts to defense contractors. Regardless, the facts from my previous comment still stand.

LRCBlogger 23 months ago

I honestly would debate all of these so called "facts" but it's a bit long. Jon knows that he has posted that exact same rhetoric in the past and it is a huge twist on the truth. We've already gone back and forth on those points.

I will say this, if you think the Dems taking control of congress in 2007 had anything to do with the country financially 'crashing,' your view of the world is incredibly small. The Dems got nothing through when Bush was president and to suggest that anything they did would have had such an immediate affect is laughable. Anyone that understands that very basics of a congressional bill knows that once a bill is passed, the various agencies then write rules and regs to enforce. most bills do not take affect immediately but are phased in over many years (For Example, Health care reform is not fully implemented for 4 more years). When the Dems took control of congress, the country was in a deep amount of trouble due to massive spiraling out of control debt, deregulation that took place under the GOP, and massive tax cuts that took away from federal revenue, 2 wars, etc (one that was based on a wrong assumption of WMD's). I'm mean, cmon, seriously. You think somehow in the few months after the Dems took control they were able to pass legislation and get Bush to sign off on it,get the various govt agencies to enact it and then that affected the entire world economy several months later? If you really believe that, there's probably no point in us having these discussions.

Nobody Special 23 months ago

"He signed a bill that gave amnesty to undocumented immigrants. He grew the size of the federal government and the budget, added a whole new cabinet level agency and added tens of thousands of government workers to the federal payroll. He tripled the deficit. He bailed out and expanded social security with a big fat tax increase. He raised corporate taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. He raised taxes on gasoline. He, in fact, signed into law the largest tax increase in history. He supported federal handgun controls. He called for a world without nuclear weapons. He was Ronald Reagan. As a conservative saint, as the right-wing rock star, as king of the Republican prom in perpetuity, as a transformative figure for people who call themselves conservative, the facts of Ronald Reagan`s legislative record are awkward. Ronald Reagan`s record has in it a lot of things that would get him kicked out of today`s Republican Party, which is not to say that President Reagan was a secret liberal. He was not. What he was, was complex, but accomplished in his own way.

With the passage of financial regulation in Washington today, President Obama took to the very un-momentous setting of "Twitters," as he called it yesterday, to say this, quote, "Last night`s House Senate agreement on Wall Street reform represents the toughest financial reform since the Great Depression."

It turns out that a lot of things that have happened in the less than two years of this administration are the biggest or first or most important in generations. On the occasion of the Wall Street reform announcement today, Taegan Goddard at " CQ Politics" wrote, "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country."

Even before today`s historic Wall Street reform agreement, President Obama, of course, did what politicians have been trying to do for more than 60 years.

He passed health reform, which, for the first time, establishes government responsibility for the health care of American citizens.

Consider also the stimulus bill. It didn`t just throw a lasso around our entire economy and yank and yank it back from the brink. It also pumped about $100 billion into the crumbling embarrassment of our national infrastructure and transportation system. It was the largest investment in infrastructure since Ike. For solving our country`s energy problems, something Obama has compared to man walking on the moon, it contained about $60 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable and clean energy, also a historic investment. It also included an unheralded but giant investment in science and tech, amping up the budgets at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and an experimental energy research agency that was created under President George W. Bush, but never funded until now.

President Obama also expanded state kids` health insurance to cover another four million kids.

He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amending the 1964 civil rights act for equal pay for equal work.

He signed a nuclear arms deal with Russia that would reduce both countries` arsenals by a third.

He created a new global nonproliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. He set forth an international way forward on that radical left-wing proposition of Ronald Reagan, a world without nuclear weapons.

Then there are the legislative and policy achievements that don`t just build on previously-set precedents, but set new ones. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It had languished in Congress for years. The Food and Drug Administration permitted for the first time to regulate tobacco. Better late than never, he dismantled the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service, broke it into three parts so that the folks who collect money from oil leases aren`t the same ones regulating the industry. And now, it will actually investigate the industry that it was busy schtupping and doing drugs with during the last administration.

Obama fired two wartime commanding generals in little over a year.

He overhauled the astonishing stupidity of the student loan system in which banks were being subsidized to give loans that were guaranteed by the government anyway, a license to print money. That was ended in the savings put toward actual aid to students.

He canceled a weapons program that was bloated, unnecessary and totally irrelevant to either of our current wars, the F-22. Why even mention the cancellation of a single weapons system? Because that never happens. Weapons systems never get canceled. The F-22 did, which is itself a miracle.

In each of these achievements and in the list of things he has yet to do "Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell," closing Guantanamo in each of these things, there is room for liberal disappointment. I sing a bittersweet lullaby to the lost public option when I go to sleep at night. But presidential legacies are complex. Not even the Reagan administration`s legacy is pure as the conservative-driven snow. But Taegan Goddard at " CQ Politics" was right today about nothing this big happening since FDR. The list of legislative accomplishments of this president in half a term even before energy reform which he`s probably going to get to is, to quote the vice president, "a big freaking deal."

Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that."

Nobody Special 23 months ago

Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31. ... See More

Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging economy, today’s governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies helped the world avoid complete collapse: the recession brought on by the financial crisis arguably ended last summer.

But future historians will tell us that this wasn’t the end of the third depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn’t the end of the Great Depression. After all, unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

As far as rhetoric is concerned, the revival of the old-time religion is most evident in Europe, where officials seem to be getting their talking points from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover, up to and including the claim that raising taxes and cutting spending will actually expand the economy, by improving business confidence. As a practical matter, however, America isn’t doing much better. The Fed seems aware of the deflationary risks — but what it proposes to do about these risks is, well, nothing. The Obama administration understands the dangers of premature fiscal austerity — but because Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress won’t authorize additional aid to state governments, that austerity is coming anyway, in the form of budget cuts at the state and local levels.

Why the wrong turn in policy? The hard-liners often invoke the troubles facing Greece and other nations around the edges of Europe to justify their actions. And it’s true that bond investors have turned on governments with intractable deficits. But there is no evidence that short-run fiscal austerity in the face of a depressed economy reassures investors. On the contrary: Greece has agreed to harsh austerity, only to find its risk spreads growing ever wider; Ireland has imposed savage cuts in public spending, only to be treated by the markets as a worse risk than Spain, which has been far more reluctant to take the hard-liners’ medicine.

It’s almost as if the financial markets understand what policy makers seemingly don’t: that while long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.

So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.

And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.

Paul Krugman, June 27, 2010

KFlippin 23 months ago

Great discussion above about the causes of our present economic dilemma, no doubt it is a complicated issue. But on simply the lead in topic - the issue of this constant claim of 'inheriting' every single problem that this administration has faced -- it is enough already, it's like a punchline in a joke. Even Birnbaum, the now fired Interior dept. lifer, actually used the same phrase in her resignation statement - claimed she 'inherited' the problems in MMS that caused the spill.

By now our school children are likely claiming innocence to their teachers by telling them they 'inherited' the problem when they get caught cheating, lying, are putting farting cushions in her chair.

outdoorsguy 22 months ago

Great hub. Ive tried to point out to people before that congress presents and votes on Budgets and bills not the president. but for some reason they keep seeing the president writes the budget in the constitution. Brain dead lemmings. now if only there were a cliff nearby. LOL.

I voted this one up.

Springboard 22 months ago

LRC, I get so frustrated with the constant claim that all the Bush tax cuts were tax cuts for the rich. Not so. When you give the rich tax breaks and incentives they expand their businesses, they create jobs and provide better pay and benefits. Not across the board entirely, perhaps...but it stands to reason. Conversely, taxing the rich is a tax essentially on YOU AND I. Those taxes are passed on to US in higher prices, lower wages, and reduced benefits, and sometimes in job reductions as well.

Here's a small example of what I'm talking about. I happen to be a landlord. I charge a specific amount for rent each month. If my costs go up, for whatever reason, so does your rent. I'm not going to eat the cost. You are. On another note, I include heat in my rent amount. Let's say you think I'm getting rich off of you and you consider me "the man." And you want to stick to "the man." So, you jack the heat up to 90, and you think, "Take that." The reality is that you'll really be sticking it to yourself, because your new rent will reflect the new cost to me. My profit margin is set. You will pay the difference. There is no way around that.

If you think that taxing the rich and taxing business is going to expand the economy, create jobs, and build wealth, you are out of touch with reality.

The dems have long believed that getting rich and being rich are somehow a bad thing. In their eyes you've got to pinch them and soak them for all you can get out of them. And as I said, the reality of doing that is that the rich will simply give it right back to us...or take it away from us depending on how you look at it.

Keep in mind that old saying, "Don't bite the hands that feeds you." Poor people don't pay wages and create jobs and build businesses, so giving them a break does nothing for you and I.

outdoorsguy 22 months ago

you know.. the Democrat leaders dont like the rich. and yet not one of them on the hill is worth less than a million. most are worth far more than a million.

ever taken a gander at their tax the rich bills. Loopholes, tons of loopholes its all show and no substance.

Here is the deal simply put. Blaming Bush is an excuse to do nothing but whine and compain. and Im tired of it. I dont care if this recession/depression started in 2007 or 2009. the president and his cronies need to stop blaming every one else and their dog and do something intelligent for once. I dont care if little green men are responsible for it. Fix it or shut up and resign.

right or wrong the buck does stop with the president regardless of who controls the congress. The problem ladies and gentleman is the Congress.

they pass bills they havent read, ignore impact studys by commissions and departments that tried to warn them. but the Congress is far to smart to listen to any one who might know better.

Why should they, they havent read the Bill. but some one told them it was a good move why read a hundred pages or ten thousand pages. when your assured it will not cost more then ten cents.

Fire them all. have them tried for Treason and failure to uphold their oaths of office. fine them five million each and the next batch of Hill dwellers might actually do their jobs.

Springboard 22 months ago

Outdoorsguy, "Fix it or shut up and resign" is spot on. These guys campaign hard and steadfast that they have the solutions and ideas to take the country in what they perceive to be a better path than the president who led before them...so do what you say you were so genious to get done and fix the problems. It's EASY to point fingers. It's hard to solve problems. I don't think, personally, that Obama has the capacity to solve anything.

Cornerstone, then I definitely feel I am in good company here. :) Great hub BTW.

88woody88 21 months ago

Hi we are in the same situation over in UK, have now got coalition government, which basically means instead on buttering the bread of one party we are now funding two, just what we need when we are supposed to be so skint. Noses in troughs as usual, while we lose our jobs, our homes and our lives which we work b.....dy hard for, because no one gives us a cent we dont earn, they cream off everything, get rich, f...k everything up, retire rich and blame everybody else.

kims3003 21 months ago

Wow! You said it and you did so in the most impressive way I have seen! Very nice work!