Don't Rely on Promises
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How did our national debt get so out of control?
I’ve heard so many stories that I decided to do some research and find out for myself. I found that spending more and earning less nationally, like our own household budgets, caused the problems!
This may seem simple, but our nation is treating it like a complex problem. It’s not.
Ten years ago, in 2001, our nation was running a budget surplus and economic analysts even put forth that we could pay off the federal debt completely. President Bush decided at that point that rather than pay down the federal debt, he would push through two massive tax cuts, resulting in the lowest tax rates in 60 years. Then he and Congress decided to finance two wars, a massive prescription drug benefit, and expanded defense spending. All told, President Bush’s programs amounted to more than $7 trillion of the current federal debt.
President Obama’s policies have added $1.7 trillion to that deficit, although he did try to let some of those tax cuts expire.
He also inherited a massive recession, which he tried unsuccessfully to stem with massive federal stimulus spending.
Then there are the massive debts created by subsidizing wealthy corporations, whether by federal spending programs or by allowing rich businesses to escape federal income taxes by hiding money in foreign countries. My research showed that, for example, General Electric Corporation made $14.2 billion in profits, but paid no income tax whatsoever, and in fact asked for a $3.2 billion tax credit.
I am not trying to tell anyone how to vote, only to do some research of your own before voting. Please don’t rely on political slogans or campaign promises. Become educated on your own. I would love to hear the results of your research!
Linda Tableman
Seven Lakes
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Comments
booscomputer 1 year, 8 months ago
Thank you, thank you, thank you. A voice of reason in the middle of all the finger pointing from both sides at the other. Again, thank you!!!
dustyrhoades 1 year, 8 months ago
Agreed. Very fair. Especially the part where [Obama] did try to let some of those tax cuts expire.
I wish he'd tried harder.
BigE 1 year, 8 months ago
Sometimes you have to decide to stay alive so you can fight on another day. As long as the Congrssional Republicans continue to say and do silly things their position weakens. Seems to me the old guard like McCain recognize that their popularity matters too and that a bit of compromising may help them in the ratings while not helping the economy turn around fast enough to help O get re-elected. Watch as the more mainstream Republics try to find a way to wrestle control back from the extremists. It is hard to imagine that Perry and Bachmann & Co. are smart enough and self-disciplined enough to control their urges but it sure will be fun theater as the party of Lincoln has their own un-Civil War!
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
Linda,
You will probably soon learn from the regular conservatives that comment in this forum that the national debt crisis is all Obama's fault. Oh sure, Republicans overspent during W, but that is ancient history. After all, was it not Bachmann herself who informed us that Obama alone has created more debt than all the other Presidents combined! The fact that that assertion is grossly incorrect, and that in fact one of her Chiefs of Staff resigned when she continued to assert it after he told her it was factually incorrect is of no interest to her or her teavangelist backers. It's a great sound-bite. So what if it is a "big lie."
You will probably soon learn any government program to stimulate the economy by providing any funds whatsoever to individuals is "communist," "socialist," or "marxist." Only plans that help the "job creators," is acceptable, and even then, it must be achieved by freeing them to create jobs by getting rid of those pesky government regulations designed to keep workers safe, to reduce poisoning the environment, or interfering with Wall Street banker's future creation of new risky investment vehicles such as "credit default swaps" and "mortgage backed derivatives."
You will learn that government is the enemy! That unions are the problem (even though union membership is less than half of what it was 40 years ago), that public employees, like greedy overpaid public teachers are the problem. You will learn that the last stimulus did not create or save any jobs (even though it is self-evident that it saved a million or more jobs and created a million or more jobs -- I'll be challenged to provide numbers that back up this assertion; and when I do, they will attack the sources I use rather than whether or not the information is factually correct.
Yes, Linda, I'm afraid that by using cogent, logical, fact-based analysis, to understand how the national debt burgeoned over the last 10 years, you've proven yourself to one of those who have probably relied on the "lame-stream media," and worse, "economists in academia" for "so-called" facts.
You will soon learn "the truth."
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
P.S.
Anyone who doubts what the Republican Party's real agenda is should google "Mike Lofgren." He was a 28 year Congressional Republican Staffer. Of course, we will soon be told that he is just some malcontent so his anecdotes, reflections and assertions should be ignored, or words to that effect. Maybe, like Michelle's time at the IRS, he was a mole all these years, learning how to "defeat the enemy" from working inside the beast!
Tatoosh 1 year, 8 months ago
Jimt, Creating government jobs is neither communistic nor socialistic. It is simply a wonderful mechanism to take the tax dollars that we work created through hard labor and flush them down the toilet. The last stimulus bill spent $162,000 for every teacher job that was "saved". Other examples indicate the recent solar business that received 1/2 a billion dollars of our tax dollars to create jobs and subsequently went bankrupt. You are inaccurate that the stimulus saved millions of jobs. Since a "saved job has no definition" one might easily say that the stimulus saved billions of jobs. It saved more jobs than the universe can bear!
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free"
lhines48 1 year, 8 months ago
Will spoken, but there is one thing that most people are unaware of and that is prior to President Obama taken office the cost of the wars was not included in the national debt. If the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan wars would have been included in the budget during the Bush administration, his administration would have been running in a deficit also. So the deficit is not a creation of the Obama administration as Rush Limbaugh and other want you to believe.
Tatoosh 1 year, 8 months ago
Congress votes and approves spending bills. The President is enforces the law. During the last several years of the Bush Presidency, the Senate and the House were both under Democratic control. The House and Senate were also under Democratic control during the first 2 years of the Obama administration. It is safe to say that for a minimum of 4 years, Democrats had the majority to push either spending bills or deficit reduction bills. I agree that taking the cost of the wars out of the budget is no different than raiding the Social Security funds and replacing them with IOU's. Transferring the cost of the Libyan War to the United Nations is no different when the U.S.A. pays for 34% of the UN Budget. Democrats are not completely responsible for the budget woes. Independents and some Republicans were also complicit. This is the reason why the only solution is a Balanced Budget Amendment. The government would be forced to live within its means just like your household and mine.
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
I guess you consider "two" to be several. The Democrats only had majorities in the House and Senate for the last two years of W's administration. So kind of you to admit the "some" Republicans were also complicit (sic). In point of fact that Republican majorities in the House and Senate were totally complicit in creating the huge deficits Bush ran during his first six years in office, especially being complicit in funding the wars "off the books," and the completely unneeded tax cuts from 39% to 36% at the highest rates that cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars each year and trillions collectively.
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
Bush did run huge deficits even without counting the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan. More correctly, his deficits would have been even larger had he funded the wars honestly.
BigE 1 year, 8 months ago
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
See Linda. This is exactly what I expected.
Bflat 1 year, 8 months ago
Businesses collect taxes and submit (to federal and state) from its employees wages and pass the cost on to the consumer. In order to stay in business it must make a profit to continue to pay its employees. Tax shelters are available to those businesses providing jobs, If that is eliminated and taxes are charged, what do you think will happen? Look for higher prices passed to consumers. Already enough businesses have moved overseas where wages are lower. It is amazing to me that no one ever vilifies the ones that contribute nothing at all but want to take it away from the ones that actually provide jobs. As the old saying goes, Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Yet the media and others will fall completely for the hype of tax businesses and rich people.
fugitiveguy 1 year, 8 months ago
"I can't remember even a single post stating that the 'national debt is all Obama's fault"
Once again the left takes creative liberties with the truth. No shortage of comments blaming the cursed tea party though.
fugitiveguy 1 year, 8 months ago
"President Obama’s policies have added $1.7 trillion to that deficit"
According to the ultra rightwing website wikipedia it is actually 2.78 T but what the hecks a trilion among friends. Works out to about 926 billion/yr. By contrast GWB himself a fiscal failure 763 billion/yr. You see folks, its as I have been saying all along, its not the Dems fault, not the Republicans fault, its both their faults. The question is what do we do about it. Obama proved last night he either hasn't a clue how to deal with it or maybe he has no intention of dealing with it. Last night he delivered a campaign speech. Getting re-elected is job 1.
fugitiveguy 1 year, 8 months ago
"Stocks plunge as worries about Europe intensify"
This is a current headline on WRAL.com. Now, I wonder if they have people on their blogs going on about how "we are not broke" Europe is in a debt crisis, it is affecting the stock market here yet many on here think we should be more like them.
Courseaire 1 year, 8 months ago
I know that Linda didn't select the title of this blog "Don't Rely on Promises", She praising Obama for the promises he's kept and The Pilot is say don't rely on them, slapping her blog in the face. I didn't realize that The Pilot was pro-Teanuts.
ehightower 1 year, 8 months ago
I didn't vote for Obama and still wouldn't but I have to confess that I have some sympathjy for him. ?There is no doubt that he inherited a fiscal mess from the Bush/Cheney gang who spent trillions on two unnecessary wars. Unfortunately, his proposed solution to the job problem won't work because any jobs he creates will be short-term and involves taking money from one part of the economy and giving it to another part. The 20% unemployment rate will be with us for a long time because the manufacturing jobs are now in China and will remain there. Offhand, the only solution I can think of is reducing manufacturing costs by dropping the minimum wage to some compettive figure which will never happen because it is politically and emotionally unacceptable.
fugitiveguy 1 year, 8 months ago
I agree, the key is we must somehow reverse the trend and start to bring back some of the manufacturing base. The question is how? The Obama admin seems openly hostile to anyone with the means (millionaires, billionaires, corporate jet owners, corporations not paying their fair share, etc). I have heard the US is one of the least favorable to do business in from a tax standpoint. If that is truly the case that needs to change dramatically. Far better for the gov to be collecting payroll taxes than to be dolling out unemployment infinitely. When our elected officials begin to do what is good for the country and forget about political expediency and getting re-elected, only then will we be able to solve the festering crisis. If you don't think its a crisis, check out what is going on in Europe.
skylinefirepest 1 year, 8 months ago
TWO unnecessary wars?? Which ones would that be?? And why do you figure that these two wars were or are not necessary? Maybe I'm taking your comment the wrong way...after all, you may have thought like I did that this was the perfect situation to use our tactical nukes and wipe these extemist Muslim A**s off the face of the earth!
blake 1 year, 8 months ago
I agree with you. Charles Krauthammer wrote an interesting piece addressing just this warped idea. It is a good read http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-911-overreaction-nonsense/2011/09/08/gIQAc727CK_story.html
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
Tactical nukes. Yeah, that will show them just how tough and righteous we are!
Just a few questions though. What yields are you contemplating? What specific targets? Do you have any concerns about little piddling things, you know, like "collateral damage," i.e. killings tens of thousands of people, or maybe a lot more, who knew nothing about 9/11, who were in no position to influence, let alone, stop bin Laden in any way, shape or form; or of resisting Saddam's totalitarian regime and stopping his regime from developing "weapons of mass destruction." What would you say to the countries upon whom significant amounts of radioactive fallout would land? Yeah I know, who cares, right?
I was tempted to call you a word that begins with m, has an r in the middle, and ends with n, and in which the two vowels were the same letter of the alphabet. Then I realized that that might get my post deleted, and rightly so, by the Pilot's staff. So instead, I will suggest that your solution may not have been militarily utilitarian or morally justified, even though I know that just the thought of nuking those "Muslim extremists" makes you all creamy feeling and warm.
skylinefirepest 1 year, 8 months ago
Actually jimt, I'm a little old for the "m" bit, but seeing as you thought of it and brought it up then I guess you're the one that swings that way! And while you're at it, sitting at your computer, take a little time out and do a little research on tactical nukes...they don't have a lot of fallout and they, as a rule, would not kill tens of thousands of people.
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
Actually, sf, you've made a mistake in two ways: first you've gotten the word wrong, people of all ages can be what I wrote and changes; and second, I used to have a "Q" clearance issued by the Department of Energy, if you know what that is. I've toured the top secret nuclear weapons museum at Lawrence Livermore Lab. I probably knew more about nuclear weapons effects than I ever wanted to know. I'm very much aware of the effects of tactical nukes. And you simply could not be more wrong. Of course, how many people would be killed depends almost entirely on exactly where the weapons was used. And the amount of fallout depends on altitude of detonation, exact yield, and wind direction and speed. But there would still be no practical results from their use.
And I still think you're a "m......"
blake 1 year, 8 months ago
At least I can agree with Ms. Tableman on one point: do your own research. I see she did not go beyond the propaganda presented by the current administration. I am assuming her data comes from http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt (yeah, no bias there). Here is a good article debunking the fallacious numbers presented: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/obamas_idiotic_infographic.html
Tatoosh 1 year, 8 months ago
3 Presidents Reagan, Kennedy, Bush) realized the wisdom that cutting taxes spurs business, decreases unemployment, and increases government revenues. At the same time, they demonstrated that congress has the ability to outspend what the government collects. They demonstrated a willingness to take funds from designated accounts (social security) and spend it. When spending continually outpaces revenues, the status quo becomes unsustainable.
nothingspecial 1 year, 8 months ago
Linda, et al, help me with this, pleeease. Your comment: "President Bush decided at that point that rather than pay down the federal debt, he would push through two massive tax cuts, resulting in the lowest tax rates in 60 years." implies that these tax cuts were crazy, right? Then what is the deal with this graph at this link that shows that tax revenues went up every year Bush was in after 9-11 until the Fannie May-Freddie Mac debacle? Have I simply found a graph that has been doctored by the global warming scientists?
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/downchart_gr.php?year=2000_2010&view=1&expand=&units=k&fy=fy11&chart=F0-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=l&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
Tatoosh 1 year, 8 months ago
You don't need a graph to demonstrate that spending must equal revenues. Despite increased revenues, Congress spending has always been able to exceed them. Congress controls the purse strings. Democrats have controlled both the House and the Senate for 4 years. The President can suggest tax cuts but only Congress can vote and approve them. Only Congress can vote and approve a budget. There is no spending without Congress. One can only place the blame for the tax cuts on the party that controlled Congress. Who controlled Congress during the end of the Bush Years? Who controlled Congress (spending) during thefirst two years of the Obama administration?
ehightower 1 year, 8 months ago
Whenn I said two unnecessary wars that's what I meant. All we have accomplished is the death of thousands of young Anericans, the woulding of thousands others and for what? We are bogged down in both Afghanistan and Iraq and are spending millions of borrowed dollars every month. There was some sketchy reason for a quick strike in Afghanistan but no reason at all to invade Iraq. That "WMD" line Bush used to launch an offensive was phony. Iraq wasn't a threat to the U.S. and was actually a control over Iran. I used to be a conservative Republican but I got so disgusted with Bush and Cheney I accumulated a lot anger. I also can't vote for Obama so i have no recourse. Our Congress is owened by Israel and our Treasury is owned by China. And wait until things start to get really tough!
skylinefirepest 1 year, 8 months ago
Geez Louis...you really don't give a lot of thought to your comments, do you? Owned by Israel?? Sounds like it came right out of the mouth of Jimmy Cahtah!! We did find wmd, in the form of over a metric ton of yellowcake. Look it up...while the media didn't get excited about it you can still find references for it. Oh, right, I totally forgot that the Sarin and other wmd ingredients were "old" and therefore wouldn't kill as many people as if it had been fresh! My bad!
jimt 1 year, 8 months ago
sf continues to prove his ignorance. Yellowcake is NOT a weapon of mass destruction. Indeed, it is not even a weapon. It is a refined form of natural uranium. Unless inhaled it is not particularly dangerous. And since the first war against Iraq the U.S. has known that this material was in Iraq.
sf, still a m_r_n.
OldPilot 1 year, 8 months ago
Earle Hightower apparently never gives any thought to anything he says and doesn't care much about the truth either. With him it's the same line over and over. He hates Israel & anything associated it, loves the poor Palestineans, wants to do away with something as simple as the minimum wage for workers in the U.S., and in calling the war in Afghanistan unnecessary has apparently forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001, or doesn't care by calling it " some sketchy reason".
nothingspecial 1 year, 8 months ago
Kudlow has a point about the President's new campaign promise here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276815/tiny-targeted-and-temporary-larry-kudlow