The Trillion Dollar Man

[guido911]

The U.S. deficit hits the trillion dollar mark for the first time, and we still have several months left to go (I know, it's Bush's fault).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124750836648634011.html


Oh well, I guess another date night is in order:

[Conan71]

The U.S. deficit hits the trillion dollar mark for the first time, and we still have several months left to go (I know, it's Bush's fault).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124750836648634011.html


Oh well, I guess another date night is in order:

I didn't see TOTUS in the photo, does he get date night off?

[Chicken Little]

Sorry, Guido, wrong again...Bush was already there, he just hid it.

Bush used four accounting gimmicks to hide the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan, medicare reimbursements to physicians, the cost of disasters, and how AMT revenue was counted.  Obama banned those gimmicks.  Much of that "jump" can be attributed to transparency.

Bush had a CBO estimated $800 billion surplus.  Eight years later we have a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, that's a $2 trillion swing.  

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush's policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It's a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists' assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama's agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

[Emphasis mine]
 

[guido911]

Sorry, Guido, wrong again...Bush was already there, he just hid it.

Bush used four accounting gimmicks to hide the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan, medicare reimbursements to physicians, the cost of disasters, and how AMT revenue was counted.  Obama banned those gimmicks.  Much of that "jump" can be attributed to transparency.

Bush had a CBO estimated $800 billion surplus.  Eight years later we have a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit, that's a $2 trillion swing.  

[Emphasis mine]

As I understand your argument, Bush ran up a $1.2T deficit over 8 years. This Wall Street Journal is pointing out $1T in ONE year (actually nine months). Oh, and thanks for reminding us it was Bush's fault, after all he signed the stimulus and omnibus bills which alone total about $1.2T.

[Chicken Little]

As I understand your argument, Bush ran up a $1.2T deficit over 8 years. This Wall Street Journal is pointing out $1T in ONE year (actually nine months). Oh, and thanks for reminding us it was Bush's fault, after all he signed the stimulus and omnibus bills which alone total about $1.2T.

No, the swing was $2 trillion; you forgot that he spent the surplus, too.  Thanks, George.  Thank you for the Bush economy, the Bush tax cuts, the Bush War, the Bush Drug (Company) Benefits, the Bush Bank Bailout, and so much more!

The omnibus isn't all new spending, Guido.  New (honest) accounting, but not that much new spending, just  3% of the deficit.

Bush's borrow and spend recklessness, accounts for 90% of the $2 trillion budget swing from the time Clinton left office to today.  Read the breakdown.  The stimulus (7%) and new Obama initiatives (3%) account for 10% of the $2 billion swing from Bush to today.  Read it and cry, cry, cry.

[cannon_fodder]

1) The "surplus" never actually existed.

As you mentioned, governments can use whatever trick they want to create a fiscal situation.  Until it comes time to issue T Bills to cover what they are actually spending.  For a few years there WOULD HAVE been a budgetary surplus, but Congress spent it before it actually came in.  Yay for us, that inflated budget persisted as the "budget" assumed the good times would keep rolling forever.

They didn't.  Intake leveled off and then fell.  Eliminating any surplus before Bush was in office.

Bush never had a surplus to squander.    But that doesn't change the fact that . . .

2) Bush spent money we didn't have on crap we didn't need.

Clearly advisers knew there was a real estate bubble.  By the late 1990's people were talking about the real estate and stock bubble.  The stock bubble burst, so we instituted policies to protect the real estate bubble.  That burst, and we were all SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you!  Someone in some DC office building is going "I told you dipsh!ts the money wasn't going to keep rolling in."

But did we slow down our spending?  Of course not.  Did we find new revenue streams?  Ha!  Nope, we spent money rebuilding other countries as fast as Octomom goes through government funded diapers.

At least after we hit budget crisis Congress reigned in retarded spending and we began budgeting the cost of the war properly, right?  Ha!  Of course not . . .

3) So Obama inherits what was undoubtedly a crappy fiscal situation, and instantly buys a majority stake in AIG, Gold Man Sacks, and Governmental Motors (to name a few).  Then throws a trillion dollars at a stimulus package that by most accounts will return 10 cents of job creation for every dollar spent.  Woohoo!

At least it appears he has the good sense to stop throwing money we don't have at a problem Congress is too inept to fix.  How many people on this board shouted "spend money on infrastructure!  It will create jobs and invest in the future."  Many. 
- - -

So screw Clinton for being in office when an entirely new industry created amazing economic growth and not doing something to shore up our fiscal policy or listen to his Fed Chairmen scream from the damn rafters about a equity market that is about to collapse and an inflated housing market that is financing unsustainable spending.  Screw Bush for occupying a country (or two) with no decent plan and doing nothing to lesson the blow of the pending financial crisis (other than some band aids).  And screw Obama for throwing money up in the air and assuming it would come down in a perfect patch for whatever holes might be in the economy.

You can go back and forth deciding who to point your finger at, I'll just blame most everyone in Washington and the dumbasses that vote for them.

[FOTD]

Guido baiting TNF again? There's better stuff out there buddy.

[Chicken Little]

1) The "surplus" never actually existed.

It existed, for one year, but it wasn't around long enough to make a dent in the debt.  And so, yeah, as soon as the spending started again it really didn't matter that much.

I really think Guido should read the article I posted, there's a lot of silver lining in it for him.  He could spin all day:

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: "Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he's not fixing it."

"And," he added, "not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse."

"Things will get worse gradually," Mr. Auerbach predicts, "unless they get worse quickly." Either a solution will be put off, or foreign lenders, spooked by the rising debt, will send interest rates higher and create a crisis.

The solution, though, is no mystery. It will involve some combination of tax increases and spending cuts. And it won't be limited to pay-as-you-go rules, tax increases on somebody else, or a crackdown on waste, fraud and abuse. Your taxes will probably go up, and some government programs you favor will become less generous.

That is the legacy of our trillion-dollar deficits. Erasing them will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade.

See, Guido...tax hikes are coming...either that or a new fiscal crises.  You know darn well that no Republican will have the guts to raise taxes.  Moreover, since the Republicans are busy fornicating themselves into irrelevancy, it's likely going to be a Democrat that gets stuck with the job of raising taxes, or alternately, gets blamed for the next economic crises.  I see more hate in your future.  Hope, baby.  Hope.

[FOTD]

Guido, read up on modern presidents....

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2009/07/13/america-and-its-presidents-what-the-love-is-wrong-with-you-people/

America and its presidents: what the f#$###k is wrong with you people?

             
Let's begin with a brief Q&A with America.

Q: Let's say you're sick with a potentially deadly disease. Who do you want for a doctor?
A: The smartest, most experienced and highly qualified expert in the field.

Q: You're looking to invest your life savings. Who do you trust to handle your money?
A: The brightest, most agile financial mind I can find.

Q: You've been selected to participate in a "private citizens in space" program. Who do you want in charge of building the rocket?
A: The most brilliant and reliable engineers in the nation.

So far, so good. One more.

Q: You live in a time of unimaginable complexity and danger. Who do want to be the leader of the free world?
A: Somebody I can have a beer with. You know, a regular guy, a Joe Sixpack.

It's said that people tend to get the leaders they deserve, and I can't imagine better proof than the United States. At present we're watching as a new president attempts to arm-tackle an array of national political and economic crises of evil supervillain jailbreak proportions, and at this early stage it's far from clear that he's Rushmore-bound.

He may or may not get health care reform passed, and if he does it may or may not be as comprehensive as the programs pursued by previous arch-progressives Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower.
He may or may not bog us down in a vastly expanded quagmire in Afghanistan, although at present only an idiot would bet on him meeting his campaign promises regarding getting the heck out of Iraq.
He may or may not decide to honor the pledges he made to the gay community.
He may or may not spearhead a green revolution that saves the species from itself.
And his economic policies may boost us to new, unprecedented levels of universal prosperity. Or they may plummet us nards-first into a meat grinder of a global recession so epic it will make the Great Depression look like a weekend in the Hamptons.
So the jury is still out on Mr. Obama. But... While past performance is no guarantee of future results, there's also that thing about those who don't understand history being doomed to repeat it. And America's history of electing dolts, buffoons, scoundrels, knaves, low-jackers, pig-fuckers, gomers, dog-whistlers, Kloset Klansmen, recidivists and sheep pimps to the Highest Elected Office in the Land does not make one optimistic about the prospects for Barackapalooza. I'd love to be wrong, but let's be honest. An indicator that can pick a loser 100% of the time is every bit as valuable to the shrewd investor as one that always picks the winner, and the Electoral College is as reliable a Finger of Doom as the world has ever seen.

Let's review, shall we?

George W. Bush: Worst president ever? Dumbest president ever? Hard to say for certain, although put me down for "hell, yes." The nation apparently elected a string of semi-housebroken wombats in the 1800s, and contemporary polling feels obliged, in the name of "balance," to humor the estimations of conservative "scholars" who rate him the sixth-best ever. For my money, that opinion alone is sufficient for the credentialing institution to revoke the PhD, but such is the price we pay for the privilege of living in an society that not only tolerates fools gladly, it gives them television shows.

Bill Clinton: In so many ways, Clinton was the archetypal president of our age. He was the distilled, undiluted essence of the modern political animal. He was like everything in Washington, only moreso. And I don't mean that in the good way.

Bubba may not be the man who invented the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, but he was damned sure the one who established it as the only wing that mattered. The irony, of course, was that he was reviled by the GOP. I've always wondered if the source of that rage was that Clinton was a better Republican than they were.

In addition, he cheapened the office at every turn: whether renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidder, pardoning Marc Rich or "hiking the Appalachian Trail" like mink freebasing Viagra, it seemed as though his every action left us feeling the need for a shower. From the poor house to the penthouse to the whore house, we've never seen anything like him. God willing, we never will again.

George HW Bush: It's still hard to fathom how this mealy-mouthed little wimp stumbled into the White House. All the Democrats had to do in 1988 was find a candidate with a pulse. Instead, they trotted out Mike Dukakis, a man with all the charisma and passion of an accountant on a phenobarbital drip.

Bush the Elder was the latest incarnation of an established and thoroughly corrupt dynasty, and between him and his fuckwit kids there is no better argument, could be no better argument, in favor of a 100% inheritance tax. If they'd had to earn anything on their own merit their only entree into a country club would be as assistant assistant assistant greenskeepers reporting to Carl Spackler at Bushwood.

Ronald Reagan: Wow. Where to start. Back in the 1960s Marshall McLuhan, in writing about where television was taking the culture, predicted Reagan in terms so accurate that you'd think you were reading a history instead of a precognition. The only thing missing was the name and home address. The failing in McLuhan's analysis, if there was one, was this: as cynical as he was, the reality turned out to be even worse than he feared.

Ronnie was as anti-intellectual a leader as we could have imagined prior to Dubya. A man who somehow managed to remain immensely popular despite the fact that most Americans disagreed with his policies. One of the most corrupt collections of advisors, staffers and appointees in history. And the man who represented the grand triumph of years and years of scheming by wealthy conservatives bent on by god rolling the rich-poor gap back to feudal levels. An intellectually void, amoral cesspool of a human being who will nonetheless go down as one of our "great" presidents.

Jimmy Carter: Carter has the distinction of being one of the very few politicians that Hunter Thompson ever said anything nice about, and his record since leaving the White House has made clear what an outstanding statesman and humanitarian Carter really is. History will not mark him down as the most adept practitioner of the presidential arts, however, and for those who bemoan the erosion of the line between church and state, let's remember just how very publicly Baptist Jimmy was. Now, thanks in part to him, we'll never get the smell of the fundamentalists out of the furniture. (Which reminds me - Phish is playing four dates at Red Rocks, so those of us who live in downtown Denver are hoping the wind isn't blowing straight west-to-east for the next few days.)

Gerald Ford: Nice enough guy, seemed like. For a politician and all. But he wasn't ever elected.

Richard Nixon: Please tell me we don't really need to talk about this one.

Lyndon Johnson: Ever heard of Vietnam? It's hard to recall the last time somebody took an idea so bad and managed to make it even worse. He does get credit for important civil rights legislation, at least.

Still, in the final analysis he was a president from Texas with a lust for illicit, unwinnable wars. If that reminds you of somebody else, don't blame me. I'm just reporting the facts.

John F. Kennedy: He invaded Cuba, and once the troops started landing he changed his mind. He nearly got us into a hot nukular shooting war. Then there was that Vietnam thing - he and LBJ can share this honor. Marilyn Monroe was either a plus or a minus, depending on where you stand with respect to the marital infidelity issue.

Ultimately, though, the only thing that saved his legacy was death. Had he lived to serve out his term(s) he'd be judged today based on his record, which falls somewhat short of the legend.

So, when was the last time America elected a president it could be proud of? By today's standards Ike isn't looking bad at all, and his two predecessors, FDR and Truman, also score high marks.

If you look at that chart in the link above, it seems like maybe the country's ability to elect somebody half decent runs in cycles.

Let's hope that's the case, and that the wheel is turning back in our direction. Because damn, America is due.