Category Archives: Deficit Spending

2012/12/05

Fiscal Cliff Alert Status for 2012.12.05: Condition Red

When it comes to the Fiscal Cliff, we all have much to lose.

The CBO projects that going over the cliff means that the economy takes a nosedive during 2Q 2013 and unemployment will easily break 9% by early 3Q 2013.

Should we go down the Fiscal Cliff path then 2013 will be a year of random misery as different parts of the economy adjust to magical movement of money, or lack thereof, in the marketplace. Ours is a marketplace addicted to subsidized money on both the left and the right, whether it be cheap credit cards, zero percent loans to large banks, defense spending or social spending, grants, shared underwriting of public programs or tax credits and deductibles for private investments.

Neither side is close to blinking. Neither side is close to have a ‘deal’ that their own party can support.

Negotiation on avoiding the Fiscal Cliff will go all the way to the 11th hour … and perhaps no deal will come about. More probable than just being possible at the moment.

President Obama has a strong hand for shooting down many aspects of what the GOP wants, although the GOP does not have any actual plan that is supported both within the House and the Senate as of yet. So criticism that Obama has rejected the GOP plan are largely empty words — there is no GOP plan that the GOP itself has endorsed that can provide a guaranteed 51%+ supportive vote in either the House or in the Senate.

And yet President Obama’s challenge is that he needs a deal that the GOP House will approve, and so far there is no real Democratic plan on the table that can provide a guaranteed 51%+ supportive vote in either the House or in the Senate.

The only two people that have a written plan are Simpson-and-Bowles … and neither the Dems nor the Reps are embracing it.

Today’s Risk Level of going over the edge: Condition Red

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2012/11/02

And yet … still I am voting Obama.

And yet … still I am voting Obama.

I wrote a piece the other day about the need for paying attention to the national debt, deficits, and paring expenses while balancing the budget.

Someone challenged me: how can I be concerned about these things ‘and yet’ vote Obama?

It is simple really.

I don’t see Obama as a great master of change. And no, I don’t believe that he has any grand plan for 2012-2016. He has disappointed me at times over the last four years — but I started out with lowered expectations since I’m a traditional Republican voter (70-80% of the time, maybe higher at local level).

So what do I see in Obama? Obama has lived up to his reputation of being ‘no drama Obama’ … which is good considering that the GOP has been after his ass since almost Day One with no intent of cooperating and working together for meaningful change and reform in any way on almost any issue. Obama has been a voice of stability working to bring most things to the center for resolution.

As for the incredible debt etc., every president develops each year a five year outlook into the future as to where budgets and debt are probably going. President Bush’s prediction for growth of our national debt has been Obama’s reality. Debt under Obama has barely differed from Bush’s prediction by 10% or less during his first two years in office.

—- As for Year 3 (2011) and Year 4 (2012), President Bush’s budget projection assumed that the war would be over in Afghanistan by 2011 and so no funds were programmed. Add the war expenses back in and accrued debt during Obama’s entire term is almost a straight line from where it was on Day One of his presidency, and in line with Bush FY2009′s Five Year Presidential Budget projection.

As for Obama’s legacy of debt to programs that started under his presidency: less new debt created by any president since Truman.

If you are a social conservative sure there are lots of reasons not to like Obama. If you are a fiscal conservative that understands basic math and understands the difference between ‘incurred obligated debt’ and debt due to new programs then Obama has been pretty good with a dollar.

My second reason for supporting Obama and essentially defecting from my GOP roots of almost 30 years: I really don’t think that the GOP gets it. They are not really so pissed off about Obama’s policies as they are that they lost in 2008. All this talk about ‘taking our country back’ is usually just empty, angry rhetoric that translates to ‘sure the country melted down on our watch but that was just a fluke. We like things the way they were’.

And so with just days to go until the election I do remain very concerned about America’s future, that damned fiscal cliff will be a much deeper drop than many suspect, and runaway debt seems endless. And yet … and yet I am voting for someone that I believe really has no plan, or any objective, that is any bigger or more grandiose than keeping America’s economy stable and just buying time to heal on its own. That is a classical conservative approach.

My choice may not be a brilliant choice. But for me it is a far better choice than voting for a return to what got us here to begin with.

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2011/12/28

A BIG Lie found floating around the internet – National Debt from George Washington to Barack Obama

Disclaimer: Was not an Obama voter in 2008 and don’t expect to be an Obama voter in 2012. Stretching the truth is occasionally OK but I strongly dislike BIG lies. I’m on the side of the red, white and blue. BIG LIES only destroy us all as Americans.

The following graphic was busy floating around the internet during late December 2011.

National Debt over time from George Washington to President Obama

Alleged National Debt from George Washington to Barack Obama

I hate to be Mr. Grinch Fact Checker but this chart is VERY wrong.

This chart is not even close to being just misleading. This chart is so wrong that it wins my award of The BIG Lie.

The actual national debt in January 2009 when President Obama took office was $11,909,829,003,511.75 (Jan 30, 2009) per the U.S. Treasury … which is about $5.6 trillion more than the $6.3 trillion pre-Obama total debt claimed.

This chart is also wrong on several other levels.

For this chart to be accurate, actual national debt over time should be expressed as a cumulative. These numbers do not even begin to show total cumulative national debt.

For example, the total cumulative national debt racked up just under President George W. Bush (Jan 2001-Jan 2009) was $6.1 trillion dollars. Keeping that number in mind, according to this chart all presidents before George W. Bush created a total national debt of just $200 billion. This chart is obviously nowhere near reality.

Note: For comparison, after eight years of President Clinton debt increased $1.5 trillion vs $6.1 trillion under eight years of President Bush.

What this chart really portrays is that reality doesn’t matter … and as for fact checking: that’s for losers. It is all about winning. Politics is a contact sport don’t you know?!

Source for all numbers: U.S. Treasury http://tinyurl.com/3xjc7y — the Treasury provides a history of all national debt numbers so don’t trust me – go do a fact check yourself.

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2011/07/29

Bow Wow — Just on principle let’s pass the buck, bankrupt the government and blame the other guy. A plan!

I am all for making cuts.

I am all for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget — but only because Congress is more often than not a bunch of gutless wonders that vote the party line and don’t have the cojones to really perform their constitutional duty.

Seldom do I criticize Democrats, other than to point out that they don’t really have a plan about anything. Why criticize folks that prove Will Rogers right almost daily: “Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.”

However, it is the Republicans that are in disarray at the moment — and it is because raising the debt ceiling is a backwards argument.

They are making their arguments largely based upon principle. To hear them, you might think that they are saving the country by trying to block any increase in the debt ceiling and to avoid anything which takes a penny of their tax money.

They are trying to starve the beast one last time. They are trying to do it on principle. But which one?

Congress and very specifically the House of Representatives has the ability to make cuts by directly cutting specific programs.

Raising the Debt Ceiling only pays for what Congress has already approved. The money cannot be used for new stuff.

THE BEAST & THE PROBLEM

The problem is that Republicans do not want to step forward and to specifically cut Social Security, Medicare, et cetera. They do not want their fingerprints all over the crime scene, which is certainly how the American public would see it once the law of unintended consequences kicked in … which should take no more than 30 days after cuts are made.

On principle, the Republicans and the Tea Partyers want to pass the buck: we will save you and the future but only if you hold this gun to your foot and pull the trigger by yourself.

They want to force a bankruptcy and then tell the president: Hey, bud, you are running short of cash. YOU need to make cuts to programs that WE approved expenses for — whether it was this Congress or prior congresses.

On principle and as an option, we are willing to let you make these painful cuts right before a major presidential election by only agreeing to give you enough money to allow you to run out of money just about primary time — assuming that we can even come to some agreement as to how many hoops we want you to jump through so that we can rant at you for 6-8 months before November 2012.

Bottomline: I didn’t vote for President Obama. Am still not crazy about him now. He probably will not get my vote in 2012. But here is what I do know: President Obama should tell the Republicans to go to hell!

If the Republicans want to sit down and to make specific cuts then Congress should take a vote on the programs that they want to cut. The 2012 budget is in their hands. They could block a debt ceiling increase easily if THEY slashed Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, and maybe a few tanks, planes and drones.

What say ye Congress, and specifically Republicans? How about really acting on your principles?

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2011/07/22

National Debt / Deficit Meltdown — Maybe kicking the can down the road is the better path + an idea

The smell of financial meltdown is in the air.

We stand at the threshold of maxing out our national credit card and there is absolutely no plan that has been presented to the public that seems to really make economic sense — mostly because no one wants their sacred cows touched.

>> A tax deduction for the interest on your home is not much different than helping someone that lives in subsidized housing. Welfare is welfare.

I almost agree at this point that kicking the can down the road could be a desirable outcome.

My logic is that it really is too late now for there to be any comprehensive plan. A short term bandaid plan that drops the need for decision prior to the 2012 elections only serves political purposes, it doesn’t matter what party you support.

Kicking the can down the road has the beneficial effect of guaranteeing that bad things will happen to good people. Hopefully it will sober them up enough that they will empty their heads of all the partisan crap. Then perhaps they will try to think a bit more critically about the situation and to think a bit more objectively.

Whether Left or Right, reality is that neither side is anywhere near agreement — not even among themselves — as to what should be done.

Politics are just economics draped over other issues. It is always about power.

All or nothing works no better at one end of the fringe than the other.

If we respected the average taxpayer we would ask them to choose the plan that they believe we should pursue. Let’s hold six months of public debate, critiqued by both citizens and academics, and then let’s hold a referendum.

Let’s let Americans choose by line item vote in a referendum what goes and what stays or what changes.

If we truly believe in ‘We the People’ then let’s let Americans decide their future and their fate.

What say ye?

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