Perhaps if we end these senseless expensive wars and close the tax loopholes for the rich and corporations it would fall even farther. Also, ending the tax subsidies for the oil companies would help too.

Hell no we won't!!! We must not let the Bush tax cuts expire. Especially for the 1%. We will default on our debt instead and cause global economic collapse.

Sincerely,

The republicon congress

What children, it is the spending that is the problem, not the revenue. What happens when you take all the money from the rich, then where will you greedy big government people turn?

@Puh-lease:

Get your facts straight. Many Dem's in congress also oppose letting the Bush tax cuts expire claiming that it would hurt job creation.

Considering this is the first budget year in a long time that Republicans actually had enough votes to do anything at the beginning of the year, it looks like they are working in the direction they came to congress planning to do.

It is refreshing to see it at least going in the right direction now.

A dip, well now isn't that more money for this admin to spend after all there is no budget so there are no guide lines for spending.

This is ridiculous. By no measure what so ever is an additional 1.1 trillion in an annual deficit good. If voters like KMC think adding an additional trillion to our debt is a sign of good leadership, then we are in serious fiscal trouble as a nation.

A serious leader would have a plan in place to cut the debt and have a surplus this year, despite opposition. Leadership is not failing to meet goals and pointing fingers.

We have a revenue problem due to all the tax cuts which was by Republican design (Starve the Beast), so that we could enter the wars and deficit spending leading to the financial crisis and ultimately cutting entitlements.

Let the Bush tax cuts expire for crying out loud. People understand that the debt is strangling us. Let's get out of the hole and move forward with reforms.

Puh-lease

Hell no we won't!!! We must not let the Bush tax cuts expire. Especially for the 1%. We will default on our debt instead and cause global economic collapse.

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

And what lead to the financial crisis are the policies put into effect by the dems in the 90s

...The vast majority of those earning over $1 million a year pay at a higher rate, which is why the average tax rate for this group, according to the Tax Foundation, is 29.1 percent of taxable income. And, yes, this number includes income taxes, payroll taxes and capital gains taxes.

The numbers change a bit if you look at total income before deductions and tax credits (Adjusted Gross Income), according to another non-partisan group, The Tax Foundation. Here’s how the numbers breakdown using IRS data from 2009 on Adjusted Gross Income for the income groups at issue in this discussion:

- $10 million a year paid 22 percent.

- $1 million to $10 million paid 25 percent.

- $50,000 to $75,000 paid 7 percent.

The rate for the middle-income filers drop because many individual deductions and tax credits are phased out for higher income taxpayers.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/fact-check-the-richtheir-secretaries-and-taxes/

Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow--it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it." Shakti Gawain

bennyp-2555313 - What a ridiculous post. A leader who is blocked every step of the way has no way to accomplish his goals. Your pie in the sky mentality is so far off base it is even below ridiculous. Let's see you accomplish anything when you are fenced in by stupidity and people who have said publicly they will do anything to make you fail. Typical Republican!

Yay? I'm happy that we are only overspending by $1.1-ish trillion next year???

How about some perspective: Did you notice the other articles of late essentially downgrading the growth rate of the US economy over the next year? The article notes some "assumptions", including growth to support more taxes to pay more of the costs covered/not covered by the deficit. If anything doesn't meet the "assumptions" the equation goes further out of kilter and you get more debt. It's kind of like the jobs numbers- they are real this week, until we adjust them after we report them. Let's just say that there's another "too big to fail" moment and the government decides to step in- that's more debt. Let's say that the economy doesn't light up and the taxes don't come as hoped- more debt. More federal programs and more federal spending = more federal debt.

Finally, lets not forget that many in the world are reducing the amount of US debt they are purchasing, reducing the duration of US debt being bought (6mo, 1yr, 2yrs instead of long term debt), replacing the dollar for international transactions, and quietly cashing in/selling off the US debt they have. This easily could turn (quickly) into a "no one wants our debt" or "no one wants to support more debt" situation. That = a HUGE problem as the US will be forced to offer higher yields for the debt or get cut off. Thus, more money out the door and less stability.

Got to face it Wimpy- That bill is coming on Tuesday for that hamburger today.

How about stop spending what you don't have. Dare I say a balanced budget and that isn't an opportunity to raise taxes. In 2010 the Feds collected 2.167 TRILLION dollars and still defect spent 1.293 TRILLION dollars. That is just plain wrong.

In 2008 the direct revenues were 2.406 Trillion dollars and the deficit was 248 Billion dollars. Then we got a huge jump in 2009, the revenues were 2.105 Trillion dollars and the deficit skyrocketed to 1.412 Trillion dollars. This is unacceptable and will kill our financial future.

Rick-312779

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

And what lead to the financial crisis are the policies put into effect by the dems in the 90s

Because the Republicans held the unemployment benefits hostage. Learn something rick...

Its obama's tax cuts now. He extended them. Never forget that its the liberals that need all that money to pay for their socialism. The income tax orignally only applied to incomes over $500,000 until 1942 when FDR dropped that to $500 (without the 000). They actually had to make films to teach people how to pay it. They've never been able to let that change expire ever sense.

Seekingsanity - Account for the two years the president's party controlled both parts of congress, yet we still had trillion $ deficits. So by this logic a flip of the house has actually helped, as the deficit went down. +1T debt is still nothing to be happy about.

I don't think it is pie in the sky to expect debt reduction as promised. Pointing fingers and calling names is not going to solve this. Get real, no one in Washington wants to address debt seriously, least of all the guy who promised to half it during his first term.

Even if the Dem's take back control of the House and Senate they will still not get much done (like before) since the blue dog Dem's consistently vote with the GOP.

Time for a third party that truly represents the interests of the middle class!

What children, it is the spending that is the problem, not the revenue. What happens when you take all the money from the rich, then where will you greedy big government people turn?

Actually, it's both: intake - spending = deficit/surplus. It's all about simple arithmetic.

The two big hits on revenue are tax cuts and unemployment. Grover Norquist has sworn to primary any candidate that votes for a tax increase. And greedy large corps insist on shipping jobs overseas (I'm in IT and it is disgusting the amount of labor that is shipped abroad or imported under the H1B program for cheap labor). Therefore our unemployment numbers soar and tax revenue decreases.

As far as spending, below are the big three, everything else is relatively small potatoes. The problem is that these are all sacred cows for one group or another.

1) Medicare

2) Social Security

3) Military Spending

Stick your head out and try to cut any of them or try to go against the tax absolutists or big business and you can kiss your political career good bye. So, between spineless politicians and a demanding electorate, we are all complicit in the craphole we find ourselves in. Look in the mirror and you will find some of the guilty party.

I have two suggestions that would go a long way to solving our deficit problem: 1) buy American made goods and boycott all companies that outsource jobs and 2) take corporate money out of government.

I'll play the voice of reason here (sure to be strung up for it):

Fine, let all of the Bush tax cuts expire. From the estimates I've heard, it would be worth somewhere around $1 billion/year. Our current rate of deficit spending is about $3 billion per day. Cutting the tax cuts won't shore up the books. So, what's next?

There is good news and of course you people cannot say...Yaaay! NO, you have to start with all your blaming and complaining over and over and over again.

I think it's great. I think it shows we are slowly getting out of the mess that the President had to clean up when he entered office. I think if you don't like things getting better, move to a country that is worse so you have something really to complain about.

Sorry about my rant, but I have seen way to many people spouting B.S today in posts just like this.

Haroldwolf

How about stop spending what you don't have. Dare I say a balanced budget and that isn't an opportunity to raise taxes. In 2010 the Feds collected 2.167 TRILLION dollars and still defect spent 1.293 TRILLION dollars. That is just plain wrong.

In 2008 the direct revenues were 2.406 Trillion dollars and the deficit was 248 Billion dollars. Then we got a huge jump in 2009, the revenues were 2.105 Trillion dollars and the deficit skyrocketed to 1.412 Trillion dollars. This is unacceptable and will kill our financial future.

The reason the deficit skyrocketed is because when Obama came into office he got all the emergency spending Bush was using to pay for the war into the books. He was using something called supplemental appropriations, were you borrow money but its not being counted in the budget.

The problem is that the supplemental appropriations process has been extended beyond unforeseen emergencies to entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) non-emergencies. Over the past several years, the most obvious example has been funding for the Iraq War, most of which has been funded, directly or indirectly, “off budget,” as the process is sometimes referred to. It has also been accomplished without offsets.

Why has this been the case? The major reason is that it obscures the amount of federal spending generally and for specific purposes, if it is the desire of any administration to do so. Supplemental appropriations spending does not appear in the annual accounting of federal spending versus revenue collections, meaning it is not calculated into the federal deficit for any given year. The money is spent just like regular budgetary allocations, but when the books are closed, it does not appear as an inflationary impact on federal deficits. This alone made it a particularly attractive device for a Bush administration that was running up record deficits without the impact of supplementals. It also made the cost of the Iraq War and defense spending generally appear much more modest than it in fact was. Moreover, the Bush administration generally provided no offsetting reductions to moderate the impact. Finally, supplementals generally receive nowhere near the public scrutiny of the regular budget, making them an attractive device for in effect hiding potentially controversial expenditures of public funds. Iraq certainly qualifies in that regard.

It does not have to be included Bush made sure of that.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been funded through emergency spending requests since they began.

bennyp-2555313 - It is obvious that you don't believe that Obama is a leader. Was Bush a leader? Have we ever had a leader as described by you?

Dirp, you realize that would require not extending ALL of the bush tax cuts, including on the lower income right? The Democrats are not talking about doing that, but only rescinding the tax cuts on the top 1%, which only lowers the deficit by roughly 30 Billion a year, not the 400 billion your citation claims.

Can you point to an honest politician arguing for your policy change on not extending the tax cuts?

Obama seeks to raise US debt limit by $1.2 trillion

President Barack Obama has formally notified Congress that he plans a $1.2 trillion (£780m) increase in the US debt limit, prompting Republicans to level election-year charges that deficits are out of control.

And another point... It's not all tax cuts. Federal spending is up 20% since 2007... that is far outpacing inflation. That spending growth projection can not continue at a sustainable pace no matter what the tax rates.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/

lvingbarefoot, you're right about one thing. Spending is part of the problem. The other part is when CORPORATIONS OUTSOURCE JOBS. For the past 30-40 years this nation has slowly went from a producer to the more well-known CONSUMER. Our economy will NEVER be as prosperous as it once was. Greedy? Not exactly. We just want the outsourced jobs back... it's just that many people don't realize this. What happens to an economy when you take out the backbone of labor? Money goes out of the economy... but less comes back in. This continues to happen until we find ourselves we were are now and it will get worse overall.

A direct example of what im taking about is war. History has taught us that when a nation goes to war (and actually invades the opposing side) the economy of the nation tends to improve. An even more specific example would be World War II. One of the biggest reasons the U.S. got out of the great depression was because America HAD to PRODUCE military parts for war. We didnt buy import parts from china to make the vehicles, the weapons, the ammo, ect. It was all MADE IN AMERICA. NOW when we go to war we add a few billion-trillion dollars to the national debt because we BUY PARTS FROM CHINA. There is no other major reason this happens, it just the way it is. This doesnt just apply to military parts, it applies to just about everything. The only difference is instead of adding cost to a national debt its our own economy when it comes to non-military goods. We dont need to government to ask the rich for money. I have a better idea:

Support small businesses as well as corporations that are american-based as far as jobs ago. Offer tax cuts for these said entities for maybe 5 to 10 years as well as other motivational benefits. This way american made products are more readily available and easy to buy than they are now. THEN raise taxes on IMPORTED GOODS. This way, we can actually PRODUCE more than we CONSUME and actually SELL without BUYING too much. This would actually keep money circulating within our own economy without it getting trickled down to china and then finally, back to us. Although it happened over decades, we basically gave part of our economy to China.

The ultimate goal of this recession is to align the pay scale of US workers with those of Chinese, Indian and other low cost wage countries.
In order for this to be made possible the wealth of most Americans have to be stripped away from them and the need to make ends meet must increase in the population across the board.

The majority of Americans wealth are in their homes.
This has dissipated over the past few years.

Once majority of the American citizens wealth have been stripped.
The global economy will have fully arrived.

Once this occurs it will provide those higher ups with the power in this nation to have more room to restructure our society to their liking.

The Structure.....
Will be similar to China's, India's and other countries where low wages/slave wages can be found.

What can we do to protect ourselves????

"FIGHT EVERY INCH OF THE WAY FOR FAIRNESS & RIGHTEOUSNESS" within our society!!!!!!!

This requires everyone to look at themselves carefully.

I always ask myself....
Is the work that I do helpful to individuals around me and helpful to the universe as a whole????

Or am I doing work that devastates things around me???

We dont need the government to ask the rich for money.**

@Jesse-Az - Yes spending is up because of all the people on unemployment and foodstamps caused by the recession Bush's administration put us in.

Also, Bush's administration didn't put the wars on the books. President Obama did put the costs of the wars on the books and is making sure they get paid. Hiding the bills until the next presidency isn't good business for we the people.

President Obama has made us more informed citizens by putting things 'on the books' instead of hiding everything.

We need all the people to pay a fair percentage of their wages whether it be from actual income or capital gains. When there are no loopholes and an across the board percentage rate for ALL Americans, then we will grow to be the great country we should be. Avoidance of paying the same rate as others is wrong.

KMC-289440 "A slight dip is better than no dip. More bad news for Republicans."

In Bush's first 4 years, Deficits totaled $816 Billion ($204 Billion per year).

In Obama's first 4 years, Deficits are expected to total over $5,000 Billion ($1,250 Billion per year).

How is that 'bad news for Republicans' ?

PS - The total Deficits for all 8 of Bush's fiscal years in office was only $2,006 Billion ($251 Billion per year). Can we afford 4 more years of Obama?

Source;

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals See Table 1.3

@bigbenalaska

The debt limit has to be increased in order to prevent default, which would be alot worse as it would severely reduce our countries national credit rating and raise already high prices on any U.S. financial transaction dealing with foriegn countries. Which would also hurt the corporations who now do most of their business OUTSIDE the U.S. Republicans in office WANT the debt cieling RAISED, they just try to use it against democrats by blaming the deficit on them, despite rejecting a raise in PERSONAL income tax for the rich, which should have nothing to do with job creation. Add to the fact they arent creating jobs anyway, and you can clearly see most republicans are full of $#!^.

P - Laya..., at this point your comment does not surprise me. You might have hit the nail on the head

This is just another in the endless misinformation campaign perpetuated by the media to continue the class warfare strategy of the Obama administration. Ending the Bush era tax cuts on the top 1% won't cause a dip in the deficit, it will be a drip. 30 billion a year returning to the coffers is hardly worth celebrating.

I love how some blame it all on Republican tax cuts, and see nothing wrong with all the increased spending under the Democrats. The simple truth is that both sides share the blame, even if voters are too partisan to agree. We need a total overhaul of our tax code, not just targeted political theater that will never solve any of the fiscal problems facing this country.

A polarized partisan political climate favors the politicians. If people and especially the media were blaming both sides for the fiscal problems as they should, maybe we would actually see the issue addressed. But with everyone blaming each other, pointing fingers, believing the lies, and our complete lack of an unbiased media, this country is going to have a major financial collapse in the not to distant future.

Eventually someone other then Bush is going to be blamed, and that someone will be Obama. You can't just blame Bush for raising the debt ceiling 4 trillion over 8 years, and give a total pass to Obama raising it 6 trillion in just 4 years. Obama is on pace to double the national debt he inherited if voters are stupid enough to give him another term. So continue to blame Bush, because this country is certainly not on the right track with Obama, and that is a fact you cannot ignore forever.

Seeking Sanity, WHY is it then, the deficit FELL the first full year of the Republicans having Majority in the house if they are doing such a bad job? They must be doing something right.

We need to hold our elected officials to a higher standard. Stop the back stabbing and finger pointing, and take responsibility for their actions. 3yrs of jobs/healthcare bills have only driven us deeper in debt with no light at the end of the tunnel.

"Account for the two years the president's party controlled both parts of congress"

Except that didn't happen. You can't control either part of congress unless you have a filibuster-proof majority which never existed in the House and only existed in the Senate for about 3 months of that 2 years.

First, Pass a Constitutional Amendment overthrowing the Valeo and Citizen's United decisions. Than follow these steps...

Step 1:

Repeal the Bush Tax Cuts which will bring debt as a percentage of GDP to below 50%.

Step 2:

Fix the miss aligned interests of Wall St and the American citizenry. We currently have a system in place which incentivizes dolling out debt to the American people, as opposed to investment and innovation. Transparency, capital requirements, fiduciary duty on the part of lendors, and limiting bank size will fix this. In addition, reform (NOT KILL) the labor unions. End nepotism, first in last out, and protect whistleblowers. Make the interests of the union align with the interests of ethical workers.

Step 3:

Instead of taking advantage of China's human rights violating labor market, using it as reasoning for devaluing American labor, and having zero penalities in our tax code for doing so, and zero incentives to not do so, let's incentivize American manufactoring and penalize Chinese manufactoring. Why are we racing them down to the standards of the guilded age? We should penalizing that, not trying to beat them there.

Step 4:

Stop China's currency manipulation, take back their "Most Favored Nation" status, and equalize the tariff rates.

Step 5:

Focus on efficiency in our discretionary and defense spending. Efficiency in healthcare, education, energy... in all of the discretionary spending areas, and in defense spending. It's not about slashing and burning our discretionary budget, it's about focusing on creative ways to tackle the actual issues. An infrastrutcure bank, instead of subsidies for oil companies give tax breaks to households and businesses that lower their heating costs through energy efficiency for consecutive years, or reward innovators in clean energy. And don't even give me that Solyndra crap, 100 years ago, he could have stood in front of the Hyndenberg and talked about how the future lay in air travel. It wouldn't have made him wrong about the future of air travel, would it???

Step 6:

Means test for entitlements and raise the retirement age.

Conclusion:

We build jobs, end our dependancy on China/foriegn energy, and rebuild our country. Plus, voila, we know have an ever expanded tax base.

@ROY WILSON - Bush has low debts because he pushed most of them onto President Obama by not putting the war on the books or paying for the wars.

The reason President Obama has spent so much is because he's paying off what Bush did, but hid.

YES, I believe a President that puts all the bills on the books and works to pay them off instead of hiding them is well worth keeping.

Joe the tax cut actually worked out to around $100 billion per year. Trouble is that if you take that in taxes growth will stop altogether for a year or two - and the politicians know it.

Baseline budgeting has us locked into an 8 - 10% normal annual spending increase when revenues rarely increase more than 7.5%. in 2008 & 2009 spending increase a 10 & 19%. That spending has not been removed and the resulting economy has held us to 2010 and 2011 increases of only 5 1/2% per year.

A slight dip is better than no dip.

More bad news for Republicans.

How do you figure? It's still higher than any annual budget deficit during the 8 years preceding the current administration. The largest budget deficit during EITHER of Bush's two terms was approximately $500 billion (which was bad enough!). . . .whereas the CBO's estimate during Obama's three full years in office has been $1.875 trillion ('09), ~$1.4 trillion ('10), and ~$1 trillion ('11).

And the deficits are predicted to remain well above the the deficits produced during the tenure of ANY prior administration for the foreseeable future. It boggles the mind how anyone could consider this bad news for the Republicans.

If the purpose of extending the Bush tax cuts it to promote job creation, why isn't job creation a REQUIREMENT in order to get them? If a person making over $250,000 creates jobs during the year, they get the cut; otherwise, they have to pay at the same rates as the rest of us. Right now they're getting these tax cuts but not having to show anything for them. Meanwhile, the national debt continues to soar.

@Janine - Since the Congress and Senate have mostly been known to do almost nothing and the President has been taking executive steps to do things... I think the recovery is all President Obama's doing.

I think if we could get unempoyment down & get some real fulltime jobs ceated in this country & had more people paying taxes instead of living off the Govt we wouldn't need to worry about raising taxes. Instead we will end up taxing the workers to pay for the non workers & end up deeper & deeper as we go. Nah, Just kidding, lets just keep on spending like there's no tomorrow.

Yashmak,

Stop distorting facts.

Bush's last three fiscal year budgets:

FY '07: $161 billion

FY '08: $248 billion

FY '09: $1,413 billion

Obama's first three fiscal year budgets:

FY '10: $1,293 billion

FY '11: $1,299 billion

FY '12: $1,101 billion

As you can see, the budgets under Bush were trending sharply upwards. He is responsible for the biggest budget deficit in history (FY '09). Remember, it was a budget surplus when he first took office. The budget deficit has been going down ever since he left office. And they would certainly be MUCH lower were it not for the mess he left us in: unpaid and unjust wars, an economy going off the cliff.

ROY WILSON-336103

KMC-289440 "A slight dip is better than no dip. More bad news for Republicans."

In Bush's first 4 years, Deficits totaled $816 Billion ($204 Billion per year).

In Obama's first 4 years, Deficits are expected to total over $5,000 Billion ($1,250 Billion per year).

How is that 'bad news for Republicans' ?

PS - The total Deficits for all 8 of Bush's fiscal years in office was only $2,006 Billion ($251 Billion per year). Can we afford 4 more years of Obama?

Source;

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals See Table 1.3

Roy Wilson i have told you many times that what you are saying its not true. Why do you insist on posting that LIE?????

When Obama came in the deficit was 1.3 trillion. Bush was keeping the real deficit from id##$ like you by passing supplemental appropriations. STOP POSTING YOUR LIES MAN!!!!! I have told you at least 10 times that what you write its not true.

Bush kept all that money hidden!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! look it up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html?_r=2

Look at the graphs in the left column.

Speaking at a retreat for House Republicans in Baltimore on Jan. 29, 2010, Obama was particularly critical of a question from Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Hensarling asked Obama, "You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy?"

"The fact of the matter is," Obama replied, "is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion -- $1.3 trillion. So when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true. And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade."

Tell me how Obama lied about that?????

Yashmak

A slight dip is better than no dip.

More bad news for Republicans.

How do you figure? It's still higher than any annual budget deficit during the 8 years preceding the current administration. The largest budget deficit during EITHER of Bush's two terms was approximately $500 billion (which was bad enough!). . . .whereas the CBO's estimate during Obama's three full years in office has been $1.875 trillion ('09), ~$1.4 trillion ('10), and ~$1 trillion ('11).

And the deficits are predicted to remain well above the the deficits produced during the tenure of ANY prior administration for the foreseeable future. It boggles the mind how anyone could consider this bad news for the Republicans.

Bush was hiding the money with supplemental appropriations.

The problem is that the supplemental appropriations process has been extended beyond unforeseen emergencies to entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) non-emergencies. Over the past several years, the most obvious example has been funding for the Iraq War, most of which has been funded, directly or indirectly, “off budget,” as the process is sometimes referred to. It has also been accomplished without offsets.

Why has this been the case? The major reason is that it obscures the amount of federal spending generally and for specific purposes, if it is the desire of any administration to do so. Supplemental appropriations spending does not appear in the annual accounting of federal spending versus revenue collections, meaning it is not calculated into the federal deficit for any given year. The money is spent just like regular budgetary allocations, but when the books are closed, it does not appear as an inflationary impact on federal deficits. This alone made it a particularly attractive device for a Bush administration that was running up record deficits without the impact of supplementals. It also made the cost of the Iraq War and defense spending generally appear much more modest than it in fact was. Moreover, the Bush administration generally provided no offsetting reductions to moderate the impact. Finally, supplementals generally receive nowhere near the public scrutiny of the regular budget, making them an attractive device for in effect hiding potentially controversial expenditures of public funds. Iraq certainly qualifies in that regard.

It does not have to be included Bush made sure of that.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been funded through emergency spending requests since they began.

BUSH LIED ABOUT THE REAL DEFICIT IN HES ADMINISTRATION.

lvingbarefoot

What children, it is the spending that is the problem, not the revenue. What happens when you take all the money from the rich, then where will you greedy big government people turn?

Barefeet, I guess you missed this little nugget from the article:

The CBO report shows that the deficit dilemma would largely be solved if the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 -- and renewed in 2010 through the end of this year -- were allowed to lapse. Under that scenario, the deficit would drop to $585 billion in 2013 and to $220 billion in 2017.

Also, the reason that CBO estimate went up for this FY is because of less than expected REVENUE.

ROYWILSON LIAR!!!! check out that link. The reason i call you a liar is because i have called you out repeatedly on this lies you keep posting and you don't understand.

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/pages/rrnews.html?feed=393046&article=9672706

You know whats the weird thing about that link??? the same people that passed all that spending in Bush terms are the same people that are against raising the debt limit to pay for them...

Boner, Cantor, Ryan, McConnell, are the same people who voted to pass medicare part D, war spending, tax cuts for the richest people in America.

Telling you this makes want to scream ahhhh you people don't see what these republicans are doing to you guys. they lie to your face and you people don't see it.

Look at the numbers!!! Numbers don't lie. Its simple accounting.....

"The Congressional Budget Office report also says that annual deficits will remain in the $1 trillion range for the next several years if Bush-era tax cuts slated to expire in December are extended, as commonly assumed. The CBO is a non-partisan budget analyst for Congress."

Fascinating; no mention whatsoever about maybe say; less government, stop spending so much, stop paying and benefiting government employees more than private, stop expanding government. At some point there are more people in the wagon than are pulling it.

"Bush tax cuts"? Bush's problem was that he expanded government, not that he cut taxes, and Obama's doubling down on that expansion. So please, shut up and focus on the real problem

Hmm, collapsed? Why? Because it forebodes bad news for Republicans?

Imagine that, the conservatives are getting more proliferate with their suppression of others' opinions.

I also believe some of you are missing the fact that all current debt and spending is not Obama's fault. Medicare Part D... Not Obama. War in Afganistan... Not Obama. War in Iraq... Not Obama. TARP... Not Obama. Tax cuts while simultaneously entering two decades long, nation building wars... Not Obama.

Just like a tab at the bar isn't due with every drink you order, nor is the tab for every expenditure by the government. It balloons over time. Than you have to also factor in inflation and currency value, plus the fact that there are two different types of debt.

Bush's problem was that he expanded government, not that he cut taxes

Emm, no. Bush's problem was that he cut taxes while starting not just one, but two wars, which had never been done in the history of our country. He also cut taxes, while passing Medicare Part D.

Anyone who simply claims that "Cutting Spending" will solve the problem, is way over simplifying this. Particularly if only focus on discretionary spending.

Preach on Sarah! Every word is true, so much so, part bears repeating...and repeating..

Bush's problem was that he cut taxes while starting not just one, but two wars

Where is our debt coming from? READ THE LINE ABOVE.

Thanks, Fred!!!

Sarah-3043284

I also believe some of you are missing the fact that all current debt and spending is not Obama's fault. Medicare Part D... Not Obama. War in Afganistan... Not Obama. War in Iraq... Not Obama. TARP... Not Obama. Tax cuts while simultaneously entering two decades long, nation building wars... Not Obama.

Just like a tab at the bar isn't due with every drink you order, nor is the tab for every expenditure by the government. It balloons over time. Than you have to also factor in inflation and currency value, plus the fact that there are two different types of debt.

Bush's problem was that he expanded government, not that he cut taxes

Emm, no. Bush's problem was that he cut taxes while starting not just one, but two wars, which had never been done in the history of our country. He also cut taxes, while passing Medicare Part D.

Anyone who simply claims that "Cutting Spending" will solve the problem, is way over simplifying this. Particularly if only focus on discretionary spending.

Sarah, the same people who voted to do all that spending and tax cuts are the same people who were against raising the debt limit.

RE-POST! RE-POST!!!

I could jump into the entire debate that has raged on for years- ad nauseum- over 'who' is responsible for our dilemma, and 'why' things happened the way they did, but I won't.

Because you all know that I know that you know that it doesn't solve anything. Pretty soon, someone on this forum will go partisan in this debate, and we'll keep rehashing all the same BS that has been posted before.

What this country REALLY needs is a serious discussion about our values, our resources, and our future. Not the petulant bickering that we see daily from our "leaders", nor their consitituents on these public forums.

It is truly a discussion of how what kind of country do we want? We CANNOT go back to an earlier era- it is impossible given the modern state of the world, and nobody here really wants to live a reduced standard of living. How do we move ahead with keeping up with progress, while making sure that EVERYONE has a fair share of the "American Dream"?

Should we cut the benefits to our elderly, poor, and sick? We know what will happen if we do, and trust me, these news sites will be filled with tragic stories. How much do we respect and care for those people, and should it be the role of government, or of individual responsibility?

Do we raise the tax rates on those who make exorbitant incomes? The rich in our country worked hard to achieve their wealth (well, most). Is it fair to expect them to pay even more sums of money, especially given our broken economic system in the first place? We have a graduated income tax system, which is essentially taxation based upon the ability to pay. Period. And granted, SOME of the rich indeed DO open new businesses where they see a potential market, thus creating jobs. The real question is, how many of these so-called wealthy actually ARE opening new businesses, or expanding existing ones? And if we come down too harshly on our 1%-ers, they can and will move their holdings overseas. It's a big problem.

Do we continue our empire of military strength? Or is it time to reconsider our role in the world? We all keep bitching about how we shouldn't have to be the "world's police", but many of us show no concern about the massive amounts of money we spend in doing so. Is our "defense" complex really about defending our people and values, or is it about creating opportunities for resources and business ventures? If we cut military spending, we will inevitably see unemployment going up. Let's not forget that while we complain about China making all our "stuff", we are the ones who make and sell military hardware the world over. I guess the question is, are we willing to reduce our footprint in the world in order to achieve some semblance of tranquility, especially if it means we are no longer the world's sole superpower, and our economy will have to evolve away from making weapons?

What about energy? It seems every generation has to learn the hard way that our economy is tied directly to our access to energy sources. Yes, this question is indeed related to our defense system as well. Here in America, we sit on mountains of oil and natural gas, but do we harness it now to continue the status quo, or do we wait until the rest of the world needs it more than we do, thus ensuring imported wealth and jobs in the future? SHOULD we keep fighting over fossil fuels when we have the rudimentary technology to create cleaner, greener forms of energy? Is it worth the investment now, or should we wait until it is economically more pertinent? Should our intellectual energies be put into better ways of extracting oil, or advancing the green technologies? Should our government be involved with these advances, or would we rather have private interests invest their capital into these projects?

And lastly, what kind of society do we want? No one seems to like the encroachment upon our constitutional rights, but many people fear a society without such "safeguards". Do we continue in the long tradition of respecting individual rights, as offensive as they may be at times, or do we change and become a more homogenous society with a larger governmental role in our lives? Where is the line between freedom and law? The answer to this question will define the course of our future economy as well. How much government regulation is good, versus negatively impacting our rights and privacies?

We CANNOT answer any questions like this by continuing to point fingers at political parties or ideologies. MOST Americans are moderates, neither far-left nor far-right. Did we forget that? BOTH parties have made mistakes and/or set into motion policies that have brought us to this point. Neither ideology has all the answers, and any attempt to pursue one ideology over another will eventually end up in failure.

And who does our government work for? Is it the People, the rich, the businesses, or some other entity? Who's paying attention????

Alex,

Oh trust me, I'm more than well aware of the ridiculous hypocrisy. My most favorite, recent slice of hypocrit pie is Romney running on about how Obama cutting Medicare was a bad thing. Doh!!!! Aren't those Republicans always talking about entitlement reform and cutting??? W. T. F.

I want them all gone. Every last one. Pass an Amendment to get money out of politics, than vote them all out and start new.

And, Alex, didn't you hear... It was NPR and WIC that got us into debt. /sarc/

Okay, so let's look at the simple and straight forward interpretation of what this all means... And Roy, I'm surprised at you using Bush "averages" and then pinning the Bush debt on Obama... very disingenuous of you!

So I guess we all noticed the $1.42 Trillion deficit in Obama's first year? This is before anything he did could have possibly affected the debt, so it makes for an excellent Bush baseline... About $500 Billion in unfunded liabilities and about $500 Billion in lost tax revenue due to the economy handed Obama. In detail: Iraq plus Afghanistan plus Homeland Security plus Medicaid plus the Bush tax cuts equals $500 Billion per year in deficit spending. Add the $500 Billion in less revenue and you have $1 Trillion in Bush debt dollars per year.

So then I guess we have all noticed the trend downwards to just over $1 Trillion from $1.42 Trillion. So, even though Obama increased spending to support the unemployed and the hungry, and increased spending to better enforce regulations, border patrols, and tax auditing, Obama was able to whittle away at the Bush-owned debt by nearly $500 Billion... we're out of Iraq and withdrawing from Afghanistan... all this without ANY help from the Republican Congress.

Seriously... I see only one story here and my bet is that Obama uses it to hand the Republicans their heads in November.

Sorry 'bout that!

LMarcT

Okay, so let's look at the simple and straight forward interpretation of what this all means... And Roy, I'm surprised at you using Bush "averages" and then pinning the Bush debt on Obama... very disingenuous of you!

So I guess we all noticed the $1.42 Trillion deficit in Obama's first year? This is before anything he did could have possibly affected the debt, so it makes for an excellent Bush baseline... About $500 Billion in unfunded liabilities and about $500 Billion in lost tax revenue due to the economy handed Obama. In detail: Iraq plus Afghanistan plus Homeland Security plus Medicaid plus the Bush tax cuts equals $500 Billion per year in deficit spending. Add the $500 Billion in less revenue and you have $1 Trillion in Bush debt dollars per year.

So then I guess we have all noticed the trend downwards to just over $1 Trillion from $1.42 Trillion. So, even though Obama increased spending to support the unemployed and the hungry, and increased spending to better enforce regulations, border patrols, and tax auditing, Obama was able to whittle away at the Bush-owned debt by nearly $500 Billion... we're out of Iraq and withdrawing from Afghanistan... all this without ANY help from the Republican Congress.

Seriously... I see only one story here and my bet is that Obama uses it to hand the Republicans their heads in November.

Sorry 'bout that!

I love your post!!!

Don't forget that after everything you wrote the economy is growing and unemployment is going down.

4 more years!!!!

Obama 2012...

"Yashmak,

Stop distorting facts."

I didn't distort facts, I simply transcribed them from the CBO reported numbers. Maybe you think the CBO is distorting the facts, which isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

Or maybe you're afraid people will realize the truth, that the old meme about our fiscal problems being the result of 'unfunded wars' is total tripe, and that the current administration has added more to our total national debt in 3 years than his predecessor did in EIGHT.

Oh darn, but that same pesky house of Reps controlled by the Republicans that everyone blames for doing nothing was controlled by a super majority Democrats in 2007 and 2008 and then the Democrats have continued to keep that supermajority gained in 2007 and 2008 in the Senate of which Obama was part of. Obama also had super majorities in 2009 and 2010 of democrats.

Let me think here you need 60 votes in the Senate to get spending and new laws passed. Then you also need a majority in the House of Representatives. Then you need the Presidents signature after all that, but the Senate and House can go around the President if they get enough votes in both chambers. The Senate and House of 2008 voted for the Tarp, including Obama. But wait the 2007 and 2008 House (233 Dems/198 rep) and Senate (49 Dems, 2 independents that caucused with Dems, and 49 Republicans) could not come up with a year long spending bill. Then in 2010, around that same time they pushed that unconstitutional healthcare law through, at the very end of the year Obama, a Democratic controlled Senate (57 Dems and 2 independents that caucus with Dems/ 41 Republicans), and a Democratic controlled house (256 Dems / 178 republicans) voted to extend the "Bush" era tax cuts. Yep that had Obama's little signature right on the bottom.

Sarah, your story just does not add up when you add congress into your equation.

The economy is growing yes, at the slowest rate of ANY post-recessionary period in history. Unemployment is going down, but part of that is that many people have given up on job searching, or their unemployment benefits have expired. The total number of jobs created has only kept pace with the number of new workers entering the workforce for a couple months of Obama's entire term in office. The statistics are readily available from numerous financial institutions, if you care to read more deeply than what Politico or HuffPo have to say on the topic.

Pretty faint praise, Alex Cali.

How *$%&$ articulate of you, DaBears.

Yashmak

"Yashmak,

Stop distorting facts."

I didn't distort facts, I simply transcribed them from the CBO reported numbers. Maybe you think the CBO is distorting the facts, which isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

Or maybe you're afraid people will realize the truth, that the old meme about our fiscal problems being the result of 'unfunded wars' is total tripe, and that the current administration has added more to our total national debt in 3 years than his predecessor did in EIGHT.

lol!!! you people still think Bush was an honest president and that Republicans will get us out of this mess. They have you guys brainwashed by telling you that anything liberals say is not true. We like to make up our own facts.

BUSH LIED

BUSH LIED

BUSH LIED

BUSH LIED

BUSH LIED

Get it? do this go look up the word supplemental appropriations and look up how Bush used them.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DAMN YOU CONGRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@!$%#. Another trillion out the door. DAMN YOU BUSH!!!!!! You drove us into this mess. Stupid Bush tax cuts. Please, please God. Let gridlock continue. Let no one extend the Bush tax cuts. That would save us $3.5 trillion over 10 years. Add that to the $2.1 trillion in cuts, and we will save $5.6 trillion over the next decade. Hopefully then if Obama gets re-elected he could add more savings, like the Buffet Rule ($800 billion) and entitlement reform.

There is a simple equation we must use in order to cut our deficits: raise revenue+cut spending=lower debt. Why the GOP is demanding no tax increases is a clear case of a lack of reality on the right. Obama has the idea, although I wished he would just let the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone. Here is my deficit reduction plan:

1. Deficit Reduction Package over 12 years:

• Cut defense by $800 billion. Prioritize spending to match the investments made by the Chinese, install cyber-defense system to defend American projects and info. Close 144 bases (mostly in Europe and US)= $40 billion a year. Invest more in drones. Cap aircraft carriers at 13. Target waste in private contracting.
• $1.2 trillion in savings from entitlement reform: Raise cap to 90% of taxable income; preserve tax on $3.5 million estate; progressive indexing; adjust COLA, etc, decrease benefits for high income earners and increase Medicaid fees for upper class beneficiaries.
• Remove Bush tax cuts except $1.2 trillion for middle/lower class earners= $3.2-3.6 trillion savings. Repeal all of Bush tax cuts in 2015 but save deductions for marriage, house, children, etc.
• Gradually increase taxes on the highest income bracket to 45.4% from 39.6% after repeal of Bush tax cuts=$900 billion.
• Increase capital gains tax to 21%.
• Reform tax code, eliminate loopholes and most tax expenditures. Add a value-added tax at about 4-5% as long as it won't stifle growth or overburden taxpayers. If it does stifle growth, wait until economy (unemployment rate, stock market data, etc) is up to pre-recession levels and then enact it.
• Lower corporate tax rate to competitive 17.5% BUT no loopholes and ALL corporations pay 17.5%. NO TAX REFUNDS for corporations.
• Eliminate $100 billion in subsidies for oil/gas, ethanol, and farms. Use $60 billion for deficit and the rest for incentives in clean energy.
• Reform government departments, agencies. Place Dept. of Homeland Security under Defense Department.
• Cut $2.1 trillion from the rest of discretionary spending EXCEPT NASA and Education.
• Wealth tax to discourage hoarding of money.
• Total savings=~$9 trillion over 12 years including lower interest.

2. Economic Plan (paid for by a 4% surtax on people who make over $1 million).

• $60 billion in infrastructure bank.
• $40 billion in incentives for clean energy, plus increases in subsidies and new projects to construct solar power plants, wind farms, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric dams, etc.
• 100% duty on goods from nations that manipulate trade markets (China, Russia, etc).
• $50 billion for innovation.
• Education reform along lines of Obey Porter model. Also investing into Head Start education program. Merit-based pay, $2,000 per student, and revamp of building conditions and technology. Follow example of nations beating us with new teaching techniques.
• Immigration reform. Sponsor immigration of those excelling in science, math, technology, etc and offer them government jobs if they can't get them in the private sector.
• $200 billion in plan to rebuild America using underemployed and unemployed people.
• $50 billion to upgrade U.S. airports, refineries, oil rigs, and harbors.
• Help housing market by speeding up foreclosure time, destroying old houses for new projects, writing off underwater mortgages, and having the feds and state and local govts buy houses and teaming up with private sector to rent out homes and split profits until market fully recovers (nice revenue stream; less foreclosures; win-win).
• Reinstate Glass-Steagall Act.
• Reform Wall Street.
• Full employment policies.
• Living wages and higher minimum wage after recovery.
• Low-cost higher education.
• Employee Ownership Programs.
• Creation of a Pacific trade zone area open to all nations THAT WILL OBEY TRADE LAWS. China will not be initially invited until they cooperate with the WTO on trade fraud.
• Decrease inequality by promoting education, strong safety nets for the unemployed, and pro-growth policies from both the left AND the right, including a more progressive tax structure.
• $50 billion for domestic energy exploration.
• $40 billion for Department of Tourism and 200,000 embassy workers to speed up time to get a visa to visit the US. Increase tourism, create jobs, and allow people to spend money in America.
• Broad national regulatory overview: cut wasteful regulations in some sectors (energy infrastructure, etc) and install new regulations in others (financial markets, housing, etc).
• New regulation: all companies must increase their employees salaries at least once every two to five years and must index for inflation (allows middle and lower class income to increase steadily).
• Follow People's Budget economic rebooting package and tax reform onhttp://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The_CPC_FY2012_Budget.pdf
• Post Office reform. Eliminate health benefit payment over 75 years; buyout 100,000 employees; invest in online shipping and deliveries; eliminate all transfers of money to federal accounts until Post Office balance sheet is balanced; increase cost of stamps by $.03; temporary 2% pay cut and 15% decrease in administrative salaries.
• Tax all companies on money made on American market. Give deductions for companies for every dollar they spend hiring American workers who earn a salary/benefits of under $250,000 or purchasing Made in America supplies, goods, parts, materials, etc.
• Remove any breaks for companies that offshore jobs, and offer a large tax credit for every wave insourced jobs from companies based on number of jobs insourced (around $5,000-8,000 per head).

3. Reform Government.

• Government funded campaigns and zero-contributions of private donors (unions, companies, etc) but welcome for individual donations under $200.
• Elimination of Super PACs and reject corporate/union person-hood.
• Proportional representation.
• Filibuster reform. Limit amount per year and make certain bills immune.
• Cut congressional budgets by 20% and decrease pay for officials from $170,000+ to $80,000.
• Constitutional amendment keeping lobbyists away from Capitol Hill when in session.
• NO VACATIONS OR PAY when deadlock is in government.
• Congress can no longer vote to increase their own pay. That occurs automatically when national standard of living rises.

I know it's a bit long but that is it. Please comment on it and send your suggestions.

Gloryhound-848713

Oh darn, but that same pesky house of Reps controlled by the Republicans that everyone blames for doing nothing was controlled by a super majority Democrats in 2007 and 2008 and then the Democrats have continued to keep that supermajority gained in 2007 and 2008 in the Senate of which Obama was part of. Obama also had super majorities in 2009 and 2010 of democrats.

Let me think here you need 60 votes in the Senate to get spending and new laws passed. Then you also need a majority in the House of Representatives. Then you need the Presidents signature after all that, but the Senate and House can go around the President if they get enough votes in both chambers. The Senate and House of 2008 voted for the Tarp, including Obama. But wait the 2007 and 2008 House (233 Dems/198 rep) and Senate (49 Dems, 2 independents that caucused with Dems, and 49 Republicans) could not come up with a year long spending bill. Then in 2010, around that same time they pushed that unconstitutional healthcare law through, at the very end of the year Obama, a Democratic controlled Senate (57 Dems and 2 independents that caucus with Dems/ 41 Republicans), and a Democratic controlled house (256 Dems / 178 republicans) voted to extend the "Bush" era tax cuts. Yep that had Obama's little signature right on the bottom.

Sarah, your story just does not add up when you add congress into your equation.

Just one little word that you forgot for all your numbers "filibuster" the most in history for one president.

As for the tax cuts, republicans were holding unemployment benefits hostage for millions of Americans.

They also threatened to raise taxes on all Americans to get their way.

Also Bush promised to veto any budget the Democrats brought to hes desk. I guess the reason he didn't want the budget was because of all that money he was hiding to pay for the war.

Yashmak

The economy is growing yes, at the slowest rate of ANY post-recessionary period in history. Unemployment is going down, but part of that is that many people have given up on job searching, or their unemployment benefits have expired. The total number of jobs created has only kept pace with the number of new workers entering the workforce for a couple months of Obama's entire term in office. The statistics are readily available from numerous financial institutions, if you care to read more deeply than what Politico or HuffPo have to say on the topic.

Pretty faint praise, Alex Cali.

How are you going to tell me to go and read something other than politico or huffpo if you cant even comprehend what Bush did???? You are going with the CBO numbers but i tell you to look up what supplemental appropriations means and how Bush used them to distort the real truth on the deficit until he left office.

This was the biggest recession in the last 100 years and we have Obama to thank for getting us out and growing the economy at what ever rate.

You guys don't have a real candidate for president. good luck until 2016

Hilarious everyone attributing the 2009 budget to Bush...

The FY 2009 budget was signed by Obama. Both houses were controlled by the Democrats (Budgets are passed on majority and can not be filibustered). To attribute this to Bush is the height of ignorance.

http://www.nchv.org/news_article.cfm?id=506

The FY2009 budget is fully owned by the liberals in Washington. Created by liberals, signed by a liberal. Bush had virtually nothing to do with it.

Epic fail Jesse....

The Budget of the United States Government is the President's proposal to the U.S. Congress which recommends funding levels for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1

Obama Became president January 20 2009.

That link is from March 2009.

And to think you guys are the ones who vote in all these republicans destroying our country.

Go back to school.

The National Debt as of 09/28/2001 = $5,807,463,412,200.06 ... as of his last budget year 09/30/2009 = $11,909,829,003,511.75 ... thats a little better than doubling it, or increasing by $6.1 Trillion

The next day is Obama's budget.

You are one of the most uninformed little parrots I've ever seen in my life. Obama's first budget year started on October 1, 2009. The expenditures which were incurred during the first 8 months of his presidency were already budgeted before he took office. The debt on September 30, 2009, was 11.909 trillion.

Oh and I propose a way to cooperate with the Chinese on space exploration. We help each other, cool relations, get things done, and we both get things in return. China gets help in exploring, and we secure a level economic playing field (less subsidies, countervailing duties) and demand less cyber attacks and abuse of intellectual property. If they violate it, we cut them off.

If we could do this with the Soviets, I think we could manage with the Chinese.

That, and increase public spending on education system. Maybe the feds could encourage a state surtax for education funding. THAT would help us tremendously. We should make it appealing for American students to go to college. That, and we should reform our education system to make it better.

REFORM EDUCATION 2012

Thank you, Jesse!

Obama's followers attribute the 2009 deficits to Bush when he was no longer in office. The last budget was held in the Senate until Obama was inaugurated and TARP and the Stimulus (which didn't stimulate anything except public union coffers) were added on bringing the grand total so high. Granted TARP was signed by Bush, but the democrats in Congress had enough votes to override his veto so it was a moot point; half of TARP was reserved for Obama's designees. Stimulus, however, was entirely Obama and the democrats in March of 2009.

My, how the democrats like the blame game! Especially when it is the democrats at fault,

hahaha...4 years in a row...almost EXACTLY the amount of time since the neo-comm Senate passed a budget...you asked for it , you got it , Demosocialists

Tammy,

With projected receipts less than projected outlays, the budget proposed by President Bush predicts a net deficit of approximately $400 billion dollars, adding to a United States governmental debt of about $11.4 trillion. Actual tax receipts totaled approximately $2.1 trillion - significantly less than the $2.7 trillion expected. The actual deficit in 2009 was $1.4 trillion.

Thats a Bush budget...

The financial cost of the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are not part of the defense budget; they are appropriations.

Get that trough your head tammy.

maybe you should try your "economics" expertise on your home state of Smellafornia , after all , it is one of the most defunct cesspool states in the nation , there is an old addage "clean your own doorstep first"...isn't it cool?

harry,

It is wrong to assert that there is no budget. The Budget Control Act enacted in August contained the budget for this year. It was passed by both the House and Senate, signed by the President, and enacted into law.

The Budget Control Act achieved all of the essential elements of a traditional budget – setting discretionary caps, providing enforcement mechanisms, and creating a process for addressing entitlement spending and revenues.

In many ways, the Budget Control Act was even more extensive than a traditional budget:

• It has the force of law, unlike a budget resolution that is not signed by the President.
• It set discretionary caps for 10 years, instead of the one year normally set in a budget resolution.
• It provided enforcement mechanisms, including a two-year “deemer,” allowing budget points of order to be enforced.
• And it addressed entitlement spending and revenues by creating the “Super Committee,” which was given explicit authority to reform entitlements and the tax code. The Super Committee process represented an enhanced version of the reconciliation process that can be established under a budget resolution. And it was further backed up with a $1.2 trillion sequester.

Republican rhetoric aside, Congress did pass a budget. The Republican-controlled House passed it; the Democratic Senate passed it; and the President signed it. The Budget Control Act set 10 years of spending caps; it established a two-year “deemer” to enforce spending levels; and it created a reconciliation-like process to consider entitlement and tax reform.

Fox news has really made fools out of you guys all these years.

maybe you should try you "economics" expertise

Huh??

I LOVE IT !!!!

All I said was " a slight dip is better than no dip" and you dumas Republicans and Teabaggers go balistic.

What is not good ( NOTICE I DIDN'T SAY PERFECT ) about the amount being smaller than projected?

I have a feeling that it wasn't that statement that got you fried - it was my follow up - "more bad news for Republicans".

Ahhh , I hit a nerve didn't I ? Perception is the fear that drives the Neocons. The perception that President Obama might actually be helping to calm the situation .... and THAT is something that Republicans ,simply put ... cannot afford.

Nothing but a bunch of whiny crybaby obstructionists - the whole lot of you.

I'd have more respect for you if you would just come out and admit it instead of pretending like you cared one iota for anything but YOUR agenda - which is bringing down NOTYOURGUY Obama.

Makes me want to vote for him.

I LOVE IT !!!!

All I said was " a slight dip is better than no dip" and you dumas Republicans and Teabaggers go balistic.

What is not good ( NOTICE I DIDN'T SAY PERFECT ) about the amount being smaller than projected?

I have a feeling that it wasn't that statement that got you fried - it was my follow up - "more bad news for Republicans".

Ahhh , I hit a nerve didn't I ? Perception is the fear that drives the Neocons. The perception that President Obama might actually be helping to calm the situation .... and THAT is something that Republicans ,simply put ... cannot afford.

Nothing but a bunch of whiny crybaby obstructionists - the whole lot of you.

I'd have more respect for you if you would just come out and admit it instead of pretending like you cared one iota for anything but YOUR agenda - which is bringing down NOTYOURGUY Obama.

Makes me want to vote for him.

the only "dumas" I see posting is the one who posted the same stupidity in 2 consecutive posts...pretty funny really

Yashmak:
There are several reasons why the recovery is happening slower than usual.

1. This particular recession is the biggest the United States has EVER had ever since the Great Depression. And last time I checked, it took at least 5-10 years (and a helluva lot of spending and economic regulations/reforms) for the economy to grow back. Nowadays, we have ways of keeping recessions in check, but those don't always keep recessions from lasting long.

2. The debt. A few decades ago, we didn't have to worry about large deficits and debt. But now we do. So the government isn't gonna start any major stimulus plans unless it is paid for, and with the current obstruction in Congress I don't see that happening anytime until after the election. So if you hear anybody demand cuts in social spending, tax cuts, and/or no government stimulus spending, don't vote for them. All they will do is make our economy worse by increasing our debt (not a direct factor but it can become one pretty quick), cutting spending in vital areas (education, entitlements, etc), and increasing income inequality by giving MORE tax breaks to the wealthy instead of less.

3. The cause. The cause of this recession is the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapsed of MAJOR financial institutions, not only in America but ALL OVER THE WORLD. It will take years for the housing market to recover unless the government does something big (not gonna happen until after election). And even if the United States hypothetically fixed its domestic problems, our economy would still be on the ice due to its connections to the rest of the world, which is pretty fragile due to Europe's debt problem, China's economic slowdown, and the Middle East's Arab Spring and Iran-Arab-West-Israel problem. Remember, this is a GLOBAL economy, not a purely national one.

Obama has done a lot to fix our economy. If the GOP offered a moderate to combat him, I might be open to watch the debates. But since Obama has a lot of accomplishments and the GOP are acting like a bunch of stupid schoolkids, I'm voting a STRAIGHT Democratic ticket. The GOP's "tax cut, cut spending" mantra DOES NOT WORK. Tax cuts do work, but America's tax rates are the lowest that they've ever been; if you ask me, they should repeal the Bush tax cuts FOR EVERYONE, reform the tax code, and start raising more revenues. At the same time, we should be cutting spending in certain areas (entitlements (by reform), defense, etc.) while increasing spending in areas like education and infrastructure. Blame the partisanship in Washington, thanks (in great part) to the GOP.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

AMERICAN RECOVERY 2012

Oh and if you want to cut the debt, look at comment #1.66.

Harry Blank

maybe you should try your "economics" expertise on your home state of Smellafornia , after all , it is one of the most defunct cesspool states in the nation , there is an old addage "clean your own doorstep first"...isn't it cool?

Unfortunately i don't control the economics of my state. The only thing i control is to be in here and let Idi#$ like you know where you are completely wrong on how Government accounting works.

Another little fact, did you know that if California were a country by itself it would be the 8 largest economy in the world? The housing crisis hit hard here, that's why in a little bit of a slump now.

But we will comeback and be the the 5th largest economy in the world again.

Harry Blank

maybe you should try your "economics" expertise on your home state of Smellafornia , after all , it is one of the most defunct cesspool states in the nation , there is an old addage "clean your own doorstep first"...isn't it cool?

Harry, after all the facts i posted you comeback on a personal attack??? very typical response when you have no way to attack my facts.

I call that a "dumas" response.

Wow, you know, after watching the low blow attacks, I feel slightly relieved. I usually considered some of my posts borderline. KMC, HarryBlank and DaBears took it to as thoughtless a level as I think you can get away with on Newsvine. Or at least get away with it for now.....

If you are conservative or liberal, please don't follow these two as an example. I prefer those who think about their posts.....

The Bush tax cuts amounted to about $370B/yr! Throw that at a deficit of over $1T/yr. That covers 1/3 or the deficit! If you think revenue is the problem, look at tax receipts and spending each year for the last 10 years. Now do you think spending is not a problem!!??

Spending IS a problem. But it is not the ONLY problem. We need to repeal the Bush tax cuts FOR EVERYONE. That gets us a third of the way done. Then institute the Buffet Rule, and we have about $460 billion a year. Then add $120 billion in entitlement savings from increasing cap on payroll tax to 90% of earnings and no ceiling on who pays (anyone who receives SS must pay the payroll tax). Add another $250 billion in reductions from defense and discretionary spending, and then you have $8.3 trillion in savings over 10 years. That could cover our total deficit for the decade, and give us a surplus to start paying down the debt. How about that, TES??? Is that good enough???

Raising the cap on wages subject to SS tax will also result in an increase in benefits for those people since benefits are roughly proportional to contributions! SS was not designed to be a vehicle for wealth transfer nor was it designed to be a welfare program!! It was designed to provide a supplement to retirement income and was not supposed to be a replacement for retirement! I know this pains you greatly but that is the way it is. You people on the left want to take my SS money which is why I want private accounts such as exist in Chile and Australia. It would then be more difficult for you to take my money. I have paid in the maximum for 30 years and like you I want my benefits!!!

Jesse-Az

Hilarious everyone attributing the 2009 budget to Bush... The FY 2009 budget was signed by Obama. Both houses were controlled by the Democrats (Budgets are passed on majority and can not be filibustered). To attribute this to Bush is the height of ignorance.

Are you serious? Think about it, would you? Bush started the war in Afghanistan and DID NOT FUND IT! So I guess you're saying that Obama could have possibly STOPPED the war in Afghanistan in 2009?

Bush started the war in Iraq WITHOUT FUNDING IT! So Obama should have stopped that war in 2009?

Bush started and greatly expanded Homeland Security WITHOUT FUNDING IT! Get it yet? Obama could not have possibly shut that down in 2009.

Bush signed Medicaid into law WITHOUT FUNDING IT! Any bright ideas on what Obama could have done with Medicaid in 2009? No?

Bush put his tax cuts into play WITHOUT FUNDING THEM! Given the economy BUSH handed us, Obama chose not to kill the cuts... with total and absolute support from Republicans.

So... to say :"To attribute this to Bush is the height of ignorance." reaches some new level of ignorance all by itself. This debt and economy lies squarely on the backs of Bush, Chaney, and your GOP.

No TES. I am not going to take away benefits anyone who has paid into benefits for over 5 years. How many times do I have to tell you that???? I just want to make SS solvent WITHOUT privatizing it. And we won't take away money, just decrease the benefits you can get.

Please people, President Obama has as much to do with the economy as President Bush, or any President. That is to say none. All they do is propose spending, and sign the budget. The actuall spending is done by Congress. So to say that Bush handed over a bad economy, what you really mean is that the House and Senant (both controlled by Dems) handed Obama a bad economy.

Sarah-3043284, alex cali, LMarcT,

If you are representative of the Demoncrap Party, it is a small wonder why things are so f**ked up. Read these and maybe you will learn something.

FACTS:

1. It is US Congress, that controls the "Purse Strings", not the US President.

2. It is US Congress's Job to find the Funds for the US Laws that they pass into US Law.

3. Social Security is a US Taxpayer Contributory Fund that has been Robbed by All Political Parties to pay for other things including their automatic payraises.

4. It is the US President's Job to Enforce the US Laws, not pick and choose which one's to Enforce.

5. The Rich Elitists of the Electoralf College determine the President and Vice President of the United States of America, NOT your "Popular" Vote.

6. There are over 23 Million Illegal Aliens (loyal Citizens of other Nations) at the US. As counted by the NSA during the 2006 Nationwide Demonstrations of Illegal Aliens against US Congress passing President Bush's Illegal Immigration Crisis Response Act of 2006.

7. Currently the over 23 Million Illegal Aliens are occupying the "Entry Level", "McJobs", "No Benefits", "Hard work", etc. Jobs that were normally occupied by the Teenagers of US Citizens, Unemployment this category is 52%. With the Illegal Aliens defeating President Obama's Jobs Bill by moving into the Jobs previously held by the US Labor Union Construction Jobs (Infrastructure).

8. The US Military Defense Industrial Complex as created by President FDR to get the US out of the Great Depression, 1939, before US Entry into WWII, 1941; is the only thing keeping the US out of another Great Depression by employing almost a hundred million overpaid expensive US Civilians getting a "Fair and Living Wage" as to why the US Military must buy $300 Hammers and expensive USAF Toilet Seats instead of going to Walmart and buying cheaper Chinese.

9. President FDR after his New Deal To the American People Failed (US Government spending Money did not have to create Jobs), knew that US Consumerism could not get the US out of the Great Depression; but, the Sales of "War Materials" could and did. Think about how many Apple iPhones Made In China you would have to sell to equal just one Made in US F-15 sold to US Ally Saudi Arabia.

10. There is NO difference between Demoncraps, Repugnants, In Depends (In Adult Diapers), Scrotums (Tea Baggers):

The Price Tag Of Politics

As Bob Schieffer explains, Politicians generally listen to the ones who gave them the money to get where they are today and in the end, once they reach Washington their positions are set in stone, thanks to lobbyists and special interest groups.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228712n&tag=related;photovideo

11. The Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) as passed November December 2008 by the Demoncraptic Party Controlled US Congress as "Time Sensitive" (no Public Scrutiny) was just in time to buy the January 2009 Electoral College Votes (see number 5. above).

12. I warned all of you before about President Obama's Buddy "Mr. Corporate America" and his major Constituents and major Campaign Contributors (aka the TARP Bailout Babies):

(My List from 2005) Delaware: Freddie Mac, Fanny Mae, Bank of America, Wilmington Trust, First USA / Bank One / JPMorgan Chase, AIG, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Barclays plc, GM, Chrysler, Wachovia, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ISDA, and those States with Corporations Incorporated at Delaware.

13. During the 2008-2009 Elections President Obama violated the US Law, McCain Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform US Law. Later on his buddy, "Mr. Corporate America" Legal Briefed the US Supreme Court before the Citizens United Case was heard by the US Supreme Court, as either Rule in Favor of Unlimited Corporate Campaign Contributions or Rule the 2008-2009 Elections Illegal. In 2011, "Mr. Corporate America" was slapped on the wrist with a fine of $200, 000 for violating the US Law, McCain Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act prior to and during the 2008-2009 Elections.

14. The US Supreme Court Ruling (13 above) came just in time for President Obama to receive $1 Billion of Unlimited Corporate Campaign Contributions from the "Insurance Industry", "Medical Device Industry", and "PharmaceuticalsIndustry". As in President Obama's Health Care Reform Act, they recieve US Taxpayer Money to offset their potential future losses in the Section of "Source of New Revenues", as "Insurance Industry gets $67 Billion", "Medical Device Industry $20 Billion", and "Pharmaceuticals Industry $23 Billion". Prior to the President Obama Health Care Reform Act becoming active, the Insurance Corporations are increasing their Insurance Premiums to cover their potential losses, including the extended coverage of the age of dependents.

15. Number 14 above brings up why the Democraptic Controlled US Congress refused to even work on the US Budget, and kept passing Continuing Resolutions (CRs), until after President Obama's Health Care Reform Act became US Law, as the price tag is $1.7 Trillion to $2.1 Trillion, the majority of this going to the "Insurance Industry", "Medical Device Industry" and the "Pharmasceticals Industry" as previously NOT Budgeted for.

16. Number 15 above, as the NOT Budgeted for $1.7 Trillion to $2.1 Trillion (Inflation) President Obama Health Care Reform Act is why the US Congress must find the money for US Congressional Appropriations by cutting the previously Budgeted for Programs.

17. Previous Cuts to the US Military Defense Budget resulted in the US Army Corps of Engineers not having the Funds for the upgrades, rebuilding, new construction, modifications, etc. of the Levees at New Orleans before Katrina (US Congressional Katrina Hearings). This is also why the US Army Corps of Engineers did not have the Funds to dredge the US Rivers and Streams, resulting in Floods; nor the Funds to build more water Reserviors, result droughts; as well as all the other "Infrastructure" Projects and Programs within the US. (of course you did not know that did you).

18. The "Iraq War" aka US Military Operation Iraqis Freedom 1998 to 2011 actually came from President Clinton's H.R.4655 "Iraqis Liberation Act of 1998", justification Weapons of Mass Destruction, Section 2 "Findings", NOT President Bush. As by US Law, it is required that both the US Senate and US House of Representatives Declare War, and must also find the Funds (otherwise the US President can refuse to Enforce a Unfunded US Law). In 2002 the US Senate passed their approval of a Declaration of War With Iraq, as the 2002 Iraqi War Resolution with US Congressional Appropriations (US Congressional Defense Appropriations Committee). You can argue all you want, that H.R.4655 was not a Declaration of War; however, I was personally involved and are you going to tell me that Bombing and Cruise Missile Attacks of Baghdad mean nothing, during President Clinton's Operation Desert Fox, as to when the Islamic World started calling the US the Great Satan.

19. President Obama's 2009 Improved Relations with Iran Policy, enable the Overthrows of the US Allies of the "Middle East", Africa, and Asia. The loss of the Iraqis Northern and Southern Oil Fields that would have paid for the US Military Liberation of Iraq with decades of Iraqis Oil. US Ally Saudi Arabia is now surrounded. Iran now controls most Strategic locations of the Middle East and Africa and increased "Sphere of Influence" and Political Pressure on those that are still US Allies to get the US out of those Nations. Because President Obama refused to assist US Allies (President of Egypt, President of Yemen, President of Libya (President Obama's CIA Islamic Jihadist Prisoners at Gaddaffi's Prisons)), now no one wants to be a US Ally. Of course just like the 92% of US Citizens that have NEVER Served in the US Military it is NOT your arse that will get killed like the current 1% of US Citizens currently Serving in the US Military.

Your Academic Idealistic Bullsh!t means NOTHING in the Real World Life or Death School of Hard Knocks.

Iraq:

http://david393071.newsvine.com/_news/2011/10/17/8369272-iraq

Iran:

http://david393071.newsvine.com/_news/2012/01/03/9928679-iran-2009-to-2012-straight-of-hormuz

In less than 5 months I finally get to go back on Retirement, NEVER to be Recalled again and again and again to Active Duty. This mess will all be on you Generation X and Generation Y to fix.

20. Our Original Mission weeks after the 9/11 2001 Attacks were to: 1. Overthrow the Fundamentalist Islamic Taliban Government that provided Osama Bin Laden, Al Quada with Islamic Sanctuary, and supported the Islamic Jihadists Training Camps., 2. Reestablish a Democratic Government., 3. Seize and Secure Locations for the arrival of US Military Conventional Warfare Forces., 4. Mission added after 2006, President Bush amending the US No Assassination Policy to allow the Termination of Osama Bin Laden.

21. If you start with the nonsense about us (US Military Training Teams attached to SAD) training Osama Bin Laden, Al Quada, or the Fundamentalist Islamic Taliban based on your wikipedia nonsense (see wikipedia general disclaimer (cannot guarantee validity)), I will shoot your arse down to crash and burn, by proving just how wrong you are for believing crap written by non participants based on information from other non participants.

22. Freshieee is correct about Reinstating the Glass Steagall Acts, as those US Laws that made the Causes of the 1907 Depression and the 1929-1939 Great Depression Illegal. The Glass Steagall Acts were created after many years of failed attempts at Regulation from 1907 to 1933. The Glass Steagall Acts worked from 1933 till 1999 and 2000 when they were removed by President Clinton (he was told NOT to sign the US Laws that removed them by the US Congressional Research Agency; but, he did anyway because he could (and did) make money to start his Clinton Foundation).

The Removal of the Glass Steagall Acts resulted in the Current $60 Trillion to $100 Trillion "Global Economic Crisis" consisting of the "Mortgage Crisis", "Wall Street Crisis", "Financial Crisis", "Banking Crisis", "Credit Crisis", etc. as identical Causes and Results as before during the 1929-1939 Great Depression. And yes, it is President Bush's Fault for not Reinstating the Glass Steagall Acts, just like it is also President Obama's Fault for also not Reinstating the Glass Steagall Acts as the First Priority upon becoming US President.

If President Obama does not reinstate the Glass Steagall Acts soon the next "Crisis" of $54.6 Trillion will permanently sink the US into something worse than the 1929-1939 Great Depression (people literally starving to death).

The removal of the Glass Steagall Acts made 100% Legal Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction like what Goldman Sachs did to Greece. As Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction can destroy Governments and Nations Economies. The Chinese and Russian Federation are immune since they retained their versions of the Glass Steagall Acts, unlike the US and US Allies.

Now ask yourself just how much of a lie it was when President Obama stated that he created measures to prevent this from happening again during his 2012 Reelection State of the Union Address. And don't worry, it will be YOUR arse eating rationed one can per week for a family of four of Obamachow (Dog food of undetermined sources) during the next worse than Great Depression, while the US Politicians (all political parties) are eating Russian Caviar, drinking French Champagne and eating Surf (Lobster) and Turf (Steak).

23. LMarcT, anyone with a computer and internet access knows what you are attempting to do by lying. I did not know Bush was US President in 1990 when Medicaid was created. Did you graduate Junior High School, as that is the grade level when you learn that US Congress, not the US President controls the "Purse Strings" (Funds those US Laws that they pass). Which brings up the Illegal, Unfunded, War Criminal activities of President Obama, as number 24 below.

24. President Obama's use of not Budgeted for "Discretionary Funding" for the use of US Military Force to Overthrow President Gaddaffi. As because President Obama did NOT notify both Houses (US Senate and House of Representatives) 48 hours before the First use of US Military, US Congress did not have time to cover his arse by passing a US Law (H.R. and S.) with US Congressional Appropriations , like they previously did to cover President Clinton's arse with US Law pertaining to Iraq, H.R.4655 and President Bush's arse with US Laws pertaining to Iraq and Afghanistan with US Congressional Appropriations. And the US Law, 1973 War Powers Resolution, RESTRICTS the US Presidential War Powers, not gives the US President War Powers, to prevent another Vietnam (thru escalations). This is why President Obama Violated US Laws (impeachable): 1. the 48 hours., 2. beyond the 60 days starting from the first use of US Military, and yes, that does include "Support Missions" as well as US Military Advisers (just like the "Green Berets' and CIA as US Military Advisers before US Official Entry into Vietnam)., 3. 30 days for complete withdrawal (the 30 days CANNOT be used for other than Withdrawal, as to what President Obama did by providing US Military "Support Missions").

So there is your "Illegal" (no US Laws), "Unfunded" (no US Congressional Appropriations), "War Criminal" (no US Laws) War of President Obama. That resulted in the Overthrow of US Ally Gaddaffi (President Obama's CIA Islamic Jihadist Prisoners at Gaddiffi's Prisons being released, as to where President Obama's Guantanamo Islamic Prisoners were being sent, as his promise to close Guantanimo). And now the Islamic Jihadists have 20,000 Shoulder launched Anti Aircraft SA-7 missiles to shoot down US Commerical Airlines (after their failed underware bomber, shoe bomber, and laser toner bombs, etc.). Again your Academic Idealistic nonsense beliefs ("the people", "democracy", "dictator", etc.), just f**ked up, so now Generation X and Generation Y take responsibility for your f**k ups and risk your lives to fix your own academic idealistic f**k ups.

25. President Obama backstabs the US Military with his plan to throw 27,000 US Military Personnel on Unemployment during his Reduction In Forces (RIF) of the US Military, along with the 10,000 returning from Germany. And then there are the xxx,xxx US Civilians that will also be thrown on Unemployment that used to support the 27,000 that are to be RIF'ed. Decrease in US Military Benefits eventhough the US Military is paid below minimum wage. While sucking up to the States that build the expensive Conventional Warfare US Military Equipment, as to why President Obama backpeddled on his April 2009 Cut of the USN of one USN Aircraft Carrier Strike Group, as the hundreds of thousands that support that one USN Aircraft Carrier Strike Group of US Labor Union: Dock Workers, Dry Dock Workers, Machinists, Electricians, Crane Operatiors, Sheet Metal Workers, Pipefitters, Transportation, Construction, etc. would all be driving from Virginia to Strike in front of the White House against President Obama. And before you even say no, I was the "trouble maker" that contacted my USN friends thru emails, and they contacted the US Labor Unions informing them they will be laid off). With President Obama still lying as if you research the USN Aircraft Carrier Strike Groups and know how to count, you can figure out how President Obama lied (basic addition and subtraction of USN Aircraft Carrier Strike Groups).

26. You want more? Or do you have conditioned Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) by doing one liner Twits of Twitter.

ATTAWAY Obummer another Trillion dollar budget deficit. And all you Obummer supporters, you mean to say that Obummer is impotent when it comes to stop spending and managing the military? Where are his U.S. government personnel spending cuts? Where are the people he should have hired to bring the budget in line?

You blame Bush but Obama spent the money. Obama could have said no to spending and made cuts. He doesn't have or want the authority? Why are you looking at a president who left years ago? Can't your ultraliberal man you voted in take charge? Is he that incompetent?

Of course Obummer is incompetent, and lastly inexperienced. He has no military, financial, economic or business experience. The only employee he ever directly had was a dog trainer and she died before finishing to train his dog.

David,

First, I'm not nearly worth the energy it took you to post all that, nor am I going to read the first line (an insult) and than devote the rest of my day to reading your spin. So let's try to cut through the hatred and get to the facts.

It is US Congress, that controls the "Purse Strings", not the US President.

It is US Congress's Job to find the Funds for the US Laws that they pass into US Law.

Not sure why you addressed this part to me. Didn't focus on the budget in any of my posts. This is true, however, in which case can we all stop blaming Obama for spending so much?

Social Security is a US Taxpayer Contributory Fund that has been Robbed by All Political Parties to pay for other things including their automatic payraises.

Also, not sure why you addressed this to me. Did you miss the part where I talked about entitlement reform??? The truth is, we have an aging population that will be a strain on SS funds. I have no problem retiring five years later than my parent's generation, nor do I think millionaires are dependant on their SS/Medicare. Reform it.

It is the US President's Job to Enforce the US Laws, not pick and choose which one's to Enforce.

It is the executive branch which acts as a check on the judiciary and legislature. If there are laws which need to be challenged it is the DOJ's job to challenge them.

The Rich Elitists of the Electoralf College determine the President and Vice President of the United States of America, NOT your "Popular" Vote.

Yes, and I believe that's bunk. It should be based on the popular vote.

There are over 23 Million Illegal Aliens (loyal Citizens of other Nations) at the US. As counted by the NSA during the 2006 Nationwide Demonstrations of Illegal Aliens against US Congress passing President Bush's Illegal Immigration Crisis Response Act of 2006.

Currently the over 23 Million Illegal Aliens are occupying the "Entry Level", "McJobs", "No Benefits", "Hard work", etc. Jobs that were normally occupied by the Teenagers of US Citizens, Unemployment this category is 52%. With the Illegal Aliens defeating President Obama's Jobs Bill by moving into the Jobs previously held by the US Labor Union Construction Jobs (Infrastructure).

There are actually only 11 million. 8 million of them, on average file personal income taxes. The IRS assigns ITIN numbers regardless of immigration status in order to collect payroll taxes from them. When they inevitably can't collect, that money goes into earning suspense accounts and used on citizens. 1996 Welfare Reform excluded undocumented workers from means tested assistance. It costs $12,500 to deport one person, to deport all of them would cost double the budget of HLS.

You also apparently missed the whole section on trade reform and Wall St in my posts above. Here you go...

Step 2:

Fix the miss aligned interests of Wall St and the American citizenry. We currently have a system in place which incentivizes dolling out debt to the American people, as opposed to investment and innovation. Transparency, capital requirements, fiduciary duty on the part of lendors, and limiting bank size will fix this. In addition, reform (NOT KILL) the labor unions. End nepotism, first in last out, and protect whistleblowers. Make the interests of the union align with the interests of ethical workers.

Step 3:

Instead of taking advantage of China's human rights violating labor market, using it as reasoning for devaluing American labor, and having zero penalities in our tax code for doing so, and zero incentives to not do so, let's incentivize American manufactoring and penalize Chinese manufactoring. Why are we racing them down to the standards of the guilded age? We should penalizing that, not trying to beat them there.

Step 4:

Stop China's currency manipulation, take back their "Most Favored Nation" status, and equalize the tariff rates.

Citizens United has got to go, Valeo has got to go, Wall St needs to be regulated, taxes need to be raised, entitlements need to be reformed as do labor unions. We have an effeciency problem in our government.

If you actually took the time to read peoples posts, and you know treated them like human beings, you might actually contribute to the solution, instead of exasperating the problem. Oh yeah, and people might actually hear what you have to say.

I see alot of cut and paste stuff from other bloggers in your posts...interesting

That means we are still pitching our ideas to see who likes em.

It's started already, even though most have forgotten that Boehner walked away from Obama's 4 trillion dollar deal that would have averted the Tea Party downgrade, only to then say Obama is a poor leader.

That is hilarious. The previous estimate was for 973 billion, the new estimate is 1.1 trillion, the headline says the deficit is improving and YOU are waiting to hear the spin?

LOL!

Eric, how much do you know about the Tax Compromise of 1986? The 4 trillion compromise was basically exactly the same, and do you know how 1986 turned out? The tax increases came, the promised future spending cuts never came. The projected savings of the 1986 compromise never materialized because Congress can not burden future congress. We see this all the time from Liberals: I promise something in the future for a tax increase now. The future promises never materialize.

So do some research into the 1986 Compromise and tell me why you actually believe the Obama compromise.

Hey Eric, are these those same "cuts" that last week the Liberals and Progressives were saying we couldn't call cuts because it was only a decrease in future increases? So, when it benefits the arguments of the DNC you guys call them cuts but when it hurts the arguments you guys say they're not? Uh-huh. Sounds like bull@!$%# to me.

Here we go again....That guy with the wrong letter after his name and that party are the problem. Wrong! They are all the problem. Obama and a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House extended the Bush tax cuts. Bush didn't veto a spending bill for the first six years of his tenure. The Republicans became financially conservative only after losing Congress. Senate Leader Reid hasn't given a budget in years.

None of them are willing to make the hard decisions. Any new money won't go to reducing the debt but instead to a new 'program.' Both the Democrat and Republican future budgets showing their 'cuts' have increased spending over time. Throw 'em all out!

"The Congressional Budget Office report also says that annual deficits will remain in the $1 trillion range for the next several years if Bush-era tax cuts slated to expire in December are extended, as commonly assumed. The CBO is a non-partisan budget analyst for Congress."

Fascinating; no mention whatsoever about maybe say; less government, stop spending so much, stop paying and benefiting government employees more than private, stop expanding government. At some point there are more people in the wagon than are pulling it.

"Bush tax cuts"? Bush's problem was that he expanded government, not that he cut taxes, and Obama's doubling down on that expansion. So please, shut up and focus on the real problem

Fascinating; no mention whatsoever about maybe say;

stop handing out tax breaks to oil companies making $10B to $20B profit a quarter, taxing capital gains just like any other income, cutting the $1T per year we spend on Defense, regulating the companies whose greed andbad business practices trashed this economy in the first place.

There's plenty of blame to go around. But we can certainly start with those "temporary" tax cuts!

"Bush tax cuts"? Bush's problem was that he expanded government, not that he cut taxes, and Obama's doubling down on that expansion. So please, shut up and focus on the real problem

Not really. Obama inherited a $1.2 Trillion deficit from FY 2009 [Which started October 2008, when Bush was still in charge]. Federal Spending has actually dipped a little bit the past two years as the stimulus has died down.

Remember: Unemployed make no income. No income means no income taxes. About ~$200 Billion or so of the deficit is nothing more then lost tax revenue due to unemployment. [Hence the argument for increasing spending to stop the recession].

Finally:

The CBO report shows that the deficit dilemma would largely be solved if the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 -- and renewed in 2010 through the end of this year -- were allowed to lapse. Under that scenario, the deficit would drop to $585 billion in 2013 and to $220 billion in 2017.

Why we continue to coddle the richest while the rest of us has to deal with a declining economy and lowering on services is beyond me. Solving the deficit is easy, but somehow politically unacceptable these days.

Bush's problem was that he expanded government, not that he cut taxes, and Obama's doubling down on that expansion

It isn't necessarily the size of government, it's how effeciently government runs. If we look at each department, focus on the problem areas, and than take resources, either human, monetary or concrete, and relocate them from areas that are running well, we fix the problem.

If you had a factory, and one wing of it was screwing up, while the other could run with half the man power it had and still do okay, would you simply blow the bad wing off, or would you reallocate your resources???

Eventually, greater effeciency will lead to smaller size, which will lead to private sector growth. Of course that means we need to realign the interests of innovators, manufactorers, and Wall St. That's done through the tax code and trade reform.

In the mean time, we can bring debt to GDP below 50% by simply repealling the Bush Tax Cuts. I mean, if you cut off your finger at home, are you going to refuse the bandage your mom gives you on the ride to the hospital because, it "Just doesn't do enough" or are you going to stop the bleeding?

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.!!

Until we elect a financially responsible President (not this guy) and a financially responsible Congress there is absolutely no way we can reduce our deficit. Also a budget after 3 years would be a nice thing...

Bill,

Actually, the problem is so much greater than simply Obama and the lack of a budget. As long as money equals speech under the law, multinational corporations, massive non-profits, Wall St. and uber-wealthy citizens can continue to buy the legislation, tax codes, and trade policies that make them some major bank.

Get the money out of politics and watch how fast our economy gets fixed.

what i am reading from most of you is that you are objectivists, following the ideals of ayn rand. basically it is the philosophy of EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!!!! i want all my money and if you have to starve so i can get all my money then c'est la vie!

did you not read the entire article or just pick out the parts you wanted to? the CBO which is NOT an arm of the white house, but rather the congress said that by allowing the tax cuts instituted by the Bush administration to lapse we would reach a deficit of $585 billion by 2013! that's a BAD thing? really? are you kidding me? let me see that means we would lower our federal deficit by $515 billion! Well, we can't have THAT going on in an election year when there's a democrat running. God forbid the democrats should be any credit for doing anything good in this country, the earth might stop revolving around the sun. oh wait! we have a democratic president and he's been there for three years and the sun still rises in the east and as yet, i haven't heard him declare martial law and take over.

what i have heard, is that HE wants to even the playing field so that EVERYONE in this country has a FAIR chance. not charity, just a chance. how do our children stand a chance when we are actively trying to destroy their ability to get a good education. the republican candidates would do away with the public school system so that only those who could afford to send their children to school would be able to do so. they want to do away with medicare and social security so that when the baby boomers get old we will just die if we don't have enough money to live on or if no one is there is help us. and then, these same people announce their religious piety. WHAT A WONDERFUL CHRISTIAN IDEAL. EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF! what a bunch of hypocrits!

there are ways to help people help themselves without allowing them to become a burden on society. instead of just putting people on welfare indefinitely, give them a time frame and then the tools they need to learn a trade. help them get a job and then yes, expect them to stand on their own two feet. i work in a grocery store and i have seen many, many proud, hard working americans reduced to public assistance. i talk to them. and despite what the right wants you'all to believe the vast majority of these people would be glad to work. they just need a chance. you will always have free loaders no matter what kind of system you put in place. you don't kill everyone just because of a few.

there would be another way to reduce the deficit if we started thinking of health as a right not a commodity. universal health care would save this country untold millions. just making sure that everyone pays into the healthcare program obama has set up will ensure that 44 million people who use the emergency rooms in this country and NEVER pay a dime for the services will be putting something into the system. that alone, will save money. imagine, if everyone could go to the doctor on a regular basis and we emphasized preventive care instead of waiting for people to get so sick that they need critical and chronic care which are both incredibly expensive. and those 44million people i just mentioned? guess who has to take up the slack because they don't have health insurance? you and me. you see, we already have a "socialist" program in place here, because if you go into an emergency room you cannot, by federal law, be turned away. at the very least we need to make health insurance more like car insurance in the sense that you should be able to cancel your insurance anytime you want and go to another company. now THAT would create a competitive atmosphere and the insurance companies would have to trim their profits in order to stay in business. and like most states, if you choose, you can get basic car insurance through the state at a reduced rate! so, then let those who CHOOSE get basic health insurance from the government at a reduced rate. now THAT'S more like free enterprise. after all, you're all crying for more freedom! or maybe you just want freedom for yourselves and everyone else by damned.

If the libs and the conservatives would just stop spending money like it was limitless, we might not be in this financial hole. Obama finally needs to take responsibility and own this debt. If I hear him say he inherited this year's deficit, I'm going to be very disappointed. He has been in power for almost 4 years, yet he can't take responsibility for dropping a duce in the toilet we call an economy. Instead he plays the blame game, the race game, and the class warfare game. His whole presidency has been about divide and conquer. He isn't a leader. He is the great antagonist. And he wants 1 billion dollars to run for President again.

The sad part is, if we get Romney as President, we likely will not be much better off. Our only real hope is China deciding to not buy our debt anymore. It is a sad day when China is the "drug" dealer of America. Unfortunately Obama and the rest of the junkies on capital hill are shooting up daily.

*** RE-POST!! RE-POST!!!! ***

I could jump into the entire debate that has raged on for years- ad nauseum- over 'who' is responsible for our dilemma, and 'why' things happened the way they did, but I won't.

Because you all know that I know that you know that it doesn't solve anything. Pretty soon, someone on this forum will go partisan in this debate, and we'll keep rehashing all the same BS that has been posted before.

What this country REALLY needs is a serious discussion about our values, our resources, and our future. Not the petulant bickering that we see daily from our "leaders", nor their consitituents on these public forums.

It is truly a discussion of how what kind of country do we want? We CANNOT go back to an earlier era- it is impossible given the modern state of the world, and nobody here really wants to live a reduced standard of living. How do we move ahead with keeping up with progress, while making sure that EVERYONE has a fair share of the "American Dream"?

Should we cut the benefits to our elderly, poor, and sick? We know what will happen if we do, and trust me, these news sites will be filled with tragic stories. How much do we respect and care for those people, and should it be the role of government, or of individual responsibility?

Do we raise the tax rates on those who make exorbitant incomes? The rich in our country worked hard to achieve their wealth (well, most). Is it fair to expect them to pay even more sums of money, especially given our broken economic system in the first place? We have a graduated income tax system, which is essentially taxation based upon the ability to pay. Period. And granted, SOME of the rich indeed DO open new businesses where they see a potential market, thus creating jobs. The real question is, how many of these so-called wealthy actually ARE opening new businesses, or expanding existing ones? And if we come down too harshly on our 1%-ers, they can and will move their holdings overseas. It's a big problem.

Do we continue our empire of military strength? Or is it time to reconsider our role in the world? We all keep bitching about how we shouldn't have to be the "world's police", but many of us show no concern about the massive amounts of money we spend in doing so. Is our "defense" complex really about defending our people and values, or is it about creating opportunities for resources and business ventures? If we cut military spending, we will inevitably see unemployment going up. Let's not forget that while we complain about China making all our "stuff", we are the ones who make and sell military hardware the world over. I guess the question is, are we willing to reduce our footprint in the world in order to achieve some semblance of tranquility, especially if it means we are no longer the world's sole superpower, and our economy will have to evolve away from making weapons?

What about energy? It seems every generation has to learn the hard way that our economy is tied directly to our access to energy sources. Yes, this question is indeed related to our defense system as well. Here in America, we sit on mountains of oil and natural gas, but do we harness it now to continue the status quo, or do we wait until the rest of the world needs it more than we do, thus ensuring imported wealth and jobs in the future? SHOULD we keep fighting over fossil fuels when we have the rudimentary technology to create cleaner, greener forms of energy? Is it worth the investment now, or should we wait until it is economically more pertinent? Should our intellectual energies be put into better ways of extracting oil, or advancing the green technologies? Should our government be involved with these advances, or would we rather have private interests invest their capital into these projects?

And lastly, what kind of society do we want? No one seems to like the encroachment upon our constitutional rights, but many people fear a society without such "safeguards". Do we continue in the long tradition of respecting individual rights, as offensive as they may be at times, or do we change and become a more homogenous society with a larger governmental role in our lives? Where is the line between freedom and law? The answer to this question will define the course of our future economy as well. How much government regulation is good, versus negatively impacting our rights and privacies?

We CANNOT answer any questions like this by continuing to point fingers at political parties or ideologies. MOST Americans are moderates, neither far-left nor far-right. Did we forget that? BOTH parties have made mistakes and/or set into motion policies that have brought us to this point. Neither ideology has all the answers, and any attempt to pursue one ideology over another will eventually end up in failure.

And who does our government work for? Is it the People, the rich, the businesses, or some other entity? Who's paying attention????

Eric-913730

Republicans aren't interested in raising revenues because they want all entitlements cut or privatized.

We need a little balance here, not just cuts.

And democrats don't want to do anything except spend and push any cuts down the road until it can be be blamed one someone else. Don't believe it? have you ever been to West Virginia? There isn't a highway, damn, bridge, or public works project that isn't a "Robert W Byrd Memorial" something; the Democratic king of pork for 58 years. Bigot? Yes KKK Member? Yes But, he got that money to spend so he may be Senator Jack S Phogbound, but he is OK with them because, as they say in Dogpatch:

"Thar's No Jack S. Like Our Jack S." (jackass)

I understand that we need tax increases (probably back to the Clinton era or even before), but NOT until there is some control over congress (Both Parties). Both parties have spent like a drunk sailor in a whorehouse for the past 60 years. Congress et. al. is the problem because they use the public treasury as a slush fund to reward contributors, corporations, special interests, and buy votes by saying to the voters, "Look at all of the wonderful things I got for you and it didn't cost you anything." Yeah, Right! It cost somebody something. If you don't raise taxes on everyone to pay for it, then you are just borrowing it from the future generations.

But, regarding cuts in the future for revenues today, it reminds me of the old remark from J. Wellington Wimpy of ""I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". You do know that when the new congress took control in 2011 and had to confront a spending bill that had not been passed by the previous congress, they requested $60 Billion in cuts (about 2%) in order to pass it, right? The negotiations with the Democratic Senate modified the yield to only $38 Billion (a little over 1% of the total budget). The very next day after the signing, the National Review stated that, because of the way the 'cuts" were done, it would only be a little over $14 Billion in savings. Two days later, the Washington Post announced that because of WHERE the cuts were being done, the actual realized savings would only be $360 Million (0.12% of the total Budget). So, please tell that you don't see a pattern here of unwillingness to cut anything. Its justanother case of spend spend spend. and "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"!

Please tell me why I should trust the congress to ever consider slowing their spending even the slightest bit.

EEngineer: "stop handing out tax breaks to oil companies making $10B to $20B profit a quarter, taxing capital gains just like any other income, cutting the $1T per year we spend on Defense, regulating the companies whose greed andbad business practices trashed this economy in the first place."

So why is it that so many Democrats and Republicans won't touch those tax breaks? Did it ever occur to you that tax breaks are typically enacted to help U.S.-based companies (w/employees in the U.S.) compete with foreign-based companies in the global markets? You do realize that a company like Caterpillar Tractor would go out of business if it only sold to domestic customers? A huge share of its revenue stream comes from foreign customers. So it has to compete with a growing number of foreign manufacturers, many that are government subsidized in one form or another, reducing their cost structures and allowing them to undercut the pricing of U.S.-manufactured products.

The same dynamic works at the state level. Governor Walker has created tax incentives in Wisconsin to try to bring back jobs to that state that fled to Texas in recent years (due to Texas' low business tax structure).

So it's easy to say: end the corporate tax breaks. Just recognize the law of unintended consequences when you do.

Tax cuts stimulate growth, always have, always will. Tax hikes (which, whether you agree or not, repealing Bush tax cuts would be) would crush growth the same way over-regulation does.

Where all of you get the idea that companies should pay taxes in the 1st place is beyond me. All money that comes into a company is taxed (employee income tax, or capital gains) or is eventually put back into the company. When you overtax/overegulate a business, that business eventually moves to another state that is more business friendly, or ultimately (if the federal government becomes hostile) a different country. Many of your posts are foolishly suggesting that we become even more hostile. So go right ahead, vote your jobs away. We can all work for the government right?

Sarah, you had my interest but then left me hanging...I am confused a bit by this article laying the blame for the deficits on the Bush tax cuts...the Bush Tax cuts went into affect in 2001 and 2003...in 2008 we had a budget deficit of only 298 billion. While technically the 2009 deficit of 1.4 trillion happened under the last Bush budget...blaming Bush would assume that Obama was incapable of making decisions to rectify Bush's error once he took office and had 9+ months...and in fact most of the increase was related to TARP and other bailout efforts that Obama supported if not enacted. Nonetheless, to your point, money has always been the equivalent of speech, I find it inconcievable for it not to...regardless of what regulation may be imposed...what is your suggestion? This is not a flip response...I am curious how we could ever take money out of politics and why that would change the course of the economy. I point out, what many ignore, that Citizens United struck down a portion of McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform...That legislation recieved bipartisan support because the dems and repubs both saw abuses by the other..while I favor what McCain-Fiengold was attempting to do..the holding in CU only kept the law the same as it has been for over 200 years. One could argue I suppose that international corporations are much more common than they once were...maybe..but not sure that is true as a percent of our economy..one could look at the Hudson's Bay Company as an example of the power of international corporations during the start of our nation. It seems to me that power requires money and money will always provide a voice that power will want to hear. What CU does is keep the status quo but also if contributions are illegal then only those willing to break the law will have access...for example, during the Clinton admin millions of dollars from china will diverted to the Clinton campaign machine...most countries were not willing to break our prohibition of contributions from foreign governments...China was willing too and as a result ended up with most favored nation status.

Tax cuts stimulate growth, always have, always will

Yes, they stimulate the growth of the largest corporations and most wealthy individuals. How do you explain the fact that corporations have taken in record profits over the past ten years, while employment has declined? How do you account for the fact that income disparity is at it's greatest since 1929? How do you explain why the average income of a man hasn't raised since 1973? If this were true, where the hell are the jobs and upward mobility???

US Bureau of Labor Statistics - The year 2000 = 17.1 Million working in manufacturing, and the year 2011 = 11.7 Million. Why??? Because of bunk tax codes and trade policies. We have so many corporate loopholes, that there is no incentive to not take advantage of China's human rights violations.

Furthermore, why do we want to race them to the labor standards of the guilded age? Instead of racing them backwards, why don't we penalize them for not moving forwards. End currency manipulation. End the inequality in tariffs. End the "MFN" status. When will all that happen??? When we no longer have tax incentives promoting all of that and government sanctioned, record profits off of it.

Force them to meet us at the top, instead of us going backwards.

Dream on Tod - We have had the tax cuts for over 10 years, where is the growth? A huge part of the problem can be seen here. Incidently, every soldier in our bloated military, works for the government. Every time we spend billions on some military boondoggle, it is paid for by the government. Our goverment is now paying big money to have our carriers float around the Persian Gulf in order to harrass Iran.

Cost of Our Wars

The final bill will reach at least $3.7 trillion and could be as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al-Qaida leaders behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020.

The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study.

Your boy Bush borrowed every dollar to pay for his 2 wars and has hidden the true costs. In addition, we are still supporting Israel to the tune of 3.5 billion every year, plus their loan guarantees.

The U.S. government has informed Israel that it will recommend that Congress approve a three-year extension of loan guarantees to Israel, worth $3.8 billion. The announcement came after several months of worry in Israel that the loan guarantees would not be extended, despite Israel's request.

Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Nides and Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Neil Wolin announced the American decision at a meeting with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon on Monday. According to a senior U.S. official, the two emphasized to Ayalon that the recommendation to extend the guarantees through September 2015 would receive wide support from both parties in Congress and would be approved without any problems in the near future.

"The U.S. is a true friend and ally of Israel," Ayalon said. "The partnership between the two countries is a natural one. Extending the loan guarantees strengthens the international position of the Israeli economy and will allow the government to continue to raise funds at lower costs."

A senior Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem said that Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren filed the official request for the extension of the loan guarantees with the State Department in September 2011. However, the Israel request was not included in the U.S. budget that was approved at the end of last year.

The deadline for the implementation of the agreement is September 30, 2012. This created serious concern in Israel that the U.S. government was not interested in extending the loan guarantees past that date. The Foreign Ministry also feared that the need for separate legislation on Israel's loan guarantees would be met with technical and political difficulties that would not allow for the passage of the law.

Before the arrival of the two American officials in Israel, the Foreign Ministry prepared for a tough conversation and a crisis. However, the two American officials were surprised and quickly clarified that the U.S. government completely supported the extension of the loan guarantees and planned to recommend the extension to Congress.

The loan guarantees agreement between the U.S. and Israel began in 2003, when Benjamin Netanyahu was Finance Minister. At the time, Israel found itself in an economic recession and U.S. loan guarantees were needed in order to raise funds abroad at low interest rates. The scope of the original agreement was $9 billion and Israel last raised money through it in 2004.

The agreement included a clause that the U.S. would deduct the amount of Israel's expenses and investments in settlements over the Green Line. Today, the balance of loan guarantees Israel can take, before offsets, is $3.8 billion.

According to a senior Foreign Ministry official, since 2005 Israel has raised needed funds in the capital market without using the loan guarantees, but the loan guarantees have importance to global credit agencies, who view the loan guarantees as a "safety net" for the Israeli economy.

Soggy,

Money and Corporations are property... This is why I believe so

I think that you can have the limited or distinct liability for a corporation, in terms of torts and criminal actions, without having to label it a person. The corporations may not be charged with whatever crime it's owners or operators committ, but the owners/operators can. If the corporation was a person, how would we hold it accountable??? Throw it in "corporation" jail??? The initial purpose of that corporation is to make money for it's shareholders. The shareholders all get an individual vote in our political elections, correct??? So they get their say/rights, to let them have a say/rights through corporate personhood in addition to their individual say/rights, is esentially "bestowing" them more than once. They now, effectively, have double the civil rights that I do.

If corporations are people, to me it seems as if the court's doubling down on personhood. The individual owners/operators have their rights as people, as well as benefit from the corporations personhood. They're granted a second helping of freedom of speech and a gigantic second helping of the right to a fair say in our elections and the ability to petition government. Which basically throws out the whole concept of "endowment by a creator" and "all men being equal". It's in complete contrast to what the laws/rights of our nation are supposedly based on.

If money is speech, how do you reconcile that certain people have more access to it??? Warren Buffet and I were both "endowed" with the right to speak freely, but if money equals speech, Warren has access to a voice I never will. It is supposedly part of our humanity that we are all equal under the law, but money as speech kills that idea. It increases the protection and the access to law and government of wealthier people. Money isn't given to us, by lieu of our humanity, it's earned, and the nature of the free market will always mean that we have the wealthy and the poor. If money equals speach, the poor will never have a voice, making them unequal under our laws and in our civil rights.

If you couple corporate personhood with this unmitigated desire to "deregulate", where exactly does corporate responsibility come in? Where does the responsibility to not "shout fire" with your "voice", that being money, come in?

We all remember the saying "With rights come responsibilities", correct? It seems like this rush to corporations equaling people and money equaling speech, at the same time many are saying we need to deregulate, gives corporations all the rights, but none of the responisbilities.

There's nothing sentient or free thinking about a corporation. There's nothing inherently "God Given" about money. Those are earned, not bestowed. They're puppets on the hands of their masters. Masters who already have equality and protection under the law.

If we're "endowed by our creator" and humans create corporations and money, are we than Gods capable of endowing people/things with rights?

There's too many contradictions. If corporations are people and money is speech, how can we own them? Wouldn't that be in conflict with the 13th Amendment?

Soggy,

Sorry, that's really long and probably a bit dry, but I hope you get my drift.

Sarah, you are wrong..corporations can and do get charged with crimes. In fact most federal laws like the Environmental Protection Act, Civil Rights Act, etc..specifically state that corporations are people within the meaning of the statute.

Money is speech and while you were endowed by your creator with the right to speak freely the number of people who hear you speak is limited by your resources...while warran buffet's right to speak is no greater than yours his abilty to be heard...if you stifle his ability be heard just because he can afford to get his message out then you are infringing on his speech..that is the essential holding in CU

Corporations are not exactly created by people...they are associations of persons...the Constitution guarentees of the right of people to freely associate...if people associate for the purpose of building a business and you punish them by taking away their ability to be heard by the people with the power to assist them then you are infringing on the people's right to free association and speech.

There is no rush to make corporations equal to people...in this country it has always been the case...one of the cases cited in CU involved a railroad corporations represented by Abraham Lincoln who successfully argued that the corporation was a person for the purposes of the law.

Answer the question; why should any corporation be taxed? They pay property taxes, their employees pay income tax, their shareholders pay capital gains tax. All left over money goes back into the company eventually (unless of course governments overtax it, then companies find shady ways to get the money out of the country).

Tod-2791955

Tax cuts stimulate growth, always have, always will. Tax hikes (which, whether you agree or not, repealing Bush tax cuts would be) would crush growth the same way over-regulation does.

Not quite, Todd. Taxes are, and always will be, in the margins. That is, when you really get down to the financials of the "cut" part of it, it really makes little difference. Example: If we were to let the 3.6% tax cuts for the wealthy expire, it would typically mean about a $360 difference on a $100,000 project... a cheap business lunch difference. The math? Assuming a 10% ROI, and assuming all thresholds have been passed, and assuming no write-offs due to energy or specific purchasing or otherwise.

But tax cuts DO have an affect on business. Tax cuts have a psychological affect on both business owners and individuals... especially the first year. Not so much the following years. But you are correct. Once they are in play, unless removing the tax cut can somehow be viewed positively, it could have a negative affect on the economy. Obama and his team realize this and have been careful not to willy-nilly remove ALL the tax cuts. That's why it is only targeted for those that it would mean so little financially to have virtually no negative effect on growth and a huge dividend on the debt. Make sense?

Anyway, that's the way I see it.

Great job, Sarah-3043284.

We need more FACTS on the vine, instead of diatribe.

I will try to answer one of your questions:

How do you explain why the average income of a man hasn't raised since 1973?

The 1973 date is when the US created a full fiat currency and stopped backing the dollar by gold, which is great for the Fed because it allows greater power to control inflation; however, it also created greater corporate greed and harmed employees because their income is "managed" away.

Soggy-2602420: Hate to sound like a kook, but corporations are NOT people, the Fed is NOT part of the government and neither can be trusted with the people's money.

I tend to roll with the words of Jefferson: "Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs." -- 1813 in a letter to John Eppes.

Sarah I do agree with you, and strongly, that corporations that exercise the rights guarenteed by our nation must be held to a high level of responsibility. I personally believe that every time a candidate or referendum is on a ballot the top 30 donors in favor of that candidate or referendum should be listed along side...when you vote for a candidate you should know who supports them. I also think that we, as consumers, need to punish corporations and other businesses that engage in corrupt and immoral practices...lastly the laws must recognize corporations as people and must use those laws to enforce criminal sanctions. While the Justice Department did bring criminal charges against Exxon for the Valdez spill and they were fined in criminal court...too little was done to go after the officer and decision makers.

Sarah,

Much of what you say makes eminent sense. I would take exception, however, with the assumption that stockholders get to make decisions on the political positions or candidates that get the support of the firm they nominally own. Unlike unions, where members can vote to remove leaders who they feel do not represent their interests, we stockholders do not get to weigh on that. That would be a fair solution, to require stockholder consent as part of the charter for the management team, but it ain't going to happen. Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck with a system where money and free speech are directly linked, so the more money you have the more free speech you can buy. So much for "all men are created equal" ...

Hmm...no mention of the fact that, for some reason, W. kept the two wars off the books while he was President and Obama added those costs into the budget. Granted the economic collapse caused most of the damage you see in the deficit numbers...Obama has actually reduced spending less the stimulus. I bet if you removed the war costs, or you know, taxed the war hawks to actually pay for it, then our deficit probably wouldn't have topped $1T every year...or conversely, W's would have.

Monkey...Jefferson very wisely was concerned about the power of banks and corporations...one wonders whether he would have written something into the Constitution had he been around to do so.

Soggy,

Sarah, you are wrong..corporations can and do get charged with crimes.

They can be held liable for the actions of their opperators. The corporation itself is an entity at the will of it's operators. How does a corporation take responsibility... Through it's operators. How does it "feel the heat"... Through its operators. Why, all of a sudden, does it now get speech through it's operators and through the association of its operators??? It's the humans that face the consequences, not the corporation itself, ergo it's the humans that have the rights, not the corporation itself. It's the humans that have personhood individually, not as a whole.

if you stifle his ability be heard just because he can afford to get his message out then you are infringing on his speech..

And that's exactly what money equalling speech does to anyone who doesn't have boat loads of it. I get one vote, one chance to express how I feel in this election. Sheldon Adelson gets as many votes as he can buy through TV ads and superpacs. His say and speech is now way greater than my own. Limiting them to the single voice they were given at birth, the same amount/type of voice the majority of the people in the country have, isn't infringing on their ability to have/use that voice, it's not allowing them to have a greater share of a civil right, dependant on what they earned as opposed to the fact that they were born human.

Corporations are not exactly created by people...they are associations of persons...

Really, who invented the concept of the corporation? Who decides when one forms? They are entitites made by humans. There's nothing natural about them. They aren't life forms. They aren't sentient. Any sentience or humanity in them, is endowed individually within the owners/operators. In which case, those owners/operators already have their civil rights.

And that case in CU said that "persons" could sometimes be considered corporations under the law, not that corporations themselves were persons.

Cal,

That makes sense, as opposed to shareholders, I'm thinking more, board of directors. And personally, I don't want labor unions having a say either. I want Valeo and Citizen's overturned, get money out completely.

The repukes want to keep the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, cut social security and medicare for the poor. On top of all the repukes walked away from a 4.1 Trillon dollar debt deal, then say see President Obama did it. He created this mess as if no one in the world can read and write except them.

How stupid do you think we are? The only people you can get to believe that trash is right wing nut jobs.

Actually Hypocrisy, the estimates for the total cost of both Iraq and Afgahn wars varies wildly. Obama recently said that combined they costed about 1 trillion others place it close to 3t. It has to do with how the figures are looked at...e.g. if you count every bomb, bullet and salary then it is close to 3t but if you recognize that we would still have a military that was paid a salary and they were going to blow up bombs and shoot bullets as part of their training that number is closer to obama's estimate of 1t. So over 12 years we spent 1t or less than 100b a year...so the cost of the wars has only risen the deficit by less than 10% of what it has risen

Monkey: "Hate to sound like a kook, but corporations are NOT people, the Fed is NOT part of the government and neither can be trusted with the people's money."

And government can be trusted with "the people's money?" The mountain of debt and on-going deficit spending (with no end in sight) suggests otherwise. You may argue the federal government is accountable to American voters, but I would argue there's such a lack of association between the taxpayers' dollars going in and how it's spent, that all government accountability went out the window a long time ago. There is no accountability - if there was, we wouldn't be in the fiscal mess we're now in. Every government department is a fiefdom. Every agency is a "sacred cow" for some constituent. It's become a bloated, inefficient monster in many ways, and it seems there's no political will (or power) that can tame it at this point.

"And that's exactly what money equalling speech does to anyone who doesn't have boat loads of it. I get one vote, one chance to express how I feel in this election. Sheldon Adelson gets as many votes as he can buy through TV ads and superpacs. His say and speech is now way greater than my own. Limiting them to the single voice they were given at birth, the same amount/type of voice the majority of the people in the country have, isn't infringing on their ability to have/use that voice, it's not allowing them to have a greater share of a civil right, dependant on what they earned as opposed to the fact that they were born human."

This is a very interesting concept...NBC has a way bigger voice than the richest of persons...they run this website and control how the facts they report are spun both on this site and on TV...would you eliminate the press because it has as many votes as it can influence? which is substantial..NBC can and does air broadcasting (such as west wing) that advances it political views on public airways...in that way its has a much bigger voice than most anyone else...do we need to get rid of all media...of course I am being silly but only to show how your view does not work...the reality is that the poor and middle class are not going to get their individiual voices heard the way NBC will or they way Bill Gates will...and even if you were to eliminate all money in politics by magic..politicians and the public will still listen to someone like Bill Gates more than someone like you or me...you just dont want to let corporations has speech because they disagree with your political views and you see them as evil but have no problem with NBC having control of a massive vehicle for speech because NBC shares your views...it is exactly why you should welcome CU, if someone stiffles those you disagree with then someone will likely do the same to those with which you agree.

No Marct it does'nt make sense, first of all 3.6% of $100,000 is $3600 not $360. Second, in the grand scheme its perception, and jobs created by businesses that percieve stability. Right now they don't, stability is found overseas.

Raise taxes, lower taxes and you end up with the same revenue. How many times does that have to be proven? Might as well lower them and lower the regulations and stimulate the economy.

This equality argument is really getting old. There is no such thing as equality, all we can strive for is justice. There is a difference, and it usually defines the difference between a liberal and a conservative, between fanatasy and reality.

P.S. Solutions. Goofy, ridiculous, non-sensical feelings generated blather is always good for a laugh. Keep em coming.

Soggy,

The press thing is an issue. That's what happened with Ruppert Murdoch in England. Personally, that part has me stumped, but I do believe that it would be the lesser of two evils. Especially if we hold our journalists to higher ethical standards, expand the market and break up the communications conglomerates. Also, as the internet takes over more and more, I don't think we'll see as much power in the hands of media moguls.

Plus, if we reform education and focus on independant thought as well as team problem solving, instead of standardized testing, we'll have increased inquistivness and free thought, instead of brain washing and propaganda.

Well Sarah I appreciate your point of view and share your concerns. I also appreciate your thoughtful analysis. I generally disagree with you...I dont believe money is having a significant effect on politics...you could check with Senator Fiorina or Governor Whitman in California or Senator McMahon in Conneticut...but since they outspent their opponents by millions upon millions and still lost...I think they will agree with me...nonetheless I also think the best solution is not government limitations on freedoms but greater freedoms...I trust that NBC will spin its spin...corporations will spin their spin...and more often than not the American people will figure it out for themselves...there are abuses that go undetected for sure and things happen that should not...but pointing to corporations and blaming them or saying they should not have the right to donate to causes they support will not limit or eliminate abuses...only sunshine will do that and never in human history has it been true that increased government control leads to less corruption.

Soggy,

Thanks for the brain exercises! I enjoyed the civil debate. Anytime you wish to engage, my friend, anytime.

"Plus, if we reform education and focus on independant thought as well as team problem solving, instead of standardized testing, we'll have increased inquistivness and free thought, instead of brain washing and propaganda."

People have been saying the same thing since the first concepts of public education we concieved...the truth is that liberals control the education system in this country and propaganda is their primary objective...I welcome reform with an emphasis on math, science, history and a study of language and culture...I think education could lead to an increase in free thought but not when its function is focused on promoting a particular social agenda.

Sarah "We have so many corporate loopholes, that there is no incentive to not take advantage of China's human rights violations"

I agree with your stance on foreign trade, but do you really believe that what you said above is the reason corporations head off to China? Because they have to many corporate loopholes here? Are you suggesting we further regulate them here? That's gonna keep them here?

Here's the deal, most large corporations pay what they want to in taxes, you know why? Because it cost the feds (IRS) more to audit them than they would get. So as it is now, only smaller corporations pay taxes. Dump corporate tax all together, it is not a just system.

Soggy, I'm a High School Science teacher, and unfortunately, I could'nt agree with you more concerning education.

Regardless of which political party you support (or, if you're an independent like me), these deficits should scare the #$% out of you. We can't keep running $1 Trillion deficits every year - or anything close to that level. At this rate it won't be future generations that pay for our excesses - we will be paying for it in a decade or so...and payback won't be pretty.

Somehow I don't think China will care about grandma's medical bills...

It's become very common for people to point to highly simplistic reasons for what is a very complex economy. Taken at face value, comparing Corporate profits with stagnant wages sounds good for a populist argument but it defies some basic understanding. As an employer the costs to employ workers is more than hourly or salary wages. Take GM for example - it wasn't wages that kicked their butt - it was legacy costs which continue to grow. Healthcare premium increases are accounting for what we as employers would like to be putting into our employee's paychecks.

The CBO report projects the unemployment rate will gradually decline to around 7 percent by the end of 2015, before dropping to near 5.5 percent by the end of 2017. Inflation and interest rates will remain low during the next few years.

So I guess it doesn't matter who gets elected into office. According to the CBO the unemployment rate will drop regardless.

Both parties are horrible. It amazes me when I hear people defend either party. I'm fed up with everyone in Washington.

Obama wants taxes. taxes grow washington! cut spending and see what happens before you start taking more. Start taxing non profits except churches and level the playing field. Enforce taxes on the internet. I mean, don't go after people until things are even and deep cuts are made.

For those who don't believe there's any connection between tax cuts and the deficit, I'd recommend the New York Times' "deficit-fixer" interactive:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html?hp

Just try making a few small adjustments like putting the estate tax back to where it was under Clinton or letting the Bush tax cuts expire and see what happens.

The top tax rates are too damn low (see The History of Taxes)

And that's assuming that people like Romney have to pay the top tax rate. Instead, they pay lower than the lowest rate.

The GOP spends all its time slavering about the deficit, but they won't do a damn thing to fix it!

Obama wants taxes

Yes, he does. And so does anyone who REALISTICALLY wants to pay down the debt!

If you are buried under debt, you DO NOT reduce your revenue! You don't quit your full-time job on Wall Street to go work part-time at McDonalds! You take a second job, you put in OT, AND you watch your expenses, BUT YOU INCREASE YOUR INCOME, YOU DO NOT CUT IT.

Can the liberals stop lying about the FY 2009 budget... for the love of... seriously, how many times to I have to debunk this?

Democrat controlled Congress/House were passing continuation budgets until Obama became president, where he signed the FY2009 budget.

http://www.nchv.org/news_article.cfm?id=506

Now can you please stop lying with this talking point?

Fred you are correct that we must increase revenue...but if you raise taxes and in doing so put more people out of work you will both reduce revenue and increase expenses as more people draw unemployment...if your argument is that increased taxes will not cause employers to lay off existing workers or refuse to hire new ones then ok but even Obama does not believe that...he is pitching all sorts of tax incentives to hire workers...also, you could tax every dollar of income from the top 5% of earners and not make a dent in the deficit...the Bush tax cuts were acrosss the board so when the CBO says if we leave allowed them to expire then we could cut the deficit in half...the CBO is assumimg that the millions of people dropped off the tax rolls get put back on, that the middle class gets their taxes raised as well...not just the rich.

half the g.o.p. doesn`t care about the debt,but the tea party does.they are a bigger problem for unresponsible repubs. than dems.you won`t hear them trying to defeat romney because he is very moderate and likely to get elected candidate.but if elected he will be their target to do what must be done.the deficit does matter unless you like spending money on interest and buying nothing.

Romney has enough cash to start his own circus..., wait a sec he is in the circus.

Concerning Sarah's factory analogy:

If I owned a factory that ran as "inefficiently" as our federal government, yes, I would shut the whole thing down!!

And seriously Fred, you are'nt talking about an average family budget, You are talking about a government that spends every dime and then some that comes in. Translate: like a family that begs for a raise then, goes out and finances a couple of new cars and a new house based on the raise they think they deserve, without considering they'll be layed of .next week.

Brillaint Fred.

No, we aren't going to pay it off on just the backs of just the rich, though they are going to have to pay a bit more yet. Corporations are NOT hurting for cash, they have $1,000,000,000,000 in capital sitting in the bank waiting for a rainy day. Their profit margins can take a hit and no one will go hungry.

And yes, even the middle class will see a rise in their taxes as the Bush Tax Gift to the Rich is allowed to expire, and guess what? People will survive, they will adjust to their slightly altered level of income, and they will go on.

The biggest place to get fair taxation back is on Capital Gains. Allowing Capital Gains to continue to only be taxed at 15% is ludicrous in the extreme. It has been that way for a long time, and as we can see, jobs are not produced by it. Romney is a prime example of how it is being abused. He makes $20,000,000/year, and pays less than 15%? McDonalds taxes its part-timers more.

Fred, you do understand that capital gains moneys are taxed before they reach stockholders, don't you?

And that $1,000,000,000 figure you pulled out of your rearend, will eventually be brought back into the economy (and taxed in a multitude of ways) when that corporation trusts that it won't be pilfered by our government, but can be used to enhance their product.

I do, and I think that is an irrelevant point. Oh no! It's taxed twice! So what? My home is taxed EVERY YEAR, I pay taxes on it over and over and over, even though I own it. Same with my car.

It's called the cost of doing business, and investors and corporations need to get over it.

Fred: "It's called the cost of doing business, and investors and corporations need to get over it."

Okay, then I guess it's up to you to get the rest of the world to play by the same rules...

Ooops, Fred doesn't get that when our rules/taxes are more stringent than the rest of the worlds, corporations take their toys and go play with the nicer countrys. Logic, it evades some of us, mostly liberal equaliutopians.

"oh no its taxed twice" its income Fred not property, sheesh more brilliance via Fred

gamer2k and alex cali

Please pull your heads out of the sand and stop with the inherited 1.2 trillion dollar deficit BS. The projected deficit for Bush's last budget was 468 billion. Obama took office in January and put his hands the deficit by proposing and receiving two important pieces of legislation. First was a request to increase discretionary spending other than defense by 40%, the second was the 787 billion dollar stimulus bill that was supposed to keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Those two pieces of legislation alone account for the 1.2 trillion in deficit for that fiscal year. There are a number of places where you can find the data to support this, but I would start at the real source that is the CBO.

If you spent twice as much as you made this year and then next year only spent 80% more than you made, would you say "better than nothing I suppose"? That's the attitude that keeps us in this mess.

Probably because cutting spending even a little is better than doing nothing at all?

FYI: I never said we should stop here and call it good, in fact I even imply the opposite. :)

If Congress and the Senate would stop the filibusters we would be a lot better off.

Both sides have been poor decision makers. The only true bipartisan I've seen is President Obama. He's compromised with both sides to try and make things better. He could have done a lot more if his hands weren't tied by people with their own agenda and not the what is best for the American citizens.

Deborah,

I agree both sides are at fault, but I don't think Obama is any better. He seems to also be more interested in scoring political points than in actually solving problems (just like the Rep and Dem leadership in the House and Senate).

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.!!

one for ruken...

"Critics Still Wrong On What's Driving Deficits in Coming Years"

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3036

people tend to forget. We're not out of the hole yet. Republican Mantra:

"Deficit's Don't Matter"...they used to say. Search for this one too:

"The GOP Policies Have Crippled Our Economy"

By: Reagan's Budget Director.

Peace to all*

Indeed. Congressional spending is out of control. They use fake math, twisted logic, and somehow justify digging the hole deeper.

Ah yes, the voices of "Starving the Beast".

We do have a revenue problem by design, Republican design.

Two wars for deficit spending and voila a financial crisis to justify ending entitlements.

Eric: We do have a revenue problem (capital gains tax rate anyone?), we also have a spending problem.

People tend to focus on the giant expenses (S. Security, military, etc.) but I wonder how many small wasteful expenses there are in the budget.

Matt; I agree. It's all a shell game. Suck air out of on pocket and blow it into another. Both sides of the aisle are the problem and not the solution.A start would be to attack the massive fraud but neither side is willing to shoot themselves in the foot.

Eric,

You are 100% correct. For those not aware of the plan since Reagan, here it is:

1) Defund the government through popular tax cuts.

2) Manufacture a funding crisis.

3) Use the funding crisis as a way to make government smaller.

That's why the nation's budget was pretty well balanced for many years except during wartime before Reagan took office. And I don't mean war like we've seen in the past decade, I mean total war with food rationing and raw material rationing.

There is a difference between deficit and debt. The deficit is the gap between what we are spending this year and the amount taken in. The debt is the aggregate of the deficits over the years. In our present situation, they are both remarkably high.

To those pointing to the GOP as the root of the problem, I say that you're half right. The part where you are wrong is that you're not mentioning what the Democrats did to assist in getting us here. Namely, they supported the wars for fear of being perceived weak, encouraged the growth of government in the Bush years and now Obama years, expanded Medicare, supported TARP and the stimulus packages to global mega corporations (but I thought they were for the little guys!), and extended the Bush tax cuts.

The current trend is to bash the low capital gains tax rate but you have to wonder why it wasn't addressed when they had the House, Senate and POTUS. My guess is that they don't want to raise their own taxes. The myth that Dems and Reps are different is just that...A myth.

Third Wheel Man,

I will still rail against Starve the Beast as bad economic policy. And it was a product of the Reagan administration. The national debt took 220 years to get to $1 trillion. It took 12 years (1980 - 1992) to get to $4 trillion. Over Clinton's 8 years, it increased by $1.7 trillion. Over Bush's 8 years, in which the nation reverted back to Starve the Beast, it increased by $4.4 trillion to a total of $10 trillion.

Whether Democrats or Republicans were at the helm (President or congress) during these periods of large debt increase doesn't matter to me. I think it is a damaging policy and anybody who doesn't stand up to it is letting the nation go to ruin.

When is GOP going to admit that 2 wars under BUSH create U.S deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that borrow China $700 billion dollars a year to pay for super rich tax cut like Mitt Romney do not create job, but federal deficit?

How long can GOP pretend that they care about federal deficit?

Brian, the cost of the Iraq and Afgahn wars combined is between 1t and 3t depending on whose estimate you use. Obama estimates the total cost at just over 1t. That means over the last 11 years the wars have costed between 91 billion and 270 billion per year. The deficit in 2008 was 270 billion...and we had already paid for 7 years of the war...since 2008 the deficit has been over 1 trillion a year, and was 1.4 trillion in 2009...it went up by 1.1 trillion in 2009...the share of that 1.1 trillion which can be attributed to the wars is between 9% and 27% since Obama took office...somewhere between 91% and 73% is attributed to Obama programs to boost the economy...the wars simply are not the cause of the increase in debt...you can hate the wars...I agree...you can think bush dumb for going into iraq...i agree...you can think Obama spending spree is the right thing to do in the face of a recession..maybe...but you cant believe that the wars caused the deficits because that is silly.

Soggy, you are partially correct. Yes, the wars are mostly a minority fraction of America's deficits in the 21st century. Yet Obama's economic policies have not been the majority of the deficit. Obama's stimulus was $787 billion stretched out over approximately 3 years, with 2009 and 2010 being the major impact. Technically, Obama's stimulus could only be around 25-30% of the deficit. Another $280-$350 billion must be attributed to the Bush tax cuts (20-25%), and the rest (more than $750 billion) is attributed to the wars in Iraq AND the recession, which led to decreased revenues and increased spending for safety nets. To be honest, the cost of the wars are about $1.5 trillion or so.

Try a hundred gazillion million trillion!!! The SKY IS FALLING!!! we have no income! no one is working! we don't make anything, sell anything or have any GDP whatsoever!!! What is the matter with you people!! RUN, HIDE!!!!

Jerry

Don't confuse the deficit,(what we overspend in one year) with the national debt (which is the cumulative some of long term deficit spending). What is hard to believe is that they said it dipped slightly but is still 200 billion higher than anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year. This seems more like an attempt to attack the tax cuts by the administration than it does to announce any good news. livingbarefoot has it right! Spending is the problem here not revenue. Government spending is out of control and needs to be reigned in before any new tax revenues can be added.

Obama says he is trying to cut spending but then turns around and proposes new programs and spending that exceeds the cuts he is seeking. That is not fiscally responsible nor is it solving the national debt problem.

Jerry Portland Or

While I know what you mean please don't confuse deficit with debt. It confuses our democrat friends no end.

And a "spending cut" means "spending increased by less than I originally planned ."

archangel, So I guess Bush should of made some cuts before he and Cheney came up with these tax cuts that have destroyed our economy. And for all of you blaming Obama for these huge deficits should do some research because these deficits are still the result of Bush's policy's they are caused by paying for what he did while in office. You see the deficits we are running now are to pay for expenditures from the Bush/Cheney years and about the debt ceiling crisis it was manufactured by the Republican party for one reason and one reason only, you see after the Obama administration decided to actually pull the trigger on getting Osama Bin Laden unlike Bush that had 2 chances to get him and waffled on weather or not to do it till he got away, his poll numbers where way up so they needed a way to get them back down so we had a debt ceiling crisis. So you see the Republicans want to make sure the president a one term president so badly the can care less what it cost's the American people just as long as they can regain the power of the presidency.

Jerry 15 trillion is the debt duhhh!!! Sorry Rick, somebody has to point it out.

Here is how we got to 15 trillion

When Reagan became president, the national debt was less than $1 trillion.

He and Bush Sr. promptly quadrupled it, passing a $350 billion annual deficit on to Clinton.

Clinton eventually balanced the budget, thanks primarily to the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, which not one single Republican in Congress voted for.

We were on a path toward eradicating the national debt altogether when Bush Jr. became president.

Bush took the projected surpluses and turned them into nearly $6.1 trillion in additional debt, handing a failed economy and a $1.4 trillion (actually more) annual deficit to Obama.

Bush kept all the spending hidden by passing supplemental appropriations, that's why you only see 400 billion deficit when Bush left office. Obama came in and put it into the deficit.

Virtually all of the debt incurred since then (we're past $15 trillion now thanks to Reagan Republicans) has been due to: the effects of the Great Recession, the two botched Bush wars, Medicare Part D (not paid for under Bush), and the two Bush tax cuts.

The Recovery Act REDUCED deficits after it was enacted (see the Blinder/Zandi report).

Get a clue Republicans or you will continue to ruin your own country. Let the smart people continue fixing the mess that Bush and the Republicans made.
For the last 3 decades the rich have bombarded us with propaganda saying that the "next" tax break was going to rescue the country. Thirty years later we have falling infrastructure, failing schools, rampant joblessness, broken social programs, etc.. And the only thing that's changed is millionaires became billionaires.

When is GOP going to admit that 2 wars under BUSH create U.S deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that borrow China $700 billion dollars a year to pay for super rich tax cut like Mitt Romney do not create job, but federal deficit?

How long can GOP pretend that they care about federal deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that 2 wars under BUSH create U.S deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that borrow China $700 billion dollars a year to pay for super rich tax cut like Mitt Romney do not create job, but federal deficit?

How long can GOP pretend that they care about federal deficit?

Alex: "Clinton eventually balanced the budget, thanks primarily to the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, which not one single Republican in Congress voted for."

You shouldn't stand on over-simplifications in your arguments, as it takes away from your overall argument. Your apparent partisanship overlooks the fact that many Democrats didn't vote for the '93 Act either, and many scholars have argued that the deficit reductions late in the '90s were primarily due to an explosion of tax revenues that came out of the dot-bomb bubble - a technology-driven, and ultimately artificial boost in GDP (totally independent of, and in spite of, tax policy), the bursting of which the U.S. has still not completely recovered. (One of the reasons there has been no GDP growth in the U.S. since 1997, when you back out the increase in all public and private debt since then.) Much of the deficit reduction was also attributable to spending cuts or rollbacks enacted by the Republican-controlled Congress.

Without a parallel universe with which to compare alternative scenarios, there's no factual way for you to prove your assertions that deficits were less because of Clinton's tax policy. For the sake of conjecture, the surplus by 2000 might have been greater if it hadn't been for those higher taxes. But we'll never know, will we?

No we have to start taxing millionaires and up like we did during the 1950's under a Republican President. During those times we had a job boom, millionaires got richer and we built the Interstate Highway System (something Republicans today would never allow to happen because they are too greedy.).

In the 1950's the maximum tax rate on millionaires and above was over 90% but with deductions it dropped to 50%. That is OVER THREE TIMES HIGHER than what Mitt Romey pays in taxes.

It has been proven by HISTORY that when you tax the wealthy this country thrives (Clinton did it and reduced the deficit and ended up with a surplus that Bush threw away with wars and tax cuts).

Sandy

Your logic is flawed. You forget that during WWII the Manufacturing Base of the World Economies was destroyed. We had the ONLY undamaged Factories in the World. That means WE supplied the material for Europe and Asia to rebuild. Also that 90% tax on the RICH also included a 20% tax on the POOR. Now do you want to pay 20% taxes?? Take a look at the Tax Rates from 1913 to 2011.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html

Ryan-1214170

I remember when people were upset that the national DEBT was about 1.1 trillion. A DEFICIT of 1.1 trillion is unforgiveable. We have to stop spending money we don't have!

Republicans are responsible for this.

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/pages/rrnews.html?feed=393046&article=9672706

Tell me whats wrong for that link.

The funny thing is that the same people who didnt want to raise the debt limit are the same people who voted to do all that spending. Boner, Ryan, Cantor, McConnell. You people have to open your eyes.

I will remind folks that we had a boom in the 90's when taxes were increased and pretty high. We also didn't have large budget deficits.

Good news for the only tax cuts we ever need are for the rich faction of thelet em eat cake party!! We can continue the Bush tax cuts, hold onto that "trickle down" mantra and still insist we're still way too broke to feed poor children!! Who cares?

AP-1414066

The Bush tax cuts are not only for the rich. In fact, the portion of cuts for the rich is very small and would not even make a dent in the deficit. This article is calling for the end of all the Bush era cuts which would impact everyone, not just the rich. Even if the cuts were allowed to expire, it would not impact the top 1% in this country as their income is mostly taxed as capitol gains not as income. The capitol gains rate is a flat 15% not the 35% of the top income bracket.

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

FYI: Congress has to approve the budget. So why do people point at the President again?

Tax and spend liberals? Are you serious? Would you say that tax-break and more expenses conservatives did better for you? Cut taxes, increase medicare spending, and start two 10-year wars was better?

How about we all stop buying the manure coming out of our respective corners and do something TOGETHER to dig OUR country out of the hole? That will require (shudder) COMPROMISE - something that seems non-existent in our country nowadays. Each side pandering to their useful idiots to maintain the status quo. Sickening.

Archie you are correct. If the tax cuts expire, what most have no clue of is the fact that the top 1% will have their taxes go up by 4% the middle will go up approximately 3% the bottom 50% (all of the rest) will see their taxes go up 100%. Let them expire. Everyone should pay something. While they are at it repeal the earned income tax credit known now as the Welfare tax refund and the U.S. will save billions of dollars. I'm not saying people with an income that is lower than the poverty line should pay Federal Income taxes, but from that line up everyone should pay something even if it is only a couple of hundred dollars. This would end the debt and the country would bounce right back.

Rick-312779, maybe you need to start actually reading or watching the news. I mean real news not that crap that Fox calls news.

President Obama didn't want to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy. The REPUBLICANS HELD HOSTAGE things like unemployment to make sure the wealthy kept their tax cut. So Obama had a choice... He could put millions of out of work people on the streets by vetoing the tax cuts for the wealthy that had unemployment held hostage or he could let the wealthy keep them and keep americans from being tossed on the street by extending unemployment benefits.

Obama did what was good for the MAJORITY of Americans. The Republicans could only think about doing something for the MINORITY of wealthy people at the expense of everyone else.

President Obama was the ADULT in the room. Sadly there don't seem to be any adults on the republican side. Just children who scream, whine and call the President names when they don't get their way,

SANDY, Missouri You go girl, that's exactly how it went. Obama is willing to compromise and be fair, but republicans are not, they pout like children, wanting all for themselves, soon no one will want to play with them, you'll see.

JM-1992894.....Finally, a worthwhile comment. Thank you. It occurs to me that the majority of US are falling for the same old divide and conquer techniques used so many times in history. It is not me, it is not you, it is US. As long as we continue to fight each other and hate on each other the way we do, we are doing exactly what our illustrious leaders want us to do. Name calling and bickering might make some feel better about themselves but is only causes the problem to grow larger. As long as we argue among ourselves, we can never solve the problems that we face. Maybe if we as Americans could actually stop burning our energy fighting each other and find some common ground, we might be able to accomplish something. As long as we hate on each other because we are different, we will continue to go backwards and watch this once great country as it circles the bowl. Of course, we can always take comfort in the fact that it was someone else's fault. Thank you for sharing. There are some out here who actually agree with you.

Sandy, if Obama really wanted taxes raised, he would have done it while he had the super majority.

Obama only does what's good for HIM and HIS CRONIES (Unions, Solyndra, etc).

Rick-312779

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

Republicans held unemployment benefits hostage. Also Obama was for letting tax cuts expire for people making over 250,000 a year. But republicans wanted to raise taxes for everybody.

Can you tell me why he did not?

I hope you stop asking every freaking post man. there i hope that clears your doubts.

Rational Brent, President Obama NEVER had a super majority. President Obama never had a 60+ majority in the Senate to prevent a filibuster. Every time the Democrats have tried to do something good for the country the Republicans in the senate have filibustered it to extinction.

It might help if you actually knew what was going on in congress these last 3 years.

Rational Brent

Sandy, if Obama really wanted taxes raised, he would have done it while he had the super majority.

Obama only does what's good for HIM and HIS CRONIES (Unions, Solyndra, etc).

List the 60 Senators Obama had?????

When is GOP going to admit that 2 wars under BUSH create U.S deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that borrow China $700 billion dollars a year to pay for super rich tax cut like Mitt Romney do not create job, but federal deficit?

How long can GOP pretend that they care about federal deficit?

Check wiki, Brent. Obama had, at most, 59 Democratic senators, but you have to subtract the Blue Dog Democrats and, at times, the Independents. Obama never had a supermajority, and if he did he wouldn't have had enough time to get anything done. And raise taxes and cut spending during a RECESSION???? Apparently you've never taken an econ class. Thank God the recession is OVER, our economy is growing (even tepidly), and jobs are being created, no thanks to the obstructionist GOP.

OBAMA BIDEN 2012

DEMOCRATS 2012

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

He didn't because he needed congress to ratify the START treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks). Point the finger directly at Senator Kyl for holding the nuclear security of this country hostage in order to give his masters 3% more off their already phony marginal tax rate.

Again Rick read some news for once like I said above and you will know why.

alex cali

Rick-312779

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

Republicans held unemployment benefits hostage. Also Obama was for letting tax cuts expire for people making over 250,000 a year. But republicans wanted to raise taxes for everybody.

Can you tell me why he did not?

I hope you stop asking every freaking post man. there i hope that clears your doubts.

JM-1992894

Here is what Obama had to say about the extension:

Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.
From Money Talks (share this quote)

And here is a video of the entire speech:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010/12/06/president-obama-tax-cuts-and-unemployment-extension

I will stop asking every freakin post when you stop posting the same old lies.

Thats right for the typical American family... Not the rich.

The rich are not the typical American family. He proposed only raising taxes for the rich but Republicans said NO!!!!!!! Its even in the same speech that you just posted. Look it up.

Rick, did you hear what Grover Norquiet said yesterday?????

He said that if Obama lets the Tax cuts expire he will try to impeach Obama in 2014????

JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA!!! FOR LETTING THE TAX CUTS EXPIRE HES GOING TO IMPEACH OBAMA.

Plus check out how he said 2014???? is he sure Obama is going to win in NOVEMBER???

I don't give a rat's arse about what Grover Norquist said. All I care about is the misinformation you liberals are spreading. I also want the present government to stop pointing fingers and actually do something. Remember please that Bill Clinton worked with a republican congress to balance the budget,.

Misinformation????

Obama took the 400 billion deficit Bush left and turned it into a 1.3 trillion deficit. Thats is one the biggest lies you see on here. and do you call them out for that?

Clinton worked with a republican congress in exchange for the repeal of glass-stegall act.

What do do you want Obama to give in exchange for a better economy? medicare? SS? 1% tax rate for the rich?

When is GOP going to admit that 2 wars under BUSH create U.S deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that borrow China $700 billion dollars a year to pay for super rich tax cut like Mitt Romney do not create job, but federal deficit?

How long can GOP pretend that they care about federal deficit?

alex cali

In return for passing Gramm-Leach-Bliley Clinton insisted that a beefed up version of the Community Reinvestment Act be amended to that bill. Do you even have the slightest idea what that meant to the sub prime lending market? Do you know what red lining is and what that meant to the sup prime lending market. Do you know how much Fannie Mae Freddie Mac had in Mortgage Based Securities and Credit Default Swaps. Do you even know what those are? Do you know who raised hell and played the race card when it was suggested those institutions be regulated? Do you know who Brooksley Born is and what she had to recommend to Bill Clinton. And what was his response.

I can back all that up with references yet for some strange reason you liberals don't want to hear it.

I was pretty sure you liberals did not have a clue when it came to the above.

Bela Ghostly, apparently you cannot recognize sarcasm when you read it, and still you resorted to vitriolic rhetoric. I doubt you'll know what that means either. And, the proper wording should be "you're" drinking .... you're is a contraction for you are. Finally, Kool Aid is how I believe the beverage is marketed. Class dismissed.

Ignore Bela. He/She spews this crap in every thread.

Ruken, I know he/she does. I just couldn't help myself.

If the CBO estimate for this year's deficit proves accurate, fiscal 2012 would be the fourth consecutive year of federal budget deficits topping $1 trillion.

As usual there Navyvet... YOU LOSE

OBAMA - BIDEN 2012

No president did that. That is what our warmongering nation got after 50 years of perpetual war with the occasional picnic in between. Presidents dont spend money, congress does. In fact, that is their job.

But you must remember, that was before he knew how bad it really was. Even if it is Congress that passes the budget.

Justagrunt

What budget? Congress has not passed a budget since the last one proposed by Bush! The Democrats claim they are responsible enough to work without a budget. Even the last budget passed under bush only projected a 400 billion dollar deficit, yet ballooned to over 1.3 trillion after Obama took office. The attitude of throwing money at a problem has to end if we are ever to see rational government spending again.

Jim

I think his point was that Obama castigated Bush for big deficits, then turned around and almost tripled the worst of the Bush deficits every year he's been in office! Yes this may be the fourth consecutive year, but remember that Bush's last budget year was also Obama's first. His immediate request for a 40% increase in discretionary spending and then the 787 billion for the first stimulus pushed that first year through the roof! He points a finger at Bush for raising the debt from 5 to ten trillion in 8 years yet in his first three, Obama has taken it from 10 to 15 trillion and is asking for another 1.2 trillion increase to cover spending until August.

Big John,

Though you are technically correct about passing the budget and spending, it is the President that proposes a budget as a basis for congress to use. Your remark about 50 years of warmongering is a bit out of line. Over the last 75 years, we have only initiated 2 conflicts unilaterally, Vietnam and Iraq. The rest really have not been our choosing but in response to an attack against us or against an ally that has asked us for help.

navyvet, would you agree that when candidate Obama said that, the bottom hadn't fallen off of the global economy?

I think that we ALL need to take our blinders off and realize that unless we stop this childish back and forth about who EFFed up the economy, nothing will get done.

From your screen name I surmise you served in the Navy (thanks for your service), so tell me, how long would a ship stay afloat if half of the crew kept poking holes in the hull in order to F up the captain? And when the boat sank, how many survivors would there be if the crew had also burned all of the life preservers? We either work together or we'll all go down together.

Obama has raised the deficit by 4.7 Trillion dollars in just three years. Just imagine how wonderful our debt will be if he in office for 5 more years. We will be known as Amerika.

Jim your bassakwards. At the end of 2012 will will have been stuck with Obama for those 4 years. Each year another trillion ADDED TO THE DEBT.

Anyone but Obama in November 2012

archangel 3:16 and Dumbacrapsrstupid you need to actually know the history of the last 10 years.  Bush DID NOT have annual deficits for 400 billion.  It was CLOSER TO 1 Trillion.  President Bush used accounting tricks and lies to hide the cost of both of his wars.  Neither of his wars were included in the deficit.  They were kept off the books to make things look better.  Our deficit only SEEMED to expand fast under President Obama because HE STOPPED THE BUSH LIE about the deficit.  President Obama was honest with the American people and added the cost of both of Bushes Wars to the deficit.  THAT deficit was always there but Bush hid it.

You can lie all you want about this but if you actually look it up you will see I am right.

People from Missouri are never right

archangel 3:16

Justagrunt

What budget? Congress has not passed a budget since the last one proposed by Bush! The Democrats claim they are responsible enough to work without a budget. Even the last budget passed under bush only projected a 400 billion dollar deficit, yet ballooned to over 1.3 trillion after Obama took office. The attitude of throwing money at a problem has to end if we are ever to see rational government spending again.

Jim

I think his point was that Obama castigated Bush for big deficits, then turned around and almost tripled the worst of the Bush deficits every year he's been in office! Yes this may be the fourth consecutive year, but remember that Bush's last budget year was also Obama's first. His immediate request for a 40% increase in discretionary spending and then the 787 billion for the first stimulus pushed that first year through the roof! He points a finger at Bush for raising the debt from 5 to ten trillion in 8 years yet in his first three, Obama has taken it from 10 to 15 trillion and is asking for another 1.2 trillion increase to cover spending until August.

Big John,

Though you are technically correct about passing the budget and spending, it is the President that proposes a budget as a basis for congress to use. Your remark about 50 years of warmongering is a bit out of line. Over the last 75 years, we have only initiated 2 conflicts unilaterally, Vietnam and Iraq. The rest really have not been our choosing but in response to an attack against us or against an ally that has asked us for help.

Try again, Congress passed a budget in December. The last Bush budget was NOT projected to be a $400 billion deficit, it was projected to be $1.2 trillion in January, before Obama was sworn in to office.
The debt under Bush went from $5 trillion to almost $12 trillion, remember FY 09's budget is Bush's last.

Obama was left with little choice because of the previous president and the mess he left us in, it was not just a little mess, it was one that would have left us in ruins. It was either that or complete melt down. what would you have wanted. And Steve what are you scared of, look it up what Sandy said.

navyvet98

I remember when Candidate Obama castigated then President Bush for a 400 billion deficit. He when on an on about lack of responsibility, leadership, etc. I wonder what Candidate Obama would say about eh current Occupier in the White House who has given us 4 years of one trillion plus deficits. Sad to think that the current elevation of the debt limit to 16.2 trillion, will be exhausted by August.

BUSH LIED TO YOU!!! HE KEPT THE MONEY HIDDEN BY PASSING SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS.

Speaking at a retreat for House Republicans in Baltimore on Jan. 29, 2010, Obama was particularly critical of a question from Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Hensarling asked Obama, "You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy?"

"The fact of the matter is," Obama replied, "is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion -- $1.3 trillion. So when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true. And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade."

Dumbacrapsrstupid

Obama has raised the deficit by 4.7 Trillion dollars in just three years. Just imagine how wonderful our debt will be if he in office for 5 more years. We will be known as Amerika.

Jim your bassakwards. At the end of 2012 will will have been stuck with Obama for those 4 years. Each year another trillion ADDED TO THE DEBT.

Anyone but Obama in November 2012

Bush was responsible for all that debt.

The National Debt as of 09/28/2001 = $5,807,463,412,200.06 ... as of his last budget year 09/30/2009 = $11,909,829,003,511.75 ... thats a little better than doubling it, or increasing by $6.1 Trillion

He left a 1.3 trillion deficit. He kept the money hidden with supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

supplemental appropriations

LO0K IT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The problem is that the supplemental appropriations process has been extended beyond unforeseen emergencies to entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) non-emergencies. Over the past several years, the most obvious example has been funding for the Iraq War, most of which has been funded, directly or indirectly, “off budget,” as the process is sometimes referred to. It has also been accomplished without offsets.

Why has this been the case? The major reason is that it obscures the amount of federal spending generally and for specific purposes, if it is the desire of any administration to do so. Supplemental appropriations spending does not appear in the annual accounting of federal spending versus revenue collections, meaning it is not calculated into the federal deficit for any given year. The money is spent just like regular budgetary allocations, but when the books are closed, it does not appear as an inflationary impact on federal deficits. This alone made it a particularly attractive device for a Bush administration that was running up record deficits without the impact of supplementals. It also made the cost of the Iraq War and defense spending generally appear much more modest than it in fact was. Moreover, the Bush administration generally provided no offsetting reductions to moderate the impact. Finally, supplementals generally receive nowhere near the public scrutiny of the regular budget, making them an attractive device for in effect hiding potentially controversial expenditures of public funds. Iraq certainly qualifies in that regard.

It does not have to be included Bush made sure of that.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been funded through emergency spending requests since they began.

navyvet98,

You think you know something?? you don't know anything. Republicans know they will always have the vote of idi#$ like you. Look at what you're writing its very simple to go online and see that what you are writing its not true.

The same people who voted for the Bush tax cuts, Medicare part D, war spending, TARP, are the same people who held the country hostage with the debt limit drama. Boner, Cantor, McConnell, Ryan are the same people who passed all that spending in Bush's terms but when it came time to pay for them in 2011 they just said NO!!!!!!!!!

But if it is Congress that passes the budget, which it is, then is it not true that Obama did not "inherit" a damm thing. He knew full well what the budget was, he had to vote on it, or was this one of the times he voted present?

When is GOP going to admit that 2 wars under BUSH create U.S deficit?

When is GOP going to admit that borrow China $700 billion dollars a year to pay for super rich tax cut like Mitt Romney do not create job, but federal deficit?

How long can GOP pretend that they care about federal deficit?

CALLING ALL AMERICANS CONCERNED ABOUT THE DEBT!!!!!!!!

Look people, I am as @!$%#ing scared about the debt as a worker is about being fired. I am TERRIFIED of my generation's future and my nation's future. I want to return to the policies of the New Deal. Fair and simple. I do think entitlement spending is out of control. So is defense spending. So is all the money the government could have in the Treasury that is instead labeled as a @!$%#ing "tax cut." I call upon all Americans who want to cut the deficit to call the President and Congress and ask them to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. I am serious. Dead serious. Those cuts are costing our government (and in a sense, our people) $3.5 TRILLION every decade. I am with spending cuts, as long as they are targeted mostly on entitlement reform and defense cuts, plus a little waste-elimination in discretionary spending. But we NEED tax revenues in order to help reduce the deficit. We made a HUGE mistake electing Bush, and another big one electing the GOP in 2010. We may have just one chance at getting a balanced deal if the GOP wins 2012, and if they do I am scared for my nation. I don't want my father's taxes to be lower. I don't want to have my class size double just because our politicians can't gather the balls to tell us that we need to raise taxes. I don't want to have to rely on private insurance when I retire (unless my plans of getting into business succeed...). I want a nation that is stronger and has less income and economic inequality. I like Obama. He helped our economy recover. While he and I differ on a few issues, I support him fully. But I want him to do one thing for me: eliminate the Bush tax cuts and institute the Buffet Rule. That will decrease our deficit by perhaps $4.3 trillion over ten years: combine that with perhaps $2-2.5 trillion in spending cuts.
PLEASE. DO SOMETHING. IF NOT FOR OUR NATION AND FOR OUR NEIGHBORS, but for the next generation. Your children and grandchildren, who will have to suffer under this huge debt. Vote Democratic; campaign for deficit reduction and progressive economic policies. DO SOMETHING. I ask of you, not as a Democrat, not as a liberal, but as a young American concerned about the future of his nation.

No they won't. Cutting spending AND raising revenue is the common sense approach.

Did you notice that the right wing's candidates policies involve far more spending?

B.S., how do you get $16 trillion in debt by not spending too much?

It is like when the housing bubble was here and all the local governments gave themselves huge raises and now are bitching because mature people are making the cuts.

Mature people that doubled the Defense budget in 8 years? Mature people that caused oil prices to triple in 8 years? Mature people that let Bin Laden escape at Tora Bora cause they had "different priorities?" Mature people that shoved through an unfunded Trillion dollar pill giveaway?

Yeah, that's real mature all right.

ltcommander72

When George H. Bush gave in after saying no new taxes, what did congress do? They spent more money and the increased revenues were largely lost from the tax increases. If the revenues were to rise the mindset would be something like this; "Now that we have a little breathing room, we can fund these new projects that will surely get us re-elected!" I am not opposed to letting the cuts expire, but before they do, every penny that can be cut should be so that the extra revenue will mean something for reducing the debt. Balance the budget first then ask for more money.

archangel, who kept Bush from making spending cuts?

In the wake of a struggle with Congress, Bush was forced by the Democratic majority to raise tax revenues; as a result, many Republicans felt betrayed because Bush had promised "no new taxes" in his 1988 campaign.Perceiving a means of revenge, Republican congressmen defeated Bush's proposal which would enact spending cuts and tax increases that would reduce the deficit by $500 billion over five yea

Big John

That is a rational approach and could probably work except for one thing, the greediest of the lot are politicians. Good post just the same.

They pay millions of dollars a year in taxes, what do you pay?

They pay 15%. Americans that work for wages pay up to 35%.

Those that pay 15% have a lot left over to open foreign bank accounts with. Do you have one?

I'll take 15% of theirs over 35% of yours. ;)

ltcommander72

The 15% they pay isn't even income tax in most cases, it is capitol gains which is separate from income tax rates. So letting the cuts expire won't effect them much.

Capital gains is most certainly income and is reported on your yearly IRS filing.

They pay millions of dollars a year in taxes, what do you pay?

The problem is when they pay millions on the billions they make. Surely you can understand that it's not about the amount they pay, it's about the effective percentage they pay. I think it is obscene when someone who made 20 million last year paid 13% in taxes.

I've asked this before and I have never gotten a satisfactory answer. What's in it for the average newsvine poster that shills for the super-rich?

By definition, if the crowd here is representative of the population at large (which I doubt, millionaires are too busy laughing all the way to the bank to be posting here), that would be about 1% of us. For the rest of us, if the mentality is that we are going break into that 1%, let me just quote the e-trade kid: "the chances of that happening are the same as being mauled by a polar bear and a regular bear on the same day".

Actually, the taxes you pay represent the amount of money you gained thanks to the improvements/conditions made available to you by the state. Thus it is fair that the rich folks pay more income tax, just like it is fair that big trucks pay more in highway taxes because they damage the roads much more than a compact car.

He's reducing the deficit in spite of the right wing dishonorable rhetoric,,,, It's a good start

National debt is paid over generations my friend. I know that's hard for you to fathom but it wasn't created in a year and it won't be paid in a year.

The question is: WHO DO WE OWE IT TO? And the whole world is also in debt to THEM!

Max^108

We owe it to every bond holder that purchases US treasury notes in the world! China just happens to hold a significant chunk. What you fail to realize is that all this debt is financed by more debt and it is only confidence in our political system and economy that keeps the whole house of cards from crashing down. There isn't enough assets, or physical currency in the universe to actually account for every debt owed. It is the commodities and futures markets writ large! How often does anyone come out on top in those markets?

Still, people holding the IOU's definitely have the advantage over those writing them. The Fed printing money or creating money in an electronic fashion is just one of the big circle of crooks.

Civil service was considered a "settle for" occupation until the GOP wrecked the economy. Now it's looking pretty good when you are on the bottom looking up and can't pass the civil service test.

Oh well. Back to building backyard decks for tax free cash and fly the flag!

I guess we are the next Greece.

Internet, microwave, roads, bridges, monuments, dams and national defense......all created by the gov't.

Why does the right have such a problem with EVERYONE ELSE in the country. They don't like gov't employees seriously? Let's start another list....fire fighters, cops, drivers license agents, tax collectors, military.

We may benefit from them but we don't want to pay for them.

Look at our manufacturing base. Greece makes olive oil and postcards. No similarity whatsoever.

The CBO report shows that the deficit dilemma would largely be solved if the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 -- and renewed in 2010 through the end of this year -- were allowed to lapse. Under that scenario, the deficit would drop to $585 billion in 2013 and to $220 billion in 2017.

ltcommander72: "Look at our manufacturing base. Greece makes olive oil and postcards. No similarity whatsoever."

Agreed, but Greece's debt is also less then $500 bln. and they don't spend their way to unwanted and mindless wars and throw away money for Israel.

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

Skyhigh

Though I agree somewhat with what you say, I do question your figures.

Josh11024072

No Greece doesn't spend their way to unwanted and mindless wars, or throw away money to Israel. Instead they have huge social programs, a national retirement age lower than ours and not the revenue nor the population to sustain them. Greece's debt may not be as large, but it is in excess of their GDP ours isn't yet.

Re-elect obama 2012

The CBO report is also based on "guestemits" and projections using highly subjective numbers. The CBO also reported that the Health Care Reform Act would cost less than one trillion over ten years, based on numbers they were spoon fed by the administration, but once they had the real numbers to work with they quickly reversed themselves showing that the real cost would be well over a trillion in ten years.

archangel, Greece's debt can be attributed to one thing, corruption. Corruption runs rampant in the Balkans. Over half of the population of Greece cheat on their taxes, or don't pay any at all. It is their "early retirement age" that is lower, normal retirement age is 65. The CBO was not "spoon fed" anything by the administration. the CBO works for Congress (the reason it's called the Congressional Budget Office), and it pulls its numbers out of the bill.

Rick-312779

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

Ye of little memory. Obama wanted to extend the tax cuts for all but the top tax bracket. However, the republiCONS in the Senate threatened to filibuster everything, including extending unemployment insurance, unless he agree to extend the tax cuts for everyone.

I wonder why the republicans did not filibuster HCR?

Have your congressman write one up.

Yeah you do....if re-election is all you are worried about.

The cuts were proposed in 2001 before 9/11 to help a sagging economy left to the Bush white house by the Clinton administration. They were originally passed as phased cuts to take effect over a 5 year period. When the economy didn't respond the way that it was anticipated, Bush pushed to make the cuts all at once and not phase them in. In return, congress made him accept a sunset clause ending the cuts after ten years. So your assertions are wrong! The cuts were not done during two wars, they were passed before them, though they were sped up in 2003, but as a balance the sunset clause was added.

And that is exactly what Bush and the Republicans were worried about when he was in office and passed the tax cuts.

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire last year all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

That was the stupidest act in the history of the United States. At the very least Bush should have been responsible and ask Congress to repeal the Bush tax cuts in order to pay off the war in Iraq after war was declared. If he at least asked for that, maybe he would have been spared criticism. But no, he did not. And we have to deal with that. I say let the Bush tax cuts expire: raise taxes to sustainable levels; cut from the bloated defense budget and find savings in entitlements and in discretionary spending.

BearDown-3307297

Explain what you mean by a "surplus". It looks as though Clinton had some SSI taxes he could use to pay a little on the national debt but nothing close to the 5 trillion that was needed.

Who in the hell is it that won't let the Bush tax cuts expire? They were set to expire December 2010, all Obama had to do was let them do just that? Can you tell me why he did not?

Clinton had a Republican Congress.

BearDown

The "Surplus" left to Bush was more fallacy than fact. In order to get the "Surplus", the Clinton administration raided the cash reserves of Social Security and gave it an IOU. The cash was then used to pay down the Deficit for that year, some surplus! Other things to take into account was a slowly rising unemployment rate which means less tax revenue which means a higher deficit. Unemployment was around 5% and climbing when Bush took office and peaked at about 6.5% in 2003 before falling to a low of 4.7% in 2007 prior to the housing bubble bursting and the credit crisis.

Rick, I answered your question in a previous post but since you insist on asking the same question, I'll give you the same answer - again.

John Kyl single-handedly held hostage the nuclear security of this country until his buddies continued to get a 3% break in the top marginal tax rate. He refused to bring up a vote on START until the tax cuts were extended. That is why the cuts did not expire.

Do you have proof.

BTW, here is what Obama had to say about the extension:

Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.
From Money Talks (share this quote)

And here is a video of the entire speech:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010/12/06/president-obama-tax-cuts-and-unemployment-extension

Yes Rick, i have proof. From Kyl's pie hole:

“If the taxes all can’t be resolved and voted on and completed and spending for the government for the next ten months completed by like next Monday, I don’t know how there’s enough time to complete START,” Kyl told The Hill.

Rick,

NORQUIST Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.

jajajajajajajajaja!!!!!!

This is the idiot that Republicans have made a pledge to.

Imagine what happened in 2010??? he must have gotten all republicans in congress and told them that if Obama raised taxes they will take down the whole country.

Remember that they held the unemployment benefits hostage, threatening to raise taxes on the "typical American family"

Rick, Obama is getting reelected go back to your fox news.

Theres no way us the American people will have a president who avoids paying taxes by putting hes money in offshore bank accounts. And Newt? well? you get the picture.

From Reid's Pie hole:

Keep an eye on that Jm 1992984 because he will stretch the truth considerably.

JM 1992984

Like you said the quote is:

"If the taxes all can't be resolved and voted on and completed and spending for the government for the next ten months completed by like next Monday, I don't know how there's enough time to complete START,"

That is just another example of liberal spin. Kyl was saying that that particular bill had to be dealt with by Monday or congress could run out of time. Do you have trouble with reading comprehension much? Every last time I have even considered changing my mind one of you come up with a complete misrepresentation of the facts.

Cuz the goal of politics is to send tax dollars back to the people who voted for your party without doing the same for people who voted for the other party-- thus making it a rational decision for those to vote for your party instead of continuing to vote for the other party that cant deliver the goods. ALL political systems are about delivering just enough goods to just enough of the right people to stay in power. ALL systems, including dictators. Just so happens our parties are pretty much divided by class therefore "class warfare" is a convenient proxy.

Ryan

You should ask our President that question. He is the one who prevented the Bush tax cuts from expiring in 2010 like they were suppose to. You all need to check out the Byrd Rule.

We shouldn't. Time for everyone to pay again, not just the upper half supporting the lower half.

peanut - nope

Ron Paul needs to study far more than one economics book, then spend 10 years observing how what he learned applies in real world economics ---- He still has no clue

Same goes for the rest of you... You still don't know the difference between deficit & debt

OBAMA - BIDEN 2012 ------ They know the difference & have led this country from "Bust to Recovery"

Deficits add to debt. Pretty simple I think

And a simple Example of how Ron Paul is 100% correct. I'll put it in terms of a stock spit.

Take a dollar bill and rip it in half, instead of having two shares worth 50 cents, 50 cents goes to special interest, banks, cronies, or to pay for wars.

Rip your half dollar in half again.

And Again.

Now you have 12.5 cents. That is why a green pepper in 1980 cost 12.5 cents and is a dollar now, and it has nothing to do with how much we pay the sun to shine. Every dollar that is printed is backed by the full faith of the US government, which as it turns out is us. Which means it is backed up by taxes. If the debt were gone, taxes would be able to go down.

Jim-372206

I have seen way more liberal democrats confuse deficit with debt and their biggest argument is to use it to fool people into thinking the treasury had a positive balance when Clinton left office

And I think Paul Krugman needs to read a lot more than Isaac Asimov's Foundation series before he starts calling himself an economist.

Indeed, the budget surplus in 2000 simply meant the debt was no longer growing, and was in fact beginning to shrink ever so slightly. The biggest jokers in that election year were the ones screaming that we had to, HAD to reduce taxes because the surplus meant we were overtaxing. Do you suppose now they are saying that the deficit means we are UNDERtaxing? Not likely, because that doesn't fit their ideology.

What do you expect.  The Republican party has proven time and time again they are the NO TAX AND SPEND LIKE CRAZY party.

Lets not forget to kick out all the illegal aliens. Last time I checked it is illegal to be in this country illegally.

Um, Obama has kicked out far more illegals in less than 3 years than President Bush did in his entire 8 years in office. Plus he has strengthened border security far beyond what President Bush was willing to do so get your facts straight.

Obama has been friends with ILLEGALS, he has tried to stop each and every law that was passed in this country because he would NOT do any thing. Illegals are Obama's buddies that is why he is trying to stop laws that require voter ID, he wants their votes. All Obama has done for this country is to give away Americans tax dollars to failed Solyndra, failed Ener1, failed banks, he gave money to bail out GM- Government Motors that still owes Americans billions, he bailed out Chrysler and Italian car company owned by FIAT, he earned AMERICA it's first down grade in history shame on this man, he vacations on Tax Payers dollars to the tune of 8-10 million a vacation while the country is hurting economically, he lets the EPA control him, he voted Keystone down, he has given us higher gas prices, food prices, higher taxes, he is good at beer summits. I am very proud to say that Missouri did not go to Obama in 2008 and it will NOT go to him in 2012 either.! And in November AMERICANS will vote this man out of office in a very FAST & FURIOUSLY way.

You are aware that Ronald Reagan halted the enforcement of thousands of laws while he was wrecking this country. Right? Reagan halted the enforcement of our immigration laws because his BIG BUSINESS buddies needed a cheaper work force than students and part-time housewives.

The economy has been on a steady downward spiral since that idiot defiled the White House.

Historians place the peak of US society and culture at mid-1981. Guess who wrecked it? Not just an economy but a civilization. And the buffoonery he left behind has done everything they can to make it worse every chance they get.

It is all about class warfare and the right-wing propaganda machine poisoning mindless minions who then come to blogs like this and post that same drivel they heard from 30-percent-truth News Corp.

How do you expect to get anything fixed if you haven't a clue as to what is broken or who broke it.

There have been reports recently that right-wingers are of a lower IQ level. We have more evidence right here.

Ron Paul has already said he wants to wreck the economy. So, how does that get us all fed?

Oh goody, a national police force. Brilliant.

Burn the flag much?

Not police force. Your SEC, IRS, and all those type of enforcement agency could become under one. Do you know how many useless agencies we have?

We have one useless part of Gov. Its called the republican party. Hahahahahahaha.