[deadwolfbones]

[Nesster]

Yes, that was an interesting NYT article, thanks for posting the graph

[jeffkrol]

George Bush owns this deficit - Budget Showdown - Salon.com

Useless news alert: Tax cuts and war contribute more to our burgeoning debt than Obama's new policies

Or, as James Fallows puts it more acidly, "It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.

But this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, news. Nor is there any evidence that promulgating this information has any effect on the political process or on popular opinion. And there's a very good reason for this: The debt ceiling is not a fight about the deficit. It's a fight over power and the size of government.

Really..................seems 5.07 trillion is NOT about the power and size of the Fed govment..........

[jeffkrol]

Coupled w/ inflation chart.........




The more we spent the lower the inflation... not really cause and effect but worth s brief think..........

[shooz]

Shhhhhh.
If you're a right winger.........Bush never existed.
8 years of BAD policy couldn't possibly still have an effect.
Flakesnews will tell you this too.
They even forgot how long it took to get out from under the Great Reagan Layoffs and we still had a manufacturing base at that time.
That's no longer so.

[mikemike]

I'm no shrub fan, but I think this is a little unfair so I will speak up.

I don't think anyone can really pin Afghanistan on him, any president would have rolled out on Bin Laden and the Taliban who was shielding him after 9/11. Obama also extended the Bush tax cuts so and this makes it look like President Bush signed that in December 2010.

If we extrapolate out that Obama is adding 1.44T every 2 years, should we expect him to add a total of 5.76T to the deficit if he has a chance to lead the country for 8 years?

Also, bear in mind that the Obama numbers are projections while the Bush numbers are actuals. Even the bush tax cuts at the time they were enacted were projected to reduce the deficit and Medicare part D was projected to cost of a fraction of what it actually costs. So take any of these projections with a grain of salt.

[shooz]

How much did you say we're paying Haliburton, et al?
That's right.....you didn't!
The whole thing with projections, is that they are projections.
Do you extrapolate your photos too?

[GeneV]

I'm no shrub fan, but I think this is a little unfair so I will speak up.

I don't think anyone can really pin Afghanistan on him, any president would have rolled out on Bin Laden and the Taliban who was shielding him after 9/11.

They offered to give him up if he were tried in a "neutral" country. Bin Laden might have been removed without a war, but President Bush wanted a military action of some kind for a public response to 9/11. The war did not get him anyway. Iraq was totally unnecessary, but contemporary accounts (mostly from folks who left the administration) indicate it had a similar motivation. The real seat of Bin Laden's power was with two of our allies in the region.

Obama also extended the Bush tax cuts so and this makes it look like President Bush signed that in December 2010.

Surely you see the difference between going along with something as part of a compromise with the opposing party, and making it the centerpiece of your economic policy.

If we extrapolate out that Obama is adding 1.44T every 2 years, should we expect him to add a total of 5.76T to the deficit if he has a chance to lead the country for 8 years?

Also, bear in mind that the Obama numbers are projections while the Bush numbers are actuals. Even the bush tax cuts at the time they were enacted were projected to reduce the deficit and Medicare part D was projected to cost of a fraction of what it actually costs. So take any of these projections with a grain of salt.

The only predictions that the Bush tax cuts would reduce the deficit were from President Bush and his supporters, and even then, they kept the wars off the books. Part of the problem with numbers like those above are that they include wars in the budget which President Bush ignored.

[shooz]

The bush tax cuts to the VERY rich, were to the "job creators"
Didn't work, again.
Quite the opposite.
Why is that mike?
Could it be supply side economics has seen better days?