if we want any hope of getting the debt problem under control we need to identify the root causes and reverse them. how much of the debt problem is obama policies? as it turns out not much. 36% is tax cuts and war spending: The Pew Center reported in April 2011 the cause of a $12.7 trillion shift in the debt situation, from a 2001 CBO forecast of $2.3 trillion cumulative surplus by 2011 versus the estimated $10.4 trillion public debt in 2011. The major drivers were: Revenue declines due to two recessions, separate from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003: 28% Defense spending increases: 15% Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003: 13% Increases in net interest: 11% Other non-defense spending: 10% Other tax cuts: 8% Obama Stimulus: 6% Medicare Part D: 2% Other reasons: 7%[2] http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/0...ampaign=Feed:+TheBigPicture+(The+Big+Picture)
Yeah. I don't know whose great idea it was to cut taxes thus lowering revenue then take on a massive bill due to a war overseas.
In 2003 government revenue was 1.78 Trillion. By 2007 & 2008 saw government revenue of over $2.5 trillion each year. Under Bush's tax cuts, revenue increased 50%. Huh.
What happened to the deficit from 2007 forward when democrats controlled the spending? Hey, it's only up 45% under Obama and the dems. That walnut looks pretty big to you, doesn't it?
Yep, that $1 Trillion stimulus really worked well. So did the hundreds of billions spent on green jobs investments over at the DoE. Should have raised taxes early in his term when he had the supermajority and the ideal opportunity. Economy certainly would have been helped with that. Where are the jobs ?
Friday's number is going to be a real shit show. Time to demogogue the business community. Drive up crude prices some more with administration policies. Fix health care. Have a regulations party. Issue regulatory exemptions to friends. If this is all Bush's fault, does the current administration have to keep kicking the American business community in the nuts ?
If tax rates were the issue, then the Democratic Party could easily have remedied the situation with their fillibuster-proof supermajority status. The fact of the matter is that the current administration had plenty of time to adjust tax rates and loopholes and deductions to anything they wanted to. Personally, I wish they would have, because that utopian theory would have been gutshot and left for roadkill just like the Keynesian stimulus theory. Apparently, the Health Care bill was the bigger priority. That's worked out swimmingly for everybody. I always thought that wealth redistribution was more important than universal health care in terms of the progressive plank ? Won't handing out more entitlements cure all ills ?