AI
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 1:16:10 AM
How the Deficit Got This Big
Sources: Congressional Budget Office; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Sources: Congressional Budget Office; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Editorial | Deconstruction
By TERESA TRITCH
Published: July 23, 2011
With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.
Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-
defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.
The first graph shows the difference between budget projections and budget reality. In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies. But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit. In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession. Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.
The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much.
A few lessons can be drawn from the numbers. First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect. If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels. Second, a healthy budget requires a healthy economy; recessions wreak havoc by reducing tax revenue. Government has to spur demand and create jobs in a deep downturn, even though doing so worsens the deficit in the short run. Third, spending cuts alone will not close the gap. The chronic revenue shortfalls from serial tax cuts are simply too deep to fill with spending cuts alone. Taxes have to go up.
In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now. Effective health care reform, and a willingness to pay more taxes, will be the biggest factors in controlling those deficits.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html
===
Charts: Seriously, it's the Bush tax cuts
By Laura Conaway - Tue Jul 26, 2011 10:08 AM EDT
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Roll Call reporter John Stanton [ http://twitter.com/#!/bigjohnrc ] is tweeting that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is whipping votes this morning for House Speaker John Boehner's no-taxes plan [ http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/07/26/us/politics/26fiscal-graphic.html ] for a debt ceiling deal. President Obama made his case to the American people last night [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43888713/ns/politics-capitol_hill/ ], explaining why we're so much in the red:
In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation's credit card.
As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office. To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more - on tax cuts for middle-class families; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.
At the heart of all that is the set of Bush tax cuts, including tax cuts for the wealthy [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-gop-an-ironclad-anti-tax-orthodoxy/2011/06/02/AG90SgJH_story.html ], that were billed as temporary but have proved politically difficult to get rid of. Below, the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html (above)] chart James Fallows [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484/ ] says should be included in every discussion of the debt ceiling.
From the New York Times [above]
Bonus chart [ http://www.offthechartsblog.org/bad-economics-and-distortions-of-1990-budget-agreement-hold-deficit-reduction-hostage/ ]: Despite Republicans' insistence that "job creators [ http://www.johnboehner.com/news/plan-americas-job-creators ]" pay no more in taxes, higher taxes and economic growth are kinda friendly.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
© 2011 msnbc.com
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/26/7170139-charts-seriously-its-the-bush-tax-cuts [with comments]
===
John Boehner’s “blank check” lie
By Adam Serwer
Posted at 10:46 AM ET, 07/26/2011
There’s one line from House Speaker John Boehner’s speech [ http://www.nationaljournal.com/the-full-text-of-speaker-boehner-s-national-address-20110725 ] last night that deserves real attention, both because it’s completely false and because it’s becoming a recurring Republican talking point on the debt ceiling:
The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won’t be there for them and their kids unless significant action is taken now.
The sad truth is that the president wanted a blank check six months ago, and he wants a blank check today. That is just not going to happen.
First — much to the chagrin of liberals — the president has already said he’s willing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/15/obama-debt-ceiling-press-conference_n_899632.html ] to make cuts to entitlement programs. That is not the sticking point — rather, it’s that the GOP is adamant that the burden of the deficit must be borne exclusively by people who rely on those programs and not include any increases [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58942.html ] in revenue for the wealthy.
But the far more dishonest statement is Boehner’s line that the debt ceiling amounts to a “blank check.” This is a straight-up lie. Not the everyday, casual fudging that politicians do, but a straight up lie. As the Government Accountability Office explains [ http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-203 ]: “The debt limit does not control or limit the ability of the federal government to run deficits or incur obligations. Rather, it is a limit on the ability to pay obligations already incurred.”
This isn’t a perfect metaphor, but not raising the debt ceiling is more like refusing to pay your credit card bill than it is akin to asking for a blank check. Congress appropriates funds; if they don’t want Obama to spend more, it’s within Congress’s power to withhold that money. That’s you know, in the Constitution. I believe the GOP insisted on it being read at the beginning of the 112th Congress, but they don’t seem to have been paying attention.
To the extent that this crisis, and the risk of default, exists, it’s because Republicans insisted on turning a procedural vote into a hostage standoff, after helping George W. Bush rack up a deficit [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html (first above)] of more than 5 trillion dollars. It’s not because Obama is unwilling to cut entitlements. And it’s certainly not because Obama wants a “blank check” and Boehner is denying him one.
© 2011 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/john-boehners-blank-check-lie/2011/03/04/gIQARa8jaI_blog.html [with comments]
===
Obama fights full-tilt Tea Party crazy
C-SPAN screen shot
Faced with John Boehner's lies about the debt-ceiling process, the president stakes his presidency on compromise
By Joan Walsh
Tuesday, Jul 26, 2011 00:01 ET
I intended to write about President Obama's prime-time address on the debt ceiling, but House Speaker John Boehner's performance turned out to be the big news. Last seen Friday evening [ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2011/07/22/obama_liberal_support_slips/index.html ] complaining that the president added new last-minute conditions in their debt-ceiling negotiations, Boehner now seems to have no memory of those negotiations, which by both parties' account left them about $400 billion apart. That's not chump change, but against the backdrop of an attempted $4 trillion deal, it didn't have to be a deal-breaker either.
But if you listened to Boehner Monday night, you'd think he and Obama never discussed a deal. In fact you'd believe the president never wanted any kind of deficit-reduction deal at all. In an impressive display of mendacity, Boehner told the American people the president wants "a blank check" to keep on spending, and the House GOP is serving "the American people" by resisting. Instead of talking about how he and Obama might close the gap they faced only three days ago, Boehner went full-tilt Tea Party crazy and presented his own plan, which requires not only brutal spending cuts but a balanced budget amendment – as well as another congressional vote to hike the debt ceiling again at the height of the 2012 election season.
Can there be any doubt that the Republicans' only interest here is making Obama fail? Let's review all the ways they moved the goal posts since the 2010 elections gave them new power. In December Boehner told the New Yorker [ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2011/07/05/economic_hostage_takers/index.html ] that raising the debt ceiling would be the new House majority’s "first really big adult moment," adding "We’ll have to find a way to help educate members and help people understand the serious problem that would exist if we didn’t do it." For his part Obama said he expected a clean up or down vote, just like President Reagan got 18 times and George W. Bush got another seven times. But after Boehner negotiated his program-cuts-for-continuing-government deal, in April he began to make threats. "The president says I want you to send me a clean bill. Well guess what, Mr. President: Not a chance you’re going to get a clean bill," he told a GOP fundraiser. "There will not be an increase in the debt limit without something really, really big attached to it."
Obama decided to negotiate, but he demanded a dollar of tax or revenue hikes for every dollar of spending cuts. Republicans not only rejected revenue hikes, they demanded a dollar of spending cuts for every dollar the debt ceiling was raised. Obama began seeking a "grand bargain," in which he'd discuss Social Security and Medicare cuts (even though Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit) in exchange for at least revenue hikes. The earliest leaks about such a deal, believe them or not, all contained spending cuts three to five times bigger than revenue hikes. Then what happened? Boehner walked away from negotiations to close those deals – which would have infuriated many progressives, by the way, including me. And a few weeks ago, as the president got ever more conciliating, Republicans got more stubborn, now demanding a balanced budget amendment in whatever deal is reached.
I honestly don't think anyone has come out and said how extraordinarily apocalyptic and insane it is to tie that controversial old GOP issue to the debt ceiling hike, given the disaster for the American economy if we default. The balanced budget amendment lost favor under the deficit-building Ronald Reagan, when many Republicans decided deficits weren't really an issue – unless a Democrat held the White House. Tonight Boehner was on prime time national television telling Americans that's what it will take to increase the debt ceiling. Now, Boehner knows a balanced budget amendment bill can't pass. Hell, he probably doesn't even want it. But this is the way the GOP ups the ante every time the president gets close to a deal.
And what did the president do? He tried to explain how we got into this mess, and he prepared us for a gut-wrenching, economy-wounding compromise. I liked a lot of Obama's speech tonight, but he made a couple of points that typify the way he ultimately negotiates against himself. He opened with that sad and useless comparison between the federal budget and household budgets. Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, among others, have explained why it's wrong until they're blue in the face – unlike each of our little families, the federal government correctly goes into deficit spending to spur recovery from recession – in fact, the government does it because our families can't or shouldn't. Obama still found the folksy comparison irresistible. "Every family knows a little credit card debt is manageable," the president said, while arguing that anything more than "a little" hurts the economy.
His rhetorical climax also left me a little cold. Talking about Americans' many frustrations with the status quo, Obama concluded: "But do you know what people are fed up with most of all? They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word." Does he really think that? Obama continued:
They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They are offended by that. And they should be.
You know, I'm sure that's true for some people who are "scraping by." But I think it's mainly true for the Beltway elites the president hears from way too much. That's the complaint of David Brooks and Tom Friedman, and the hedge-funders backing the frivolous "third party" time-waster, Americans Elect. It's not what the unemployed and the struggling and people afraid they'll lose Social Security or Medicare benefits are "fed up with most of all." Obama can't really think that, can he?
In this political environment, anything is possible. Prepare to hear that Harry Reid's deal to cut $2.7 trillion from the budget, with absolutely no revenue increases, is a victory for Democrats. It won't be. I hope I'm wrong, but the president is dealing with a conscience-free opposition willing to risk economic tragedy to defeat him. I'd love to see all of his maneuvering result in a clean up or down vote on a debt increase (which some of his most avid supporters insist is his goal). I don't see it from here. Again, I would be thrilled to be wrong.
Copyright ©2011 Salon Media Group, Inc.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/2011/07/25/obama_debt_ceiling_address/index.html [comments at http://letters.salon.com/opinion/walsh/2011/07/25/obama_debt_ceiling_address/view/?show=all ]
===
Debt talk damage has already been done
Political dysfunction erodes confidence of rating agencies, investors
7/26/2011
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43895856/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/ [with comments]
===
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Sources: Congressional Budget Office; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Sources: Congressional Budget Office; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Editorial | Deconstruction
By TERESA TRITCH
Published: July 23, 2011
With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.
Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-
defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.
The first graph shows the difference between budget projections and budget reality. In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies. But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit. In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession. Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.
The second graph shows that under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much.
A few lessons can be drawn from the numbers. First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect. If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels. Second, a healthy budget requires a healthy economy; recessions wreak havoc by reducing tax revenue. Government has to spur demand and create jobs in a deep downturn, even though doing so worsens the deficit in the short run. Third, spending cuts alone will not close the gap. The chronic revenue shortfalls from serial tax cuts are simply too deep to fill with spending cuts alone. Taxes have to go up.
In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now. Effective health care reform, and a willingness to pay more taxes, will be the biggest factors in controlling those deficits.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html
===
Charts: Seriously, it's the Bush tax cuts
By Laura Conaway - Tue Jul 26, 2011 10:08 AM EDT
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Roll Call reporter John Stanton [ http://twitter.com/#!/bigjohnrc ] is tweeting that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is whipping votes this morning for House Speaker John Boehner's no-taxes plan [ http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/07/26/us/politics/26fiscal-graphic.html ] for a debt ceiling deal. President Obama made his case to the American people last night [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43888713/ns/politics-capitol_hill/ ], explaining why we're so much in the red:
In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation's credit card.
As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office. To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more - on tax cuts for middle-class families; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.
At the heart of all that is the set of Bush tax cuts, including tax cuts for the wealthy [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/among-gop-an-ironclad-anti-tax-orthodoxy/2011/06/02/AG90SgJH_story.html ], that were billed as temporary but have proved politically difficult to get rid of. Below, the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html (above)] chart James Fallows [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484/ ] says should be included in every discussion of the debt ceiling.
From the New York Times [above]
Bonus chart [ http://www.offthechartsblog.org/bad-economics-and-distortions-of-1990-budget-agreement-hold-deficit-reduction-hostage/ ]: Despite Republicans' insistence that "job creators [ http://www.johnboehner.com/news/plan-americas-job-creators ]" pay no more in taxes, higher taxes and economic growth are kinda friendly.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
© 2011 msnbc.com
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/26/7170139-charts-seriously-its-the-bush-tax-cuts [with comments]
===
John Boehner’s “blank check” lie
By Adam Serwer
Posted at 10:46 AM ET, 07/26/2011
There’s one line from House Speaker John Boehner’s speech [ http://www.nationaljournal.com/the-full-text-of-speaker-boehner-s-national-address-20110725 ] last night that deserves real attention, both because it’s completely false and because it’s becoming a recurring Republican talking point on the debt ceiling:
The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won’t be there for them and their kids unless significant action is taken now.
The sad truth is that the president wanted a blank check six months ago, and he wants a blank check today. That is just not going to happen.
First — much to the chagrin of liberals — the president has already said he’s willing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/15/obama-debt-ceiling-press-conference_n_899632.html ] to make cuts to entitlement programs. That is not the sticking point — rather, it’s that the GOP is adamant that the burden of the deficit must be borne exclusively by people who rely on those programs and not include any increases [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58942.html ] in revenue for the wealthy.
But the far more dishonest statement is Boehner’s line that the debt ceiling amounts to a “blank check.” This is a straight-up lie. Not the everyday, casual fudging that politicians do, but a straight up lie. As the Government Accountability Office explains [ http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-203 ]: “The debt limit does not control or limit the ability of the federal government to run deficits or incur obligations. Rather, it is a limit on the ability to pay obligations already incurred.”
This isn’t a perfect metaphor, but not raising the debt ceiling is more like refusing to pay your credit card bill than it is akin to asking for a blank check. Congress appropriates funds; if they don’t want Obama to spend more, it’s within Congress’s power to withhold that money. That’s you know, in the Constitution. I believe the GOP insisted on it being read at the beginning of the 112th Congress, but they don’t seem to have been paying attention.
To the extent that this crisis, and the risk of default, exists, it’s because Republicans insisted on turning a procedural vote into a hostage standoff, after helping George W. Bush rack up a deficit [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html (first above)] of more than 5 trillion dollars. It’s not because Obama is unwilling to cut entitlements. And it’s certainly not because Obama wants a “blank check” and Boehner is denying him one.
© 2011 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/john-boehners-blank-check-lie/2011/03/04/gIQARa8jaI_blog.html [with comments]
===
Obama fights full-tilt Tea Party crazy
C-SPAN screen shot
Faced with John Boehner's lies about the debt-ceiling process, the president stakes his presidency on compromise
By Joan Walsh
Tuesday, Jul 26, 2011 00:01 ET
I intended to write about President Obama's prime-time address on the debt ceiling, but House Speaker John Boehner's performance turned out to be the big news. Last seen Friday evening [ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2011/07/22/obama_liberal_support_slips/index.html ] complaining that the president added new last-minute conditions in their debt-ceiling negotiations, Boehner now seems to have no memory of those negotiations, which by both parties' account left them about $400 billion apart. That's not chump change, but against the backdrop of an attempted $4 trillion deal, it didn't have to be a deal-breaker either.
But if you listened to Boehner Monday night, you'd think he and Obama never discussed a deal. In fact you'd believe the president never wanted any kind of deficit-reduction deal at all. In an impressive display of mendacity, Boehner told the American people the president wants "a blank check" to keep on spending, and the House GOP is serving "the American people" by resisting. Instead of talking about how he and Obama might close the gap they faced only three days ago, Boehner went full-tilt Tea Party crazy and presented his own plan, which requires not only brutal spending cuts but a balanced budget amendment – as well as another congressional vote to hike the debt ceiling again at the height of the 2012 election season.
Can there be any doubt that the Republicans' only interest here is making Obama fail? Let's review all the ways they moved the goal posts since the 2010 elections gave them new power. In December Boehner told the New Yorker [ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2011/07/05/economic_hostage_takers/index.html ] that raising the debt ceiling would be the new House majority’s "first really big adult moment," adding "We’ll have to find a way to help educate members and help people understand the serious problem that would exist if we didn’t do it." For his part Obama said he expected a clean up or down vote, just like President Reagan got 18 times and George W. Bush got another seven times. But after Boehner negotiated his program-cuts-for-continuing-government deal, in April he began to make threats. "The president says I want you to send me a clean bill. Well guess what, Mr. President: Not a chance you’re going to get a clean bill," he told a GOP fundraiser. "There will not be an increase in the debt limit without something really, really big attached to it."
Obama decided to negotiate, but he demanded a dollar of tax or revenue hikes for every dollar of spending cuts. Republicans not only rejected revenue hikes, they demanded a dollar of spending cuts for every dollar the debt ceiling was raised. Obama began seeking a "grand bargain," in which he'd discuss Social Security and Medicare cuts (even though Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit) in exchange for at least revenue hikes. The earliest leaks about such a deal, believe them or not, all contained spending cuts three to five times bigger than revenue hikes. Then what happened? Boehner walked away from negotiations to close those deals – which would have infuriated many progressives, by the way, including me. And a few weeks ago, as the president got ever more conciliating, Republicans got more stubborn, now demanding a balanced budget amendment in whatever deal is reached.
I honestly don't think anyone has come out and said how extraordinarily apocalyptic and insane it is to tie that controversial old GOP issue to the debt ceiling hike, given the disaster for the American economy if we default. The balanced budget amendment lost favor under the deficit-building Ronald Reagan, when many Republicans decided deficits weren't really an issue – unless a Democrat held the White House. Tonight Boehner was on prime time national television telling Americans that's what it will take to increase the debt ceiling. Now, Boehner knows a balanced budget amendment bill can't pass. Hell, he probably doesn't even want it. But this is the way the GOP ups the ante every time the president gets close to a deal.
And what did the president do? He tried to explain how we got into this mess, and he prepared us for a gut-wrenching, economy-wounding compromise. I liked a lot of Obama's speech tonight, but he made a couple of points that typify the way he ultimately negotiates against himself. He opened with that sad and useless comparison between the federal budget and household budgets. Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, among others, have explained why it's wrong until they're blue in the face – unlike each of our little families, the federal government correctly goes into deficit spending to spur recovery from recession – in fact, the government does it because our families can't or shouldn't. Obama still found the folksy comparison irresistible. "Every family knows a little credit card debt is manageable," the president said, while arguing that anything more than "a little" hurts the economy.
His rhetorical climax also left me a little cold. Talking about Americans' many frustrations with the status quo, Obama concluded: "But do you know what people are fed up with most of all? They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word." Does he really think that? Obama continued:
They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They are offended by that. And they should be.
You know, I'm sure that's true for some people who are "scraping by." But I think it's mainly true for the Beltway elites the president hears from way too much. That's the complaint of David Brooks and Tom Friedman, and the hedge-funders backing the frivolous "third party" time-waster, Americans Elect. It's not what the unemployed and the struggling and people afraid they'll lose Social Security or Medicare benefits are "fed up with most of all." Obama can't really think that, can he?
In this political environment, anything is possible. Prepare to hear that Harry Reid's deal to cut $2.7 trillion from the budget, with absolutely no revenue increases, is a victory for Democrats. It won't be. I hope I'm wrong, but the president is dealing with a conscience-free opposition willing to risk economic tragedy to defeat him. I'd love to see all of his maneuvering result in a clean up or down vote on a debt increase (which some of his most avid supporters insist is his goal). I don't see it from here. Again, I would be thrilled to be wrong.
Copyright ©2011 Salon Media Group, Inc.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/2011/07/25/obama_debt_ceiling_address/index.html [comments at http://letters.salon.com/opinion/walsh/2011/07/25/obama_debt_ceiling_address/view/?show=all ]
===
Debt talk damage has already been done
Political dysfunction erodes confidence of rating agencies, investors
7/26/2011
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43895856/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/ [with comments]
===
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65579213 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65572478 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65572171 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65559126 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65549704 and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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