President Obama's FY 2012 Budget, FY 2011 Continuing Resolution,? Gov Shutdown

GRUNGE · May 23, 2011

ooooo k? give one side some thorazine and have at it?

classicdame, MSN, EdD · May 23, 2011

well, he was the one who started the spending spree with bailouts of banks and corporations. Can you say "stick it to me"?

mediajunkie650 · May 23, 2011

congress passes budget bill | new york times - 4/14/11

congress voted thursday to keep the government financed through september, putting an end to a raucous first skirmish in this year's showdown between democrats and republicans over federal spending while presaging bigger ones to come.
scores of house republicans deserted their leadership to vote against the bill, which cut $38 billion in spending, saying it did not go far enough. as a result, speaker john a. boehner was forced to rely on large numbers of democrats to pass the measure, which subsequently sailed through the senate, 81 to 19. it went to president obama for his signature.
a mutual desire to avoid a crippling government shutdown led democrats and republicans to scratch their way toward a deal this time, but the far more difficult task of reducing government spending in a legislature divided not by political parties but by ideological factions will be far more difficult, especially as the 2012 election edges closer.

federal budget (2011 and 2012) | new york times - 5/5/11

WIN007 · Jun 7, 2011

well, he was the one who started the spending spree with bailouts of banks and corporations. Can you say "stick it to me"?

Actually he wasn't and he inherited a 3.5 trillion dollar deficit from a President who himself had inherited a 300 billion dollar annual surplus. But somehow I doubt any of this will deter you. :coollook:

dp1200 · Jun 10, 2011

Actually he wasn't and he inherited a 3.5 trillion dollar deficit from a President who himself had inherited a 300 billion dollar annual surplus. But somehow I doubt any of this will deter you.

If we agree that Bush's economic policy sucked (it did), and that Bush's deficit spending was bad (it was), it is illogical and intellectually bankrupt to try to use that to defend Obama's much, much worse deficit spending (which it is). If you think what your predecessor did was bad (spend money we don't have), how does it make any sense at all to go and spend even more money that we don't have?

As awful as Bush was, Obama makes him look like an amateur when it comes to spending money we don't have. Consider the numbers:

When Bush took office in 2001, the total outstanding public debt stood at $5.7 trillion and when he left in 2008, it had increased to $10 trillion. That's a $4.3 trillion increase over 8 years. Obama, on the other hand, has taken the debt from $10 trillion to $14.3 trillion in just three years! He has added as much debt in just 3 years as Bush did in 8.

Bush ran us $4.3 trillion further into debt over 8 years. That's bad, right? But we're supposed to believe that it is now good that Obama has already added another $4.3 trillion in debt in just 3 years, or that it somehow fixes the problem of Bush's lousy spending, or that Obama's own deficit spending is somehow the fault of the previous President?

Please explain how you fix a debt problem by adding even more debt at an even faster rate.

People, I really don't care which political party is in charge - they BOTH are guilty of running our economy into the ground, and the simple fact of the matter is this: Our government currently has to borrow $0.41 of every dollar it spends. This is simply unsustainable and it must stop. Try working these numbers with your own household budget to see just how ludicrous what our government is doing truly is.

Imagine this: let's say you make $59,000 a year. But, you spend $100,000 a year, meaning that each and every year, you have to borrow another $41,000 to sustain your standard of living. How long do you think you can keep that up? Proportionally, this is precisely what our government is doing, and this is exactly why we have to refuse to allow them to increase the federal debt ceiling again. If you are borrowing $41,000 a year, increasing the limit on your credit cards does not solve your problem, does it?

WIN007 · Jun 10, 2011

dp100;

At the time Obama took office the economy was shedding 750,000 a month. he inherited a two-front war, a tanked economy and a 5 trillion dollar deficit for 2009's budget which is set by the prior Administration. There has been far less of a spending spree such as a long term loss of revenues both in the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and a chronically displaced middle-class workforce which WAS paying taxes.

Outside of a much needed stimulus of which 60% was more tax cuts supposed to create job hiring incentives, he actually hasn't gone on a big spending spree.

I'm not a big Obama fan; he was not my choice of candidates but I see no value in blaming problems 10 or 30 years in the making on the man either.

The tea party's chantings , which ultimately end in default on the national debt will cause far worse crisis. Don't buy it becuase you'll lose everything if that happens. Geithner is not lying. The bond market will collapse , stock market will collapse,, currency will be worth nothing, inflation will be runaway and the housing and job market of today will seem like a paradise.

Nor is deficit spending inherently bad. If it's invested well and you get a return on it that's fine. microprocessor, the arpanet (internet), nanotechnology, much in biotechnology are all examples fo this. there are other times to deficit spend as well; epidemics, unanticipated crisis like war and national disasters. It's absolute silliness to suggest a nation can run it's affairs like a household.

If you can see three legs to an economy: consumer spending, business spending and investment and govt spending, then if the first two are flat than that ONLY leaves govt. Thus as near every economist in the nation has said, slashing the govt workforce or state in a recession is only going to make things far worse yet.

The slashing and burning of the budget is evident in the late unemployment spikes as hundreds of thousands of govt workers and vertical industry workers hit the unemployment lines. Well, we told ya.

dp1200 · Jun 11, 2011

At the time Obama took office the economy was shedding 750,000 a month. he inherited a two-front war, a tanked economy and a 5 trillion dollar deficit for 2009's budget which is set by the prior Administration. There has been far less of a spending spree such as a long term loss of revenues both in the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and a chronically displaced middle-class workforce which WAS paying taxes.
Outside of a much needed stimulus of which 60% was more tax cuts supposed to create job hiring incentives, he actually hasn't gone on a big spending spree.

The phrase, "Bush tax cuts for the wealthy" is nothing but a partisan talking point. Obama wisely signed a continuation of these very same tax cuts, acknowledging the very simple economic truth that raising taxes on anyone during a recession is mistake. The government is overhead, and any money the government takes out of the productive economy (taxes) is money that won't be spent elsewhere in the economy. I reject Keynesian economic theory because we're proving it to be an abject failure right now with.

I'm not a big Obama fan; he was not my choice of candidates but I see no value in blaming problems 10 or 30 years in the making on the man either.

I partially agree with this: the problems we face today were indeed 30+ years in the making, and are the result of an ever-growing, ever more powerful central government which has become a malignant tumor draining the life out of this country. That said, it is entirely appropriate to place blame on an administration which refuses to learn from past failure and instead continues to make things even worse by exhibiting more of the same behavior that caused the problem in the first place.

The tea party's chantings , which ultimately end in default on the national debt will cause far worse crisis.

I'm sorry but this is absolute partisan rubbish, and it is so patently misleading that it is worthy of calling outright propaganda. Refusing to increase the debt ceiling DOES NOT equal default. Default only happens if we stop paying on current debt obligations, and the government makes plenty of revenue to cover that. We will only default if our politicians decide that it is more important to continue other spending than it is to service current debt obligations.

Don't buy it becuase you'll lose everything if that happens. Geithner is not lying. The bond market will collapse , stock market will collapse,, currency will be worth nothing, inflation will be runaway and the housing and job market of today will seem like a paradise.

Actions have consequences and some of what you predict above are going to happen no matter what we do, it is only a matter of when, and how much worse it will be by letting the government delay the inevitable. Point by point:

1) The bond market.

This is already an abject disaster, and our creditor nations are already losing confidence precisely because of the insane, unsustainable borrowing binge the US has been on for the past several decades. Do you know why current interest rates are so low? It's only because the Federal Reserve has completely broken the bond market via "quantitative easing" - they are inflating the monetary base to purchase Treasury debt with devalued dollars. Our own central bank is now the largest holder of US debt than any other entity, including China. Here is the end-stage reality: the Federal Reserve simply cannot continue to monetize the debt like this or we will end up in a hyperinflationary death spiral like Weimar Germany prior to WWII or Zimbabwe. The inflation we've already seen in food and fuel prices are the direct result of the Fed's currency debasement.

Yes interest rates will rise. They have to to rise, and they're going to - it is inevitable because they are only being held artificially low by unsustainable currency basement by the Federal Reserve. Deal with it - this is the first of the "actions have consequences" lessons this childlike nation must learn.

2) The stock market.

This is even worse than the bond market. Anyone with any money in stocks right now is certifiably insane. We've just had our sixth consecutive weekly decline in the stock market - the worst since 2002 - as the world is waking up to the hard reality that there is no economic recovery - just an illusion created by the temporary effect of insane deficit spending. If I lose my job, I can continue to spend like crazy and appear prosperous by charging up my credit cards - for a while. That's what our government has been doing with this "stimulus" nonsense.

Thus far, the stock market has only been levitated by the exact same debt games that are holding interest rates artificially low. Since those games are unsustainable, it is only a matter of time before it all falls apart. The longer we try to suspend reality and avoid letting the correction happen, the worse it will be. Consequences.

3) Currency

You are completely wrong on this point. What the government is doing right now with this deficit spending and debt monetization is what is killing the value of our currency. This is why food and energy prices have gone up so much recently. Stopping this nonsense and showing some fiscal responsibility will restore the value of the currency and increase our dollar's purchasing power.

4) Inflation

Tied to my points about currency above. Again, you are completely wrong. Inflation is what happens when a government borrows too much and devalues its currency by printing too much of it. If we stop letting our government borrow $0.41 of every dollar it spends, and in particular we stop letting our Federal Reserve destroy the value of our currency by monetizing the debt, inflation will go DOWN.

5) Housing

Housing has been dropping like a rock and will continue to decline for a long time. We've blown a huge bubble in this sector - again with unsustainable DEBT - to create the temporary illusion of prosperity. To pretend that we can restore or continue this nonsense with insane federal deficit spending is dangerous childlike naivete. The housing market only got as high as it did because we played games with DEBT - made it too easy for people to buy homes they really could not afford, by making it too easy to borrow ever-increasing amounts of money. Real estate values will stabilize only when we get back to the point where you've got to have a 20% downpayment and realistic front and back debt-to-income ratios to qualify for a mortgage. We're getting there, but we're not yet there yet.

Again, this correction is inevitable - it's only a matter of how long it takes to get there and whether we continue to make things worse by letting our government deficit-spend us into oblivion.

6) Jobs

Government deficit spending does NOT "create jobs" in any meaningful way that contributes to actual, sustainable, organic economic growth. I reject Keynsian economics as our government has been practicing it for decades - we are proving right now that it does not work. The so-called "stimulus" did NOTHING except create some temporary busy work and boost the stock market. The fact that we still have >9% unemployment and 400,000+ weekly new unemployment filings shows what a complete waste of borrowed money this was. It has been proven to be an unsustainable failure. You know what Einstein's definition of insanity is, right?

If we want jobs, the only way to get them is to make it more attractive for people to pay other people to make things in this country. Increasing taxes and devaluing the currency has the opposite effect. Government is an obstacle. I know this as fact, as in the past I have been my own employer and run my own business.

Nor is deficit spending inherently bad.

Now you sound like a Bush Republican.

60% of federal spending goes to social entitlement payments. That is bad.

If it's invested well and you get a return on it that's fine. microprocessor, the arpanet (internet), nanotechnology, much in biotechnology are all examples fo this.

All of these things will develop on their own via private investment if there is money to be made in it (capital seeks profit). All the government has to do is stay out of the way, because government is unproductive overhead. If there is not money to be made in it, it's not an investment.

there are other times to deficit spend as well; epidemics, unanticipated crisis like war and national disasters. It's absolute silliness to suggest a nation can run it's affairs like a household.

How much of our current federal deficit spending is going towards epidemics, war, or natural disasters? Our three current wars in the middle east don't count - it is ridiculous that we are even still there and that Obama has started our involvement in this new war in Libya.

It is NOT silly to suggest the nation can and should run its affairs like a household - it's the same dynamics on a larger scale. There is no escaping the simple reality that you cannot borrow infinite amounts of money forever. What IS silly is suggesting that we go on borrowing $0.41 of ever dollar we spend, and debasing our our currency to do it.

If you can see three legs to an economy: consumer spending, business spending and investment and govt spending, then if the first two are flat than that ONLY leaves govt. Thus as near every economist in the nation has said, slashing the govt workforce or state in a recession is only going to make things far worse yet.
The slashing and burning of the budget is evident in the late unemployment spikes as hundreds of thousands of govt workers and vertical industry workers hit the unemployment lines. Well, we told ya.

Consumer and business spending is down BECAUSE of the government. Yes, the government workforce must shrink - it is unproductive overhead.

WIN007 · Jun 12, 2011

The phrase, "Bush tax cuts for the wealthy" is nothing but a partisan talking point. Obama wisely signed a continuation of these very same tax cuts, acknowledging the very simple economic truth that raising taxes on anyone during a recession is mistake. The government is overhead, and any money the government takes out of the productive economy (taxes) is money that won't be spent elsewhere in the economy. I reject Keynesian economic theory because we're proving it to be an abject failure right now with.>>
Please. I call it what it is and if it offends the delicate polemics of the fringes that's too bad. ;-)
The Bush tax cuts were highway robbery for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and considering government jobs outpaced private sector jobs (which had a significant net REDUCTION) under the Bush administration it's interesting you'd call it "wise". It was a wholesale transfer of the ENTIRE tax burden onto the middle class and upwardly mobile workers, via transferring taxes off of wealthy individuals and corporations and to wages and salary and consumption taxes (which disprorportiately hit the middle and lower classes). That regular people would vote for this (and a few crazily still support it) is a tribute to JT Barnum.
What's really odd about people who work on wages and salary do the bidding of the wal-mart heirs, von moss', koch, mellon-scaife, etc. Have you ever in your life heard them say, well, gee we have plenty of money so we think you should give the poor and middle class a tax break and health care. LOL! Fuhgetabout it. NEVER gonna happen. They're far too busy paying Rush Limbaugh, et al to tell you you're a "socialist" if you want to collect your social security. So stop doing their bidding; they can afford and do have plenty of representation. Like the entire Congress.
Slashing government services and infrastructure (Medicare, Medicaid, schools, universities, transportation) et al, will NOT help. As for defaulting on the national debt being no problem. Maybe not if you're into survalism.
(Don't try it at home kids.) If the dollar is worth nothing => no home equity, no bonds, no stock market, no jobs, no food, no energy. Do you know what HAPPENS to countries that default on their debt? Haitii, the Jamaica, certain African and South American countries? Well, at least they're USED to being poor and they're unarmed too. ;-)
PS - and no, consumer spending is NOT down because of the government. Don't be ridiculous.

WIN007 · Jun 14, 2011

re: 60% of federal spending goes to social entitlement payments. That is bad.

PS - I agree with you. Though I admit I get testy when people call them 'entitlements'. Something one paid for is either ours or it isn't. If Medicare is an 'entitlement' for me than the 7 million dollar and upward mansions purchased by the primary benefactors of those bush tax cuts should also be 'entitlements' and up for grabs. Liquidate THOSE and paying the national debt is actually no different than bilking people who paid into a health care program yet interestingly those born again stalwarts of balanced budgets, the teabaggers, have yet to make that suggestion.

I do agree 100% the USA healthcare system is a financial shipwreck in need of renovation and streamlining and that's the plan. What I don't see as a sensible plan is to bilk people out of healthcare they need and paid for without doing a damned thing to fix the inefficiencies in the system and counting solely on deprived access and slashing healthcare workers.

Also, reason medicare exists is a lesson already learned in the nations history. Private insurance companies don't WANT to insure old people they're guaranteed to lose money on. Take care of yourself all you want but you do reach an age where things age and break. Period.

dp1200 · Jun 16, 2011

This rhetoric of partisan class warfare and incessant harping on the Obama tax cuts (Bush isn't President anymore and it was Obama who last signed the law reauthorizing these tax rates) not only fails to address the actual problem or offer a real solution, it is downright disingenuous.

The TOTAL cost of the Obama tax cuts amounts to approx. $1.3 billion per year (source). Note this is the TOTAL reduction in revenue from ALL the cuts, not just the undeserved cuts given to the evil super wealthy - these were across-the-board tax cuts to ALL income brackets that everyone who earns a paycheck benefitted from. I'm trying trying to find a breakdown of the cost of these tax rate reductions by income bracket so we can directly address the cost of the cuts to the upper income brackets.

Nevertheless, even if we raise ALL the tax rates back to the higher pre-2001 levels, this would only restore $1.3 billion per year to federal revenue (less actually, because that $1.3 billion would no longer be in our pockets to be spent in the economy, thus reducing real revenues).

But, for the sake of argument, let's keep it simple and say the Fedgov would get back $1.3 billion per year from this tax increase. Well, the current Federal budget deficit is approx. $1.4 TRILLION.

$1.3 billion / $1,400 billion = 0.0009 = .09%

ALL of the Obama tax cuts amount to less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the federal budget deficit! Right now, our budget deficit is $1.4 billion per year. You know what the deficit would be without the Obama tax cuts? $1.3987 billion/year. These tax cuts are completely insignificant in the face of our staggering budget deficit crisis! They are NOT the cause of the budget deficit - not even close (just 1/10 of 1%).

Let's look at it another way: As I've stated before, our government currently has to borrow $0.41 of every dollar it spends (source) - a fact you have repeatedly ignored. Raising ALL tax rates back to pre-2001 levels saves only $0.0004 of every dollar spent.

If you are currently borrowing $41,000 a year against an income of $59,000 to maintain a yearly budget of $100,000 (this is exactly proportional to what the fedgov is doing), does it really matter to your financial picture if you get a $40/year raise? You are still borrowing $40,960 per year. Are you in any better shape? Of course not - it's insignificant!

Are you beginning to understand the horrible magnitude of what our fedgov has done, and how pointless it is to harp on something so factually irrelevant as the literally insignificant Obama tax cuts?

allnurses Guide · Jun 17, 2011

I'm not certain of the accuracy of the $1.3 billion per year amount but why say it is completely insignificant?

What are our priorities? Do we choose to bail out banks and not our hungry children? Give subsidies to oil companies and make sick seniors try to find a for profit insurance company?

Stop taxing capital gains and blame working teachers, nurses, and trash collectors for the deficit?

What do we do?

I know no matter how frugal most of us would borrow to pay for healthcare to save our children or parents after a catastophic accident or illness. And then work to increase our income to pay what we owe.