Has Barack Obama Joined An Exclusive Presidential Club?
Is he now a member of the “immediately failed Presidents club” (which includes Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan)?” Details here.
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Isn't it somewhat early, somewhat premature, by about two or three years (only fools still think in terms of six or seven)?
This isn't more agitated, disturbed frustration with the lack of “progress” with health care “reform,” is it?
I can give you trillions of reasons why he has failed so far.
This year, he has chosen to ally (and align) himself with the loonier lib Dems, rushing to pass bad legislation. Example A prior to health care has been the “climate” (energy politics-policy) legislation in the House, and an analogue deferred for now (to get health care “reform” taken care of) in the Senate (Lysenkoism with another post-2008 big price tag to come).
I suppose with the “stimulus” (did Obama really claim his Asian trip merits stimulatory credit?) we are expected to join the exploitable Herd (as we should with “climate” legislation and health care “reform”) and ignore what ObamaCo conveniently removed from the Trustees Report on the Social Security and Medicare programs whose reform is probably the last thing we can ever expect to see materialize:
[First part, retained, same warning year after year encountering Herd blindness, deafness, denial, and stupidity]
“In 2017 and later for HI, and in 2037 and later for OASDI, there is no provision in current law that would enable full payment of benefits, once the trust funds are exhausted. If asset exhaustion actually occurred, benefits could be paid only up to the amount of ongoing dedicated revenues. Further general fund transfers could not be made to finance the deficits. …
[B]y 2016, net revenue flows from the general fund would total $369 billion (1.8 percent of GDP). The positive amounts that begin in 2016 for OASDI, and started in 2008 for HI, initially represent payments the Treasury must make to the trust funds when assets are depleted to help pay benefits in years prior to exhaustion of the funds. Neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury, which must finance redemptions and interest payments through some combination of increased taxation, reductions in other government spending, or additional borrowing from the public. …
[T]he difference between outgo and dedicated payroll tax and premium income will grow rapidly in the 2010-30 period as the baby-boom generation reaches retirement age. Beyond 2030, the difference continues to increase nearly as rapidly due primarily to health care costs that grow faster than GDP. After the trust fund exhaustion dates (2041 for OASDI, 2019 for HI), the increasing positive amounts for OASDI and HI depict the excess of scheduled benefits over projected program income. When the statutory SMI general fund revenue requirements are added in, the projected combined Social Security and Medicare general fund revenues needed in 2081 equal 10.1 percent of GDP. A similar burden today would require nearly all Federal income tax revenues, which amounted to 10.8 percent of GDP in 2006.”
** REMOVED ** (This goes against what they want, presumably, and want us to accept, too) ** **
“To put these magnitudes into historical perspective, in 2006 the combined annual cost of HI, SMI, and OASDI amounted to 40 percent of total Federal revenues, or about 7 percent of GDP. That cost (as a percentage of GDP) is projected to double by 2042, and then to increase further to nearly 18 percent of GDP in 2081. It is noteworthy that over the past four decades, the average amount of total Federal revenues as a percentage of GDP has also been 18 percent, and has never exceeded 21 percent in a given year. Assuming the continued need to fund a wide range of other government functions, the projected growth in Social Security and Medicare costs would require that the total Federal revenue share of GDP increase to wholly unprecedented levels.”
This instance of removal of a warning and manipulation of the manipulable Herd was brought to you by:
Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, and Managing Trustee
Hilda L. Solis, Secretary of Labor, and Trustee
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Trustee
Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, and Trustee
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
Really Leo, TRILLIONS? Tax & spend unlike Dubya's borrow (or ignore) & spend. At least he put GWB's wars on the books rather than the AMEX card.
imavettoo, “Tax & spend unlike Dubya's borrow (or ignore) & spend.”
Actually I'd characterize Bush's and the GOP's actions as more like taking a massive self-imposed pay cut and then spending like your salary tripled.
Joe, great satire! Thanks for the link!
“Tax & spend unlike Dubya's borrow (or ignore) & spend”
Are you aware of the debt (borrowing) levels this year? Or do you wish to ignore it (as no doubt some others do)?
(That's in addition to the spending, and the size of the deficit — we all know what that is, right?)
Triple last years deficit.
Well, since Obama seems incapable of waving a magic wand and curing the country of all it's ills, which we know began on the day he took office… (it's common knowledge that prior to 1/20/09 the USA was a land of milk, honey, peace and love) …well, I'd say it's clearly time to impeach him. Maybe we could install Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Could the Supreme Ct. help this time around too?
This kind of “well, your side's just as bad” dialog is why I can't call myself a Democrat or a Republican. We need to clean up the messes that have been made, not scream about who made them. We need to get rid of corporatism before anything new is started. There's plenty of stuff to fix, where are the fixers?
Like it or not, America will keep kow towing to the Chinese, rather if it's a Republican or Democratic president. America as a whole (conservative, liberal, and moderate) got addicted to consumerism and cheap labor. We outsourced ourselves for cheap LCD/plasma televisions, clothing, car parts, etc. America as a whole fell in love with cheap, limitless credit. America as a whole fell in love with “get it done and due diligence be damned” when it came to real estate. So the Chinese hold much of our debt and we will CONTINUE to kow tow until we understand that a little economic protectionism IS NOT a bad thing. How can we even mention America exceptionalism when we treat Americans in general as “unexceptional” when it comes to jobs, jobs, and more jobs???
Leo Please go to this OMB link and explain why the Republicans aren't the drunken sailors.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/pdf/hist…
Leonidas, “Triple last years deficit.”
No one is denying that the debt and deficits are fine. However I do want to point out that under Clinton there was a surplus and the national debt was being paid down. Bush inherited a good situation and turned it around, plunging this country in debt and spending even more money. I understand that the economy was heading into a recession under Bush, but the GOP had the opportunity to do what was good for the country, but choose to spend it all away, throwing the life jackets for future emergencies overboard. The Republicans claim that they are for fiscal responsibility, but they squandered the rainy day savings from the Clinton years and spent it like insatiable and irresponsible children in a candy store.
Obama is now in a very bad situation, having inherited that huge Bush debt and an economy that has been described as the worse since the Great Depression…. Bush on the other hand inherited a very good fiscal situation from the Clinton years but trashed it. Obama inherited an utter disaster. I'm not happy about the debt and deficit, but at least Obama is trying to repair the country's problems, and not give away the store to his pals (like Bush did with his tax cuts to the wealthy). Much (if not most) of the deficit is money that that needed to be spent just to maintain Bush's policies, including two wars, which Bush did not fully account for in his budget…. that was always money that Bush requested later from Congress. And let's not forget that the bank bailouts of $750 billion was done at the end of Bush's watch and now is on Obama's tab.
So yes, there is a huge deficit under Obama… but not all of it is actually “his”.
Your attacks on the current deficit and debt under Obama just confirms my belief that conservatives espouse certain values that they hold other people to, but when it comes to them actually following their so-called basic values that can not be changed, the conservatives do as they damn well please.
The truth of the matter is that both liberals and conservatives know that the government needs money to function and provide certain services, whether it's education, military, or any of the other programs. That's why conservatives spend just like Democrats (though the conservatives are more irresponsible with their tax cuts while increasing spending to epic proportions).
So you're constant whining of over Obama's spending is just tiresome.
While I'm on the subject of conservatives saying one thing until they're in power and do the opposite… in general I'm tired of all the whining the GOP does over Obama's “socialist” policies. I'd like to remind everyone that the GOP bailed out the financial services and wanted to nationalize the banks. Obama is the one who did not go along with those calls to nationalize the banks. As soon as anyone blasts Obama for being a communist or socialist i stop listening because they clearly don't know what they're talking about when it was the conservatives who wanted to outright nationalize businesses.
And who was in control of the Congress? Newt Gingrich and Co., who also reigned in the spending proposals of the Clinton administration. Also the tech boom which had nothing to do with which party controlled the whitehouse and the Congress had a lot to do with this as well.
The best case you can make is that divided government works best, its an argument that seems to have factual support.
Watching the government (both parties) throw money in the federal moneyhole is tiresome.
'”Also the tech boom which had nothing to do with which party controlled the whitehouse and the Congress had a lot to do with this as well.”
The point is how well each party manages the country. I'm not going to get into a debate about who was responsible for the tech boom. However the Democratic Party is most certainly NOT the party of tax and spend. If they were, why didn't they spend more money when we had budget surpluses? The GOP, on the other, not only decreased revenues but increased spending.
What would you do as president to fix this country? In your answer you're not allowed to spend money, since you consider that to be a problem.
Why? because they did not have control of Congress and Clinton couldn't get all his spending propossals through, Newt Ginrich and comapny held him in check.
Now the democrats democrats have done just that, the decifit is triple what it was last year. This year the Dems have Control of both the Presidency and the Congress with no check on their record breaking
As I said before, the best case you can make is that divided government is the most effective.spending programs. It kept going up when the Republicans lost control of Congress to the Democrats also, but now has exploded with a purely democratic controlled federal government.
Please read the pdf link before you sling the Repug meme. Reagan started the deficit mess:
Hannith and others make false claims against St. Ronnie, Even Carter was more of a fiscal conservative than St. Ronnie. Bush i saw the righting on the wall…