Obama: Trillion dollar deficits will be a reality for years to come.

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<blockquote>trrenter - 12 January 2009 09:17 AM

Bush did three things to skyrocket the debt from $5.7 trillion to $10 trillion in his

2 terms.



1. He lowered taxes on the rich (by far the biggest item).

2. He invaded Iraq instead of winning in Afghan-Pakistan (another $600 B).

3. He deregulated Wall Street speculators. That bailout has now ?invested? $1T



So maybe we should just let the system Fail and Blame it on Bush ? Cool !



NO. Better to blame all this on Obama. Thats the conservative ticket.



Did we all forget 9/11?? That attack had a devastating effect on the economy and the administration.



That always seems to be overlooked by the ?liberal? ticket. Blame it all on Bush and leave 911 and it?s effects out of any conversation.



And how many Terrorists from Iraq were on those planes on 9/11 ?

Where are those darn weapons of Mass Destruction we went to war for ?



So nice to just sweep those facts aside after spending 100`s of Billions and getting 4200 US troops killed and 30,000 wounded to make us safer by invading Iraq. Thank You GW. You the man.</blockquote>


I didn't sweep any of those "facts" aside. We have been over this on other threads.



Mine was a simple response to number 1, 2 and 3 above. Where is 911 and the effect it had on our country and the economy and the deficit.



You seem very fixated on Iraq and the WMD's just see my last responses to that they remain the same. I won't rehash them on every thread about politics.
 
Sure, sure. It was all OBL and Al Quidea's fault.



<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/11/AR2009011102301.html">Not.</a>



9/11 didn't cause squat. We were already in a recession and it simply sped it up. Frankly, it might of got it over sooner. I hate it when people blame the incompentency of the 43 admin on OBL and crew.
 
I think 9/11 did have an effect. I think that being attacked put the congressional Republicans in lockstep with the President in anything he wanted to do. Had 9/11 not occured, I can't imagine that they would have gone so far off the rails when it came to the budget. Take away the attack and the following wars, and it becomes pretty hard for the President to cajole a Republican Congress into spending like drunken sailors on a two-day shore leave.
 
<blockquote>Sure, sure. It was all OBL and Al Quidea?s fault.



Not.



9/11 didn?t cause squat. We were already in a recession and it simply sped it up. Frankly, it might of got it over sooner. I hate it when people blame the incompentency of the 43 admin on OBL and crew.</blockquote>


I hate when people disregard anything that conflicts with their beliefs. Seems like people speak in absolutes with no sense of middle ground. I believe that 911 had something to do with the direction this country headed and SOME of the economic problems. Not all of them, not a majority of them but some of them.



I guess if you are just looking to bash 43 we would have to disregard that day.



911 didn't cause squat. Just the loss of almost 3000 human lives.



<a href="http://www.iags.org/costof911.html">Economic Cost</a>



Not to mention job loss and companies having to spend more for Disaster recover and the cost of moving entire orgainzations out of CBD's and into the boonies.



Oh the higher cost of security at airports etc. etc.



Not a thing. 911 didn't cause squat. Just a little bump in the road for any administration.
 
My beliefs have nothing to do with the facts of the situation. FWIW I was for the war in Iraq and know exactly how much it costs:



<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/10/news/economy/costofwar.fortune/index.htm">http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/10/news/economy/costofwar.fortune/index.htm</a>



<blockquote>The bill for Iraq over the past five years is now approaching a cumulative $500 billion, or about $100 billion per year on average</blockquote>


Seems like that number is about 5 trillion short of the total increase in the national debt since Clinton left the White House, but who's counting right? We got a war on!



Or, am I misunderstanding and you are saying we were attacked by terrorists, and the rational response was to create huge structural deficits for generations to come via the expansion of Medicare (into perscription drugs) that haven't even got here yet?



Because that'll show the terrorists all the have to do is leave us alone and we'll self destruct on our own accord. I can see it now - it will be a war on Social Security and Medicare. Generations from now we'll call it "The Great Baby Boomer War" as we fight the aging users of social services in the streets. Should be easy to identify the enemy. They'll be armed with walkers and Lark scooters and oxygen tanks.
 
I am going to put my own two cents in here.



The war didn't contribute that much to deficits. As i mentioned before, Defense Spending - including supplementals - as a percentage of GDP is lower than it was in the eighties. The biggest challenge has been demographic: the baby boomers are getting older.



In order to truly fix this, we will have to reform Medicare and Social Security back to what they were at their inception: insurance programs for those that truly needed them. I think we are looking at means testing, Quite frankly, if you retire with millions in assets, you shouldn't receive a government subsidy to make retirement even easier. Obama has also discussed a savings plan with a positive check off for those who would not desire to participate. This would raise the net savings rate, and could act as a private supplement for social security (even the Swedes have a private supplement and savings plan.



On health care, I think we are seeing the limits of employer based health care, which shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the origins of the system - it was designed to provide munitions during WWII - not health care. Health care is not portable upon job change, and costs are astronomical for those who have lost their job and are using COBRA. I do not like the idea of single payer, as this would put the same people who were supposed to look after Fannie and Freddie in charge of health care. It is important to understand that when it comes to managing risk, government sees risk not as an actuarial or probability exercise, but as a political exercise, which makes it hard to manage costs. Also, when you have a single payer covering everything, there is a tendency to disregard how behavior affects cost.





In regards to the Medicare prescription program, I think we might have been better off providing gift cards to the WalMart $4.00 a month prescription program. this is where private enterprise works better than the government, The government wouldn't care about efficient delivery. They care about which state gets the processing center, and which drug companies are using union labor for their deliveries.



The Dutch recently switched to all private payer, and their system sounds interesting:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118903445878218649.htmlandhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91973552



I liked the McCain plan of using tax credits to make health care more affordable, instead of creating a bueracracy for payments, and i think that is the way to cover the needy. Also, under the Dutch plan, the patients pick their insurance plan. Note that I earlier said affordable - I do not want it to be free. Many economists believe that when people have skin in the game relative to costs, they will take better care of themselves.
 
[quote author="cdm" date=1231860053]



I liked the McCain plan of using tax credits to make health care more affordable, instead of creating a bueracracy for payments, and i think that is the way to cover the needy. </blockquote>


McCain did an incredibly poor job articulating it, but one of the beautiful things about the plan was that it actually created incentives to control health care costs. Most people in this country receive health care coverage through an insurance plan at work. It's not taxed, and is heavily subsidized by their employer. Because the out of cost pocket to the consumer of health services is so low, there is every incentive to overuse the system. As a result, emergency rooms in hospitals are clogged with people who don't need emergency care. People go to their doctor when they have a flu even though there is nothing a doctor can do to make the flu go away faster.



By making health care benefits taxable, you give people incentives to "right size" their level of coverage. And by creating a tax credit, you would entirely offset the cost of the additional tax liabilities for everyone but those with gold plated insurance plans.



It really is an idea that should have been promoted more heavily.



But alas, one of McCain's failings is/was a lack of understanding of economics.
 
Novas,



<blockquote>Seems like that number is about 5 trillion short of the total increase in the national debt since Clinton left the White House, but who?s counting right? We got a war on!



Or, am I misunderstanding and you are saying we were attacked by terrorists, and the rational response was to create huge structural deficits for generations to come via the expansion of Medicare (into perscription drugs) that haven?t even got here yet?



Because that?ll show the terrorists all the have to do is leave us alone and we?ll self destruct on our own accord. I can see it now - it will be a war on Social Security and Medicare. Generations from now we?ll call it ?The Great Baby Boomer War? as we fight the aging users of social services in the streets. Should be easy to identify the enemy. They?ll be armed with walkers and Lark scooters and oxygen tanks.</blockquote>


What I am saying is that there are hundreds if not thousands of individual decesions across the last 8 years that have led us to where we are today. Some of those dececsions were clearly on the Republican agenda, some were on the Democrats agenda, and some were a Bipartisan agenda.



The Democrats were not powerless over the last 8 years they could have blocked any and all of Bush's decesions. (which would be quite easy to sell to the American public since Bush had such low approval ratings.)



The Democrats can say anything they want about Iraq but they approved the action as well. Their excuse of course was Bush and the administration tricked them into believing there we WMD's. They also quote him saying there was an iminent threat, and they believed him so they approved. Really, an iminent threat? A monkey with a crayon could/should be able to see that was a stretch.



I personally believe that we should have invaded because Saddam refused to give us access to his weapons' facilities, like he agreed to in the cease fire after Desert storm. If we let him blatently break the conditions of the cease fire and flaunt it, the US and possibly NATO would have lost a lot of credibility.



So if we want to pin this all on Bush, and again I am not absolving him from blame here, shouldn't any Democrat that didn't block his decesions get the same scorn? Shouldn't any Democrat that got TRICKED by and "incompetent president" share more of the blame. To be tricked by an "incompetent moron" does not say much about the person being tricked.



The same people that agreed to go along with Bush are still seated in the House and Senate.



IMHO to try to narrow down the deficit to just Bush decesions means ignoring many other decesions that were made or agreed to by the Democrats as well.



I believe this lays at the feet of EVERY democrat and republican, including Bush that helped get us where we are today.



Finally if we look at the Economic growth that fueled our nation previously may I remind everyone about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble">dot-com bubble</a>. That companies like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron">Enron</a>, Worldcom, Quest, etc were overstating profits during that economic boom and comitting fraud, just like the Big Banks were in this bubble.
 
[quote author="cdm" date=1231860053]...The war didn't contribute that much to deficits. As i mentioned before, Defense Spending - including supplementals - as a percentage of GDP is lower than it was in the eighties...</blockquote>


Umm, would you like to double check what the deficits and debt did in the 1980s.
 
Sometimes I just do not get the point of this critism of Obama. If Mc Cain had been elected we would not be facing trillion dollar deficits? If I remember right, McCain's plan was no plan at all....
 
McCain / Palin.



And if Palin were President she could fix everything.

Use your mouse and click on all the fun Items in the Oval Office.



<a href="http://www.palinaspresident.us/">http://www.palinaspresident.us/</a>
 
[quote author="Failedagent" date=1231996164]Sometimes I just do not get the point of this critism of Obama. If Mc Cain had been elected we would not be facing trillion dollar deficits? If I remember right, McCain's plan was no plan at all....</blockquote>


I only see observations about Obama's plan and anytime someone makes an observation about Obama we hear about the last 8 years of the Bush administration.



This is from Obama's election website <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/sidebyside.php">Obama vs. McCain</a>



Obama

Barack Obama will cut both taxes and spending, implementing a responsible budget that lowers the federal deficit by reducing wasteful spending. (I personally think the bailout is wasteful spending and he wants to fast track that)



McCain

John McCain?s plan of giving tax cuts to the wealthy and to Big Business will add $3.4 trillion to the national debt, bankrupting America.



Now Before Obama is even in office he is saying that he cannot lower the federal deficit? That isn't a critism it is an observation. So if during the Obama administration we add 3.4 trillion to the national debt will we be bankrupt?



Then we get a posting of Sarah Palin in the Oval Office and what would have been if McCain Palin were elected.



I am not a Bush apologist or an Obama basher. I just find it odd that whenever Obama's name is brought up we have the same knee jerk reactions.



Well Bush did....... followed by. Oh so we would be in better shape if McCain Palin were elected......how would it be different.



This is no longer about Bush, Cheney, McCain, Palin, Rove et al.



This is now about Obama and his policies. To continue to forgive Obama by pointing a finger at Bush or McCain doesn't hold water anymore.



Obama has clearly stepped in and become the President before the inaguration so he should now be judged by what he is doing and saying.



How long does this Aura around Obama last that anytime someone disagrees with him someone jumps to his defense.
 
[quote author="Failedagent" date=1231996164]Sometimes I just do not get the point of this critism of Obama. If Mc Cain had been elected we would not be facing trillion dollar deficits? If I remember right, McCain's plan was no plan at all....</blockquote>
What is hard to understand? That I am not giving Obama a free pass during his first 100 days? Well, the simple reason for that is this: he's lobbying for this to be available for him to sign into law on 1/20/2009. This isn't about what McCain, or Bush for that matter, would do. I went back and read the boards from September and there was quite a bit of dissent when it came to TARP, and yet now Obama is asking for just as much money but people here are like "meh, we need to give him a chance". Is it because this time the money is being given away to governments and businesses and infrastructure? Or is it because he's a Democrat?



Either way, spending money we don't have in an attempt to 'rescue' the economy is a bad idea. It was bad in September, it's bad now, and it will NOT work.
 
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