2012/09/06

archive: blame for the current deficit

But -- we don't want to play blame game, do we? But I thought keeping account of things was a big part of running a business.

via tpm for the people comments:

So many issues to speak and so little space to do it in, but:

BLAMING OBAMA FOR THE CURRENT DEFICIT
By far the largest part of the debt is due to Reagan and the Bushes (based on the treasury and pro-Reagan data). http://zfacts.com/p/1195.html



2009 2010
President Bush’s policies - $923 billion $918 billion
Current economic downturn - $426 billion $469 billion
President Obama’s policies - $225 billion $497 billion
Financial rescues by Bush - $422 billion $123 billion
All other - $302 billion $262 billion

The policies of the Bush administration, which included tax cuts during a time of war and a floundering economy, are the primary source of the current deficits. According to figures released by the CBO, 72% of the deficit can be attributed directly to former President George W. Bush and his financial rescue packages, and 16% can now be attributed to President Barack Obama.

Had President Bush not cut taxes while simultaneously prosecuting two foreign wars and adopting other programs without paying for them, the current deficit would have only been 4.7 percent of gross domestic product in 09', instead of the eye-catching 11.2 percent—despite the weak economy and the costly efforts taken to restore it by current President Barack Obama.

Wonder why the Arab Emirates have been forcing the United States hand on the issue of Iran, as leaked by the wikileak documents a few weeks ago? Wonder why China has impunity to export all the products they want to the U.S., whether those products are harmful or not? Wonder why the United States didn't maraud both India or Pakistan, who both have nuclear capability, like they did Iraq and Afghanistan?

As of July 2010, the United States owes through ownership of U.S. securities, to the People's Republic Of China approximately $843 billion, Japan $821 billion, The United Kingdom $374 billion, Oil producing countries $223 billion, Caribbean banking centers $123 billion, Brazil $162 billion, Hong Kong (SAR) $135 billion, Russia $130 billion, Republic Of China (Taiwan) 130 billion, along with numerous other countries, in a wide variety of deals cut by Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and now Obama, to purchase debt by the United States in treasury bonds and securities. This is why the trade agreement between China, etc., and the U.S. has been stretched to it's limit under Bush II, due to the massive debt owed to them. Now they literally have free will to export whatever faulty products they want to this country, along with siphoning jobs back to their countries from United States manufacturers that largely depend on their business. Report on Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities:http://www.treasury.gov/resour...

Yet the U.S. (taxpayers) are also owed about $9 trillion from foreign governments as well that has never been collected as shown by this 1993 report of debt owed to the United States: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/...

Was it unconstitutional during the administration of President George W. Bush, for a Republican Congress to use reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts that raised the deficit, and forced the United States to borrow more money from China, Japan, the Uk, etc? Where was the Tea Party at when Bush was selling American securities and bonds to these foreign countries to fund government, two wars, a stimulus package, a trillion dollar tax cut, repealing restrictions on financial institutions, and running the deficit up more than any President in U.S. history?

Calculation of the Reagan-Bushes Debt
Initial Run-Up of Debt
Budget End Debt Increase
Year Date $ Billions $ Billions Whose Debt?
1981 9/30/1981 $998
1993 9/30/1993 $4,411 $3,414 Reagan-Bush 1993

Reagan-Bush
Oct.1 1993 -- Sept. 30, 2001 $2,212 Interest on their debt during the Clinton years.

2001 9/30/2001 $5,807
2009 9/30/2009 $11,910 $6,102 G. W. Bush 1993

Subtract: -$36 Obama stimulus

As of: 9/30/2009 $11,692 Sub-total

Reagan-Bushes
Oct.1 2009 -- Sept. 30, 2010 $357 Interest on Total
$12 Trillion = $12,049 Total Reagan-Bush Debt on 9/30/2010
http://zfacts.com/p/1170.html


CBO projections and analysis. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index....

HEALTH CARE BILL AND THE RECENT RULING DECLARING MANDATES UNCONSTITUTIONAL
The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872) is a reconciliation bill passed by the 111th United States Congress to make changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30, 2010, yet it did not raise the deficit, because rules written in by a Democrat controlled Congress under George W. Bush, prevent reconciliation from being used to raise the deficit.

Reconciliation can only be used once during a budget year, like in 2009 when reconciliation instructions was written into the budget to offset the debates on the health care bill, etc. A rule was written by the Dems, when they took back control of the House that won't allow reconciliation to be used on any bill that would increase the deficit, because a GOP controlled Congress under GWB used reconciliation for the first time in history to pass these GWB tax cuts in the first place, that did increase the deficit. So that should tell you that the healthcare bill, and many others passed under reconciliation by the DEMS did not raise the deficit. Hmmmmm! Rhetoric will get you all confused if you let it sink in long enough!!

It was the GOP that fought for and filibustered to have the mandates placed into the bill for their corporate buddies in health care, then later going on every single right wing media tv and radio program to blast it as Obamacare, when they argued and fought to place the provision in the bill in the first place. Mitt Romney (who signed a similar bill into law in 2006 as Governor of Massachusetts), John "the maverick" McCain, Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush, The Business Roundtable, The AHIP, and numerous other Republicans supported this mandate. Although opposed to it during his campaign run, The Obama administration saw that the mandate was the only way to get a reform package passed and it became a foundation of the legislation, along with subsidies for those who couldn't afford coverage. Further proof that they are more focused on strategy to make Obama fail, than actually supporting issues they traditionally support, but now filibuster against continually.

The individual mandate is actually the health care industry's favorite part of the bill, and as shown above, originally was supported wholly by the Republicans. The reason? If you tell health care companies they can't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, the industry needs some mechanism to make sure people don't simply decide not to buy health insurance until they get sick. That's what the individual mandate was designed to do - to eliminate the so-called "free rider problem" that arises when health care companies are no longer allowed to deny coverage to certain Americans, and the reason why the GOP fought for it.

Kansas Republicans including Todd Tiahrt, Jerry Moran, Sam Brownback and Lynn Jenkins have been quick to call the mandate unconstitutional, but were all in support of the mandate in a strong front by the GOP. The mandate itself is one of the Republican ideas the President incorporated into the reform bill, borrowed from the Senate Bill 1770, aka the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993 . This mandate bill was co-sponsored by two Kansas Republicans: Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum.http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/...

Was it unconstitutional during the administration of President George W. Bush, for a Republican Congress to use reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts that raised the deficit, and forced the United States to borrow more money from China, Japan, the Uk, etc?

George W. Bush authorized warrantless wiretaps which were later ruled unconstitutional. So why wasn't any judge dragging him into court?

While not getting an official declaration of war, presidents got Congressional approval in the first Iraq war (1991), and second Iraq War (2003). In 1993, one critic wrote "Congress's war power has become the most flagrantly disregarded provision in the Constitution. no one was screaming unconstitutional.

George H W Bush pardons included an official suspected of hiding notes relating to the Iran-Contra scandal, but no screams of being unconstitutional.

George W Bush commuted the sentence of a staffer who had covered up administration complicity in the Valerie Plame Wilson matter. So where were the judges declaring this unconstitutional for abusing the office of the President?

When George W. Bush ran the deficit up to the highest margin in United States history, and the deficit hit $482 billion in the 2009 budget year that was then inherited by President Barack Obama. where was the judges crying unconstitutional?

FROM THE CITIZENS FOR TAX JUSTICEhttp://www.ctj.org/html/gwb060...
As Bush's tax program moved through Congress in 2001, he and his congressional allies struggled mightily to squeeze Bush’s $2.5 trillion ten-year tax cut into a $1.3 trillion budget target. They succeeded in doing so primarily by manipulating the dates on which the most expensive provisions will take effect. Since the most costly parts of the bill are the tax benefits for the very rich, the distribution of the tax cuts changes remarkably over time.

* From 2001 through 2005, the best-off one percent will receive “only” 19.8 percent of the Bush tax cuts.

* From 2006 through 2009, the share of the tax cuts going to the very rich jumps to 41 percent of the total.

* By 2010, when all of the provisions of the bill—including complete repeal of the estate tax on extremely large estates—are scheduled to be fully in place, 51.8 percent of the tax cuts are targeted to the top one percent.
END OF EXCERPT FROM THE CITIZENS FOR TAX JUSTICE

THE TAX CUTS
Large corporations like Exxon paid $0 dollars in income taxes, but still got a tax rebate from the government, what is wrong with that picture?

I've done research, and President Obama has given more tax cuts to businesses, both small and large, than any other President in history, but the GOP wants to keep bleeding the middle class to get even more for their corporate buddies via lobbyists, because of their insane greed! He bailed out the banks with $O interest on loans, but the banks still have not paid back all the loans yet, and have given very, very, very few loans to spur business.

The Estate taxes were the biggest issue in the bill, that now since it has passed in the Senate will allow estates over $1 million dollars, to be totally exempt from paying any estate tax period! So those middle taxpayers making far, far far, less than someone that has an estate worth $1 million dollars, will still be held hostage to paying estate taxes. The rich get richer and the poor just continue to get by with far less.

Not a single Congressmen, Tea Party supporter, Glen Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. came out against this bill, and no one has come forward to say that they know what is actually in it. Everyone screamed about the stimulus bill and health care legislation having a CBO report attached to it, yet there are no budget, deficit, or debt projections from the CBO, or even a Congressional committee put together like both of those bills to actually go through the bill with a fine tooth comb.

This bill adds over a trillion dollars to the deficit, which is bigger government, yet no tea party rallies, no Glen Beck led marches, no racial epitaphs on posters, not even a peep from Limbaugh, etc.. Why? Because these news pundits benefit from this directly, however the large majority of their viewing audiences, will not! This money will now have to be borrowed from China, Japan, the Uk, The United Arab Emirates, etc., to cover the tax cuts, and will be levied against all the Social Security programs, which the government already owes the Federal Reserve money for loans taken out under George W. Bush.

So is this really a compromise? An $18 billion tradeoff for unemployment benefits vs. an estimated $700 - $900 billion for the wealthy, and the billions (some estimates reach up to a trillion) of dollars in interest that will more than likely be incurred through loans from China, Japan, etc., to cover these tax cuts, so that the wealthy can enjoy more of their toys. I am definitely for the unemployment benefits, but to increase the wealth of those that have not been affected by the economy, and have to borrow the money from China, etc., is highway robbery to me!!

That's $900 billion over two years that won't go to boost job creation. Nor will it fund a portion of the $300 billion we'll spend on wars during the same period - instead, we'll borrow that abroad and hand the bill to the kids., oh yeah almost forgot, and blame it all on Obama.

OMNIBUS BILL AND START TREATY
GOP Policy Committee Chairman John Thune (S.D.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) convened a Wednesday morning press conference and faced a barrage of hostile questions about their earmarks by reporters from NPR, ABC News and NBC News.

“Going through this bill, there is earmark after earmark from the both of you, millions of dollars in earmarks from the two of you and from other senators,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl told Cornyn and Thune. “How do you have any credibility on this? Why do you have earmarks?”

So it's good to have earmarks placed in bills that they still won't support, and then come up with bogus excuses when caught and questioned on it, only to eventually blame Obama, and shut down government in the process? Tea Party this is what you asked for and you got it!!

Bottom line this has all been one big GOP propaganda machine running on empty against Obama. Those of us who take the time to do research and find out the truth, instead of banking on rhetoric, and scare tactics, and allowing these tools to sway how you vote, and often against what really may help you, know better!

The Republicans have been stalling, filibustering, and obstructing since this President was sworn into office, what makes anyone think things will be any different once they take control of the House in January? Corporations like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Coors, Kraft Foods, Kellogg's, Target, General Mills, Pepsi, ConAgra Foods, miller, Coca-Cola, Land-O-Lakes, Financial Institutions (Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, American Express, Bank Of America, Citigroup, etc.), Health care Providers (Blue Cross, AETNA, etc.), GM, Chrysler, Comcast, Direct-TV, Clear Channel, etc., etc., have spent billions on the propaganda machine's incessant campaign to bring down Obama by all means necessary, including hurting all American families, whether you like Obama or not, and they want a return on their investment!!!

The two top recipients of money from companies receiving TARP funds are the top two House Republicans, Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) with $200,000 and Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) with $187,000. They are followed by the ranking members of two key House committees, Spencer Bachus (Ala.) on Financial Services and Dave Camp (Mich.) on the tax-writing committee. And for those ready to attempt to blow holes in this, both parties receive money from corporations, but the Republicans receive the larger share of donations from corporate donors. It's known history, go check for yourself.

If you want to truly find out what Obama has done that directly benefits you, then go to this site, and stop ranting and raving about something you heard on t.v. and radio or from some politician; Do your own research and find out for yourself the truth about the rhetoric running rampant all over the nation. Each page has a direct link underneath the big bold white letters, for all the legislation and things he has done since he has been in office, so you can fact check on your own. If that doesn't work for you then it's something much deeper than just his policies you don't like.http://whattheheckhasobamadone...