Has all logic been abandoned in the Obama worship glazed over eyes?? From Reuters (ick) today:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday blamed soaring budget deficits partly on failure by the former Bush administration to make needed investments in energy security and healthcare.
“We begin our time in office after a long period in which our government was unwilling to make the long-term investments required to meet critical challenges in health care, energy and education,” he said in prepared remarks to the Senate Finance Committee.
The Obama administration is projecting a deficit of $1.8 trillion, or 12.3 percent of gross domestic product, in fiscal 2009, which ends September 30. Geithner said $1.3 trillion of that total was inherited from the Bush administration.
Most of his testimony echoed remarks he delivered on Tuesday to the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
Geithner told lawmakers on Tuesday that $43 billion of new investments will be made in clean energy technology, but on Wednesday he boosted that estimate to $65 billion.
Hummm…. that energy tecnology budget went up $22 billion in one day. I’m afraid to ask what it may end up by the time the budget or energy plan passes at that rate of inflation.
So the budget deficits are so out of control because the Bush admin didn’t spend enough on health care and energy.
Huh?? Read my lips… “requires the willing suspension of disbelief”….
I do notice the article deftly dodged the budget deficit beyond 2009 with the current spending spree. How inconvenient those numbers would be, yes?
It’s common knowledge that you can’t be rational and liberal at the same time.
No point in trying to understand liberals, they say anything and depend on the Pravda parrot to make it so.
Maybe Timmy meant that the glaring increases in spending and deficit — which will be enough to choke out any private borrowing for, you know, investment and stuff –wouldn’t have seemed like such a glaring increase if the previous administration had been even more spendthrift than they were. It’s truly sad and revolting to think that Clinton was the last president that was even close to fiscally responsible.
“Has all logic been abandoned in the Obama worship glazed over eyes?? ”
Uh, yes?
What did I win?
Why’s that sad and revolting? Because a Democrat was close to being fiscally responsible or that a Republican wasn’t?
“…a Democrat was close to being fiscally responsible…”
How close do you have to be? A DEMOCRATIC Congress in 2007-2008, including a certain (soon to be President) DEMOCRATIC Senator voted for and passed a record deficit, a large part of which was a bailout package pushed by more DEMOCRATs than Republicans. Now that the chickens have come home to roost (thanks, Rev. Wright), a DEMOCRATIC president and DEMOCRATIC Congress want to blame a lame duck Republican president and his administration. For what?!?!
Should George Bush have vetoed the 2007 and 2008 budgets? Then what kind of a monster would he have been made out to be?
This is the most infantile administration I’ve ever seen (and I thought Nixon was bad!) It’s pathetic, and reflects poorly on our nation. Bush was far from perfect, but Obama is so afeared of getting a black spot on his lily-white image that he’d rather blame someone else to gain political capital. He’s an embarrassment to the nation, and we’re not even two months in. I dread to think of what’s in store for us in the next 46 months.
Jeff V.
Who cares – if it was the right thing to do then he should of done it. But he didn’t. He was quite happy to veto stem cell research but not big budgets. The buck stops at the President. That’s the responsibility of his office. He has the tools to try and prevent it.
It is a misconception that Bush was against stem cell research and use. Bush vetoed only embryonic stem cells (taken from aborted embryos). These stem have not yet yielded successful treatments.
Bush supported and funded adult stem cell research, which has been very successful in developing treatments of various diseases and disorders.
I personal wish Bush had had the guts and support to oppose the bailout, but he betrayed the taxpayer by rewarding his friends in banking. Every one of those CEOs involved in crooked or reckless trading should be in prison, and their aasets liquidated to recover as much as possible.
Some statements are so silly they don’t require comment.
Gaffa #5. This is the problem when analysis is solely based on the party of the POTUS. ala INRE your comment about Clinton and fiscal responsibility:
What you fail to acknowledge is that Clinton’s fiscal responsibility is due to his alliance with the Republicans in Congress, not his own party.
As Clinton insider during that era, Dick Morris, pointed out on O’Reilly last night, Clinton began his career with the Dems voting overwhelmingly against all his policies. He got royally po’ed with them, and said he’d work with the GOP instead. It is with the Republican Congress, who demonstrated at least a modicum of fiscal responsibility during those years, that spending was held in check, and deficits reduced with the increasing prosperity of the dot.com internet business, and later the affluence by tapping into rising home equity.
Then again, the GOP Congress and Clinton did massive gutting of the US military and intel during that era too… not a wise place to cut the budget, as we can see in retrospect. As far as I’m concerned, my first choice for federal funds should always start with the military.
I’m not a proponent of one party control of all three branches. This nation traditionally has done best economically with a fiscally responsible Republican Congress, and a Democrat President. Not much can be done with the Supremes… it is already dominated by “living Constitution” types, and with Obama at the helm, is likely to only get worse. But Congress can, and should, be changed to restore some balance.
This, of course, requires election of some conservative Republicans, and not any more Democrat-lites.
Rush had the best solution for rising healthcare costs, tort reform. Loser pays. That would solve a lot of other problems in the country.
@MataHarley
That’s the problem. We should give credit where credit is due. I’m sure Reagan did a lot of good things – like ending the Cold War – but he wasn’t fiscally responsible despite his rhetoric. And I don’t think those two are necessarily directly connected. Clinton is mocked by the Right but he did work with the Republican Congress and was fiscally responsible. Bush hasn’t been fiscally responsible with and without a republican dominated Congress. So credit goes to the Republicans in Congress during Clinton’s era as well as Clinton. And at the moment I’m not too impressed by the Democrats in congress nor with the stimulus plans as set up by Bush and now Obama.
As for military budget. Well the US spends a massive amount on the military so the military cannot be exempt from reductions or justifying it’s spending. Of course they are defending US, allies and US interests which is vital. But medics are saving people’s lives but doesn’t mean hospitals should get blank cheques. I no doubt the military has plenty of waste and bureaucracy. Unless it’s a emergency of massive proportions (like WWII) then I think leaders should aim to balance their budgets – even with local wars etc – because what’s the point of winning such wars in you are going to be in debt up to the hilt and screwed during the peace.
You are correct, Gaffa. “Just words” have nothing to do with performance, as adeptly demonstrated in the past 40 days or so.
However what you aren’t considering is that Reagan inherited an economy with higher unemployment and more than triple interest rates than Obama has today. I am not saying that federal spending has no place in correcting for a market. But the devil is always in the details. Reagan’s spending did indeed result in a reverse of the Carter policies that caused the economic climate that Reagan inherited.
Clinton lived under ideal situations. He had a burgeoning economy first fueled by the dot com and internet bubble (which was allowed to deflate naturally after it’s crash). Plus he peppered it by the begining of a real estate bubble. When you combine all those bubbles with a fiscally responsible Congress, it’s a recipe for success in a moment in time. Whoopee. Unfortunately reality doesn’t have a President election date turnover in fiscal year terms. What was begat then comes to fruition a decade later.
Wow… Good think I’m sitting down at the keyboard. Can I quote you on your skepticism in the future??
However let’s not just mesh all together:
1: Bush’s $810 bil (of which about $150 bil had to be added because of the out of sequence start of a bill in the Senate) of Bush ugly spending with Obama’s spending in just about 40 days… with
2: Obama’s $787 bil for the stimulus,
3: plus leftover $350 bil released from what Bush did *not* spend of the original bailout and just released
4: Obama’s impending omnibus of $410 bil (which includes earmarks Bush promised to veto, thus why it’s “last year’s business),
5: Obama’s $75 billion for the HASP mortgage modification program,
6: Obama’s upcoming $634 billion “downpayment” on healthcare “reform”, and
7: Obama’s $150 billion (distributed at $15 bil annually over 10 years) energy proposal.
Let’s see… calculating now… wait… don’t help… That’s
$2,456$2.056 trillion additional spending (to the original $810 bil under Bush) in just the first months,. And don’t forget, only $276 bill approx was released under Bush, so that figure is *not* including the $350 bil from the original stimulus just released via Congress to that $2.056 tril.And those are only the ugly ducklings in a row that we *know* of.
Meanwhile, Geithner’s telling us we need TARP II and III, AIG’s lining up for another hand out, and the auto manuf haven’t been taken care of yet. etc etc etc…. sigh There is no end to the money the Treasury printing presses will be kicking out. We’ll be lucky if the US dollar has any value in the next years, not to mention how that devaluation will affect the daily living of the US citizen.
Let me set the record straight here. I think EVERY government program is fraught with waste, including the military spending. So my first choice is to go thru every program and streamline it to max efficiency. In fact, I think before one penny is allocated to any agency, this should be a requirement.
So of course I don’t think govt should issue blank checks… nor do I think the taxpayer should trust the govt accountant’s estimated costs. They are notoriously piss poor at math. Then again, what do they care? They are spending other people’s money. And what’s a few billion wasted here and there among “friends”….
That was true with WWII, as the US rose to power as an industrial giant since most of Europe’s manufacturing lie in debris. That, however, is not the case with Iraq. In fact, as Iraq did have a valuable resource that could have helped both their economy and the US (yes… oil…). Unfortunately, to be politically correct, we aren’t allowed to benefit with the Iraqi mineral resources. Can you say stupid??? Someone’s going to benefit by oil exports under a liberated Iraq. Why not the US? But nooooooo….
Needless to say, a guarantee affordable oil income over an “x” amount of years could save us beaucoup bucks, and we could implement alternative energy over a longer period of time with additional transition padding.
@MataHarley
With leaders like Reagan and Thatcher – and going back to leaders like Churchill – they have notable qualities and controversial styles that can polarise. The Left often hates to give any credit to them whilst it seems the Right hero worships them. Same can be said for vice versa Blair, Clinton & now Obama. With Reagan the figures speak for themselves and are at odds with his rhetoric. However in weighing up his victories and the confident his gave back to the US which was much in need kinda outweighs the negatives. That doesn’t excuse in my opinion those weakness – such as the large deficit because when you are in charge – how many years do you blame the previous government? Politicans are happy to take the credit when markets are good and blame the global situation when things are bad.
Sure Clinton had it pretty good – but also he could of made it bad. And he could of with hindsight made it better but then again Bush had eight years of Clinton legacy to put in place measures to minimise problem in the US housing markets which has slumped the world into recession. But as Clinton was distracted by Lewinsky scandal – Bush was distracted by Iraq. And Iraq also cost up to 1 trillion dollars. So if the US taxpayer was asked if they wanted to pay for 1 trillion war, with up to 100,000 people killed to stop one dictator out of many who oppressive his people and according to dodgy and as it turned out factually incorrect intelligence has WMDs – I wonder how many people would want to stump that up? Even with the promise of oil.
I just think that the West is financially bankrupting itself – long before this latest recession – with the buy now pay later attitude. Whether it’s dubious expensive wars or stimulus packages – fiscal responsibility under Right and Left leaders has been woeful.
Gaffa:
Thanks for the segue setup, with your question “[H]ow many years do you blame the previous government?” I have been discussing this on a couple of other blogs, and got the idea for a simple experiment.
I keep hearing Obama’s supporters saying how gracious Obama has been towards Bush, though in my opinion these supporters must be confusing grace with bile. To some degree, I think most politicians see themselves as improvements over their predecessors (or at least would like the populace to have that opinion of them), but it has seemed to me that Obama has been playing the “blame game” an awful lot more than most. So here’s the experiment (for all to try; you may be in for a surprise, depending on your political and/or propagandist bent):
In your favorite Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, etc.), enter the phrase “Obama blames Bush” and hit the or key. Note the number of “hits”. Repeat the process, only this time change the phrase to: “Bush blames Clinton” and hit or , and note the number of hits for the second phrase.
Most of you know what to expect, but the numbers may surprise you. Of course, since what we are really noticing is the number of times various journalists have made or repeated either of the claims, which is not necessarily going to be equal to the number of times that Bush or Obama made the claims. How much of the difference would you attribute to Obama’s “gracious” treatment of Bush, and how much to a difference in the numbers of journalists (professional and amateur [e.g. bloggers]) who wanted to voice their opinions? Is much of the difference is due to media bias? (Oops, my bad; there is no media bias!) What other explanations might exist for the differences?
I’m not going to attempt to posit an explanation right now; I’m much more interested in hearing your responses than posting mine.
Jeff V
Geithner is a liar, just like Obama. He just lied about healthcare, claiming people are going bankrupt in this country every thirty minutes because of medical bills. Flat out lie. Liars, cheats and scoundrels are running this country, led by Obama.
Gracious, Obama gracious? That’s something completely foreign to Obama. President Bush was gracious and Obama was at the receiving end. In turn Obama blames President Bush at every twist and turn. Two words for Obama, discusting and pathetic.