Who Really Caused the Deficit

Who Really Caused The Deficit? (CHART)



SAHIL KAPUR MAY 15, 2012, 5:17 AM 4775
This week Republicans will attempt to move the national political conversation back to a familiar theme with a series of attacks on President Obama over the national debt. The GOP released a web video Monday bashing his “broken promises” on the deficit and previewed a major speech Tuesday by likely presidential nominee Mitt Romney on the issue.

Divorced from context, the numbers are uncomfortable for the President and are ready-made for pointed partisan attacks. Under Obama’s watch the national debt has risen from roughly $10 trillion to $15 trillion, a record high. But to what extent are his decisions while in office to blame? The answer: very little. The vast bulk of the debt is the result of policies enacted during the Bush administration coupled with automatic increases in federal spending and decreases in tax revenue triggered by the economic downturn.

Those are economic facts of life known to experts but that often gets lost in the political debate (and which Obama’s opponents are willing to obscure). So with the GOP’s push to return the deficit to the center of the political conversation, here’s quick reminder of the basic facts that you may have forgotten.

As the chart below reveals, the main drivers of projected deficits over the next decade are the wars of the oughts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts and the so-called “automatic stabilizers” — unemployment insurance spending, lower tax burdens — built into existing policy to combat economic downturns. Recovery measures by Bush and Obama caused a short-term spike in deficits but have mostly phased out and thus represent only modest fractions of the national debt.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...rt.php?ref=fpa

Typical liberal mindset. Blame, don't solve.........

Whose blaming whom? lmfao.
And who is lying?
Typical right wing hypocrisy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1519253.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney decried the "prairie fire" of U.S. debt Tuesday, he ignored some of the sparks that set it ablaze.

One was the Great Recession that took hold before Barack Obama became president. That landmark event went unmentioned in Romney's speech. Another was a series of Bush-era tax cuts that Romney wants to follow with even lower rates.

Instead he laid the blame on Obama, a president who has certainly increased the nation's eye-popping debt — but not, as Romney claimed, by nearly as much as all other presidents combined.

A look at some of Romney's assertions and how they compare with the facts:

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ROMNEY: "America counted on President Obama to rescue the economy, tame the deficit and help create jobs. Instead, he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of your dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined."

THE FACTS. Hardly. Presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush ran the national debt up to $10.62 trillion, the amount it was on the day Obama took office. Today, it is $15.67 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt. So it has gone up by $5.05 trillion under Obama. That's roughly half of the amount amassed by all the other presidents combined.


In short, the debt has gone up by about half under Obama. Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled.

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ROMNEY: "I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno. We will stop borrowing unfathomable sums of money we can't even imagine, from foreign countries we'll never even visit. I will bring us together to put out the fire."

THE FACTS: Romney's tax and spending plans don't support his vow to dampen the debt fire. He proposes to cut taxes and expand the armed forces, putting yet more stress on the budget, and his promise to slash domestic spending isn't backed by the big specifics. Romney's tax plan would cut the top income tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent and other rates by 20 percent each. He says he'd broaden the tax base and eliminate many deductions in the process, but details are missing.

A study by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded earlier this year that Romney's plans would not make a dent in deficits, and could worsen them considerably. That study was done before Romney upped his tax cuts, inviting even deeper debt.

That's not to say he can't at some point lay out the spending cuts necessary to achieve his aims. But he would have to slash domestic programs by more than 20 percent — far more than the 5 percent in immediate cuts he has proposed. It is nearly unthinkable that Congress would approve the evisceration of basic federal functions such as food inspection, air traffic control, the Border Patrol, FBI, grants to local governments, health research, housing and heating aid for the poor, food aid for pregnant women, national parks and much more.

Nowhere in Tuesday's speech was there a new idea of how Romney would accomplish the promised deficit reduction. He spoke generally of reforming Social Security and Medicare, eliminating duplicative government programs, and transferring some functions to the states or the private sector, adding that he would "streamline everything that's left."

The closest he has come to laying out a specific spending plan has been in his endorsement of the budget blueprint passed this year by House Republicans, which also fails to produce his promised deficit reductions.

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ROMNEY: "The people of Iowa and America have watched President Obama for nearly four years, much of that time with Congress controlled by his own party. And rather than put out the spending fire, he has fed the fire. He has spent more and borrowed more. ... When you add up his policies, this president has increased the national debt by $5 trillion."

THE FACTS: Much of the increase in the debt is due to lower tax revenues from depressed corporate and individual incomes and high joblessness in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The recession officially began in December 2007, when George W. Bush was president and the national debt stood at just over $9 trillion. Financial bailouts, stimulus programs and auto rescue spending begun under Bush and continued under Obama contributed to the run-up of the debt.

But so did the Bush-era tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. With bipartisan support, Congress has extended the tax cuts until the end of this year, and Romney's proposals for big cuts of his own would risk another squeeze on revenue.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at statements by political candidates and how well they adhere to the facts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiriuslyLong

Typical liberal mindset. Blame, don't solve.........

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Now is the time for a solution looking forward, not backward.... Why would you reinforce what I just said? Why would you make my case for me?

Here's the current administrations solution: http://www.usdebtclock.org/. Go ahead, click on the link and watch Obama's solution "LIVE" for yourself.

President Obama's solution is a balance of growth and cost cutting. He came very close to getting a deal even with an increasing right wing House of Rep.

I thought this article was interesting:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oba...=home_carousel


By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.


Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.
But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.


The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat.
Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.



Click on link to read the rest of the article.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...ds.php?ref=fpa

SAHIL KAPUR MAY 23, 2012, 6:03 AM 3629
A dominant theme of the national political discourse has been the crushing spending spree the U.S. has ostensibly embarked on during the Obama presidency. That argument, ignited by Republicans and picked up by many elite opinion makers, has infused the national dialogue and shaped the public debate in nearly every major budget battle of the last thee years.

But the numbers tell a different story.

The fact that the national debt has risen from $10.6 trillion to $15.6 trillion under Obama’s watch makes for easy partisan attacks. But the vast bulk of the increase was caused by a combination of revenue losses due to the 2008-09 economic downturn as well as Bush-era tax cuts and automatic increases in safety-net spending that were already written into law.

Obama’s policies, including the much-criticized stimulus package, have caused the slowest increase in federal spending of any president in almost 60 nears, according to data compiled by the financial news service MarketWatch.





Read chart by clicking on link.





The chart shows that Presidents Reagan, both Bushes, and to a lesser extent Clinton, grew federal spending at a far quicker pace than Obama. Part of the reason for the slow growth is that Obama — unlike his Republican and Democratic predecessors — signed a law in February 2010 necessitating that new spending laws are paid for. In addition, Obama last year signed into law over $2 trillion in debt-reduction over the next decade.

Republicans argue that safety-net spending has crossed a critical threshold in recent years and Obama has been unwilling to address it. The two sides have jousted over who is to blame but the President has put hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the table in deals that have been derailed, thanks in no small part to the GOP’s resistance to raising new tax revenues to help bridge the budget shortfall.

Last week, Obama’s likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney accused Obama of lighting a “prairie fire” of spending and said he “added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined.”

I quess he is not able i quess to contradict what these last articles speak of. Not surprised.

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Originally Posted by Havakasha

I quess he is not able i quess to contradict what these last articles speak of. Not surprised.

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It doesn't matter how it got there. What matters now is what we are doing about it http://www.usdebtclock.org/. You and your kind spend way too much energy blaming and far too little energy solving.

Glad to see you werent able to contradict the artilce.


President Obama has been hindered from helping to solve the deficti problems by an increasingly right wing house of representatives. Remember that he came very close to getting a 4 trillion deal on cutting the budget.


Remember this? You posted it. lol


Are Republicans to blame for Washington’s problems?

Scholar Norman Ornstein is pointing fingers in a new book, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks," co-authored with Thomas Mann. Congress is partisan and polarizing, and one party, said Ornstein, bears the brunt of the blame.

"I wouldn't say it's all Republicans," said Ornstein, "it's 80-20 at this point."

"When you look at the data, including voting records ... the Democrats have moved left, to probably their own 25 yard line. President Obama's probably around the 40," said the American Enterprise Institute scholar. "The Republicans have moved behind their own goal post."

Check out this week's Top Line to hear Ornstein break down recent history and the gridlock in Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-pl...102604505.html


I tried to tell you President Obama was a center left politician. 40 yard line is pretty moderate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Havakasha

Glad to see you werent able to contradict the artilce.


President Obama has been hindered from helping to solve the deficti problems by an increasingly right wing house of representatives. Remember that he came very close to getting a 4 trillion deal on cutting the budget.


Remember this? You posted it. lol


Are Republicans to blame for Washington’s problems?

Scholar Norman Ornstein is pointing fingers in a new book, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks," co-authored with Thomas Mann. Congress is partisan and polarizing, and one party, said Ornstein, bears the brunt of the blame.

"I wouldn't say it's all Republicans," said Ornstein, "it's 80-20 at this point."

"When you look at the data, including voting records ... the Democrats have moved left, to probably their own 25 yard line. President Obama's probably around the 40," said the American Enterprise Institute scholar. "The Republicans have moved behind their own goal post."

Check out this week's Top Line to hear Ornstein break down recent history and the gridlock in Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-pl...102604505.html


I tried to tell you President Obama was a center left politician. 40 yard line is pretty moderate.

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Obama failed to get a deal. Key word = "failed". Cutting the budget? Didn't Obama's budget again FAIL by a margin of 513-0?

Um, that article was written by a liberal. If the tea party authored it, it would indicate that the democrats are the problem.