On Aug 14, 12:16*pm, Vic Smith
wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:42:35 -0400, "Robert Green"





wrote:
wrote in message news:2fe2218c-c781-44cd-8c83-

Obama added $850bil in new stimulus spending his very first year. *So,
don't put all the blame on Bush. *Here we are two and a half years after
Bush and Obama's budget is running a deficit of $1.6tril, a level never seen
in the Bush years. *Yes, there was too much spending during the Bush years,
but for some reason, that's where the libs memories end. *Obama has taken
reckless spending and borrowing to levels never seen before.

You're too smart to *really* believe what you just wrote. *"Reckless
spending?" *The economy, as handed over by Bush, was in free fall and near
collapse. *Stimulus spending, while it might seem reckless to you, cushioned
the blows delivered by Wall Street's ruthless repackaging of America's real
estate wealth into mortgage securities and selling it abroad. *Without that
"reckless spending" to help free up frozen credit we would probably be in a
deeper abyss than the first Great Depression.

That's all probably true.
I don't know where trader4 got his "$850bil in new stimulus spending."
Everything I've seen says the bill was $787b.

Not according to the CBO, who is responsible for non-partisan
scoring:


CBO raises its stimulus cost estimate, again
-
The Washington Times
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf (Associated
Press)Click-2-Listen
Story TopicsPolitics

Congress‘ chief scorekeeper has again raised the cost estimate of
President Obama’s two-year-old economic-stimulus program, calculating
it will end up costing taxpayers $821 billion — or $34 billion more
than originally projected.


So, I'm off a little bit, but still pretty close. It's $821bil, not
$850bil. I've seen
estimates higher than that too. But let's just use that relatively
recent
CBO number, that's fine with me.



And $288b was tax cuts.
So that's $499b in spending.
If you don't count tax cuts as spending.
In that case trader4 is 70% off.
If you do count tax cuts in the spending, he's off only 8%.
But then you'd have to call the Bush tax cuts spending too.
I rightly don't know the answer to that.




According to Obama's system of accounting you do count
tax cuts as spending, which is a totaly new concept. He has
repeatedly tried to obfuscate by referrring to tax cuts as
"spending in the tax code". And as usual, not one reporter
in the mainstream media has said, "Wait a minute, that
ain't right....."

I however agree that the part of the Obama package that
was tax cuts should not be counted as spending. So, he
just chucked in $533bil in spending stimulus, not
$850.





A point that non-libs seem to forget it that Obama had *nothing to do* with
the collapse. *

Just like Bush had nothing to do with it. They were both politicians
in
office at the time and neither saw the collapse coming.



He simply got stuck with the thankless job of fixing the
incredible mess that under-regulated financial markets and reckless spending
wreaked on America. *Blaming him for trying to right a sinking ship is more
than a little disingenuous. *It's partisan BS taken into the stratosphere.

At least you sort of acknowledge that Bush spent too much on needless wars,
the "junk touching" TSA agency and about a trillion in new and improved
security measures. *We've spent at least 100 times and perhaps 1000 times
the total of the actual monetary damage done on 9/11. *Would you pay $1
million in insurance premiums to protect against a $40,000 loss? *No, of
course not, but that's exactly what the US did because it was so "terrified"
by terrorists. *Bush's spending will probably go down in history as the most
wasteful expenditures ever made by the Feds. *Yet you're eager to blame
Obama for trying to clean up the mess of Bush spending trillions he/we
couldn't afford.

We've heard your endless criticism of Obama, Chet. *Now I'd be interested in
hearing what *you* would have done, President Hayes, had you been Obama in
2008, entering office with the stock market dropping like a paralyzed
falcon, a $700 billion bill for Bush's bailout payments to Wall Street on
your desk, credit markets frozen like Antarctica in winter and major
investment banks and manufacturers staring down the barrel of bankruptcy..
It's easy to find fault - a lot easier than finding solutions.

It would be interesting to see how totally ****ed up this country
would be if the Republicans were in charge.

The federal budget was $2.6tril in 2007. This year it's $3.8tril.
That is a 40% increase in 4 years. We just saw were both
parties stood on the issue. Republicans wanted real and
significant cuts
to reduce spending. The Dems screamed bloody murder
at each and every proposal while offering none of their own.
It took the Tea Party folks pushing to the brink to get the
insignificant real cuts we just got. And that amounts to a
whopping $60bil in the next two years. It's could not
be more clear where each party stands, and who is
refusing to make any real cuts. When spending is up
40 in just 4 years, you don't have a revenue problem.
You have a SPENDING problem.