Obama's budget: $3.8 trillion, w/ a prison

"When (Obama) came to office we had a jobs crisis, a housing crisis, a fiscal crisis,' We are making progress"

Unemployment ids higher, foreclosures are up, and gov't spending is thru the roof. I guess they have a unique definition of the word "progress".

Money for the prison is not necessary at this time and should be dropped. Obama is not kidding America and I wish he would get more serious about his job. Quit trying to make a fool of G.W. Bush because he is only making a fool of himself. Get a grip on Pelosi and save America.

In Obama's first two years, under his total budgeting control, he will add more to the national debt than Bush43 did in his first 7 years, and that included a recession, tax cuts, 9/11 and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since no health care bill has passed, WHAT ON EARTH COULD HE BE SPENDING SO MUCH ON?

The White House must make sure to sell this as Obama making the best out of a bad situation that he inherited. Most of these deficit numbers were forecast long before Obama took office, was elected or even decided to run for president.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

I have to admit, I thought Bush was the WORST President we ever had thanks to Obama I stand corrected.. I would blame the American voter however, I saw at the DNC caucus last election in places Hillary won being given AGAINST the wishes of the voter to OBAMA and the RNC push a UNPOPULAR candidate down the throats of the people by backing McCain over all other Republican candidates.. so what we are left with are the bottom of the barrel to run this country..Last year we had MORE spending that did NOT benefit American's, including his STIMULUS. which the only jobs created were GOVERNMENT jobs at twice what the average American worker makes, kept ONLY government (local) workers from being laid off.. NOW his new budget will increase every thing from FOOD to TRANSPORTATION, while allowing 0 jobs in the private sector to be created..and FACT is will cause the loss of jobs in the small business sector if they make 250K a year..while we have 44% of our Congress that are millionaires while working for US.. what's wrong with this picture?

The republican response is the USUAL. For 9 months they have been screaming JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. The budget says okay we''ll spend to make jobs, we'll cut taxes to make jobs, and we'll build to make jobs. The republican response is, the deficit, deficit, deficit. But then the response to having the really rich pay a whole whopping 3% more and still not reaching the low point of taxes under Ronald Reagan is, he's raising taxes on everyone, which is a pure blatant all-out lie. When you can't beat an opponent with the truth, you lie, and that is the republican response on EVERYTHING, lie, lie, lie.

The downward slide in the economy was had not hit the bottom in January '09. The loss of job in Jan-Mar '09 could not be blamed on President Obama Admin. Let's just sit back, stop complaining for a few months and see what happens. The GOP certainly didn't raise a finger to help the situation. We CANNOT afford to have him fail !!

3.8 TRILLION!?@?!

Is this guy INSANE???!?

Just WHO is going to pay for it when he runs out of "fat cats'
to demonize?????

"The elimination of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year can generate another $678 billion over the coming decade, according to Orszag."
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Here comes the re-distribution of wealth.

Obama truly believes that our hard-earned tax dollars and freedoms are his Marxist play things Wake up, Americans. Obama is going to happily spend us into oblivion in pursuit of his nanny state utopia where he is the boy king. No Democrats in 2010.

A trillion here a trillion there, who cares when you are on a four year paid for vacation.

$3,800,000,000,000
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LOT OF ZEROS . . . AND DEMS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ZEROS ; )

wow! 270 million? we'd be better off just killing the terrorists. isn't that what they should get anyway?

what happened to America that we're so soft and PC now we can't even kill our enemy. if the germans had done something like 9/11 in 1939 or 1940, you'd better bet that FDR would send our boys in to do the job.

Where did the money go for the 850 billion dollar stimulus package we paid for? Answer: it went into the pockets of unions and other corrupt Democratic cronies. Last chance is November, folks, to put the brakes on Obama's out of control spending frenzy on the way to his vision of "transforming America" into a Euro-style socialist state. Obama is a disgrace.

So much hate here in these comments. So much hate and so little understanding. The people who complain don't have a clue about why we have a deficit budget for the next 3 years. As Obama did last week to the House Republicans, let me help you understand:

Obama inherited:
1. $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009.
2. 2 wars which weren't paid for in the previous administration's budget
3. 2 tax cuts which weren't paid for by previous administration's budget
4. Prescription drug bill - not paid for by previous administrations budget
5. Recession which generated $3 trillion shortfall over next 3 years.

Total of above which Obama inherited: $8 trillion

Amount which Obama administration added to deficit with stimulus package: $1 trillion

Now, when you try and criticize Obama, please take the above into consideration.

February 05, 2008|Peter G. Gosselin, Times Staff WriterWASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday submitted a $3.1-trillion budget for the next fiscal year that reflected his strategy for dealing with a costly war and a troubled economy: substantially boost military expenditures, rein in domestic spending -- including for Medicare -- and more than double the deficit.

The proposal set the stage for a long election-year struggle, as a scattering of Republicans concerned about the president's habit of leaving large chunks of the spending out of his annual budget blueprint.

Spending $237 million for the Thompson prison for political purposes is just one reason why the American people are so angry at this Administration.

Keep Gitmo open because there are a lot more terrorists coming at us.

HEY MIKEY FROM CHICAGO. KEEP BLAMING BUSH ALL THE WAY TO A COMPLETE CONSERVATIVE TAKE-OVER BY 2012 . . . . REPEAT AFTER ME "IT'S BUSH'S FAULT" NOW KEEP REPEATING IT, SEE HOW THAT WORKS WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!!!

Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in our lifetime. Never has so much political advantage been squandered so rapidly by arrogant, foolish behavior. It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.

HOPE AND DEFICITS YOU BETTER BELIEVE IN!!!!
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White House to paint grim fiscal picture: source
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House will predict a $1.6

trillion U.S. budget deficit in the 2010 fiscal year, a fresh

record and the biggest since World War Two as a share of the

economy, a congressional source told Reuters on Sunday.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60U1PZ20100201
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AND THIS . . .
Five years, $5.08 trillion in debt
The outlook— more pessimistic than Congressional Budget Office

deficit estimates last week—adds up to $5.08 trillion in red ink

over the next five years. That’s $1.32 trillion or 35% more than

the White House predicted 12 months ago
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32293.html

One has to wonder what the left would say if a Christian organization was trying to do the same thing.

OBAMA ORGANIZING IN HIGH SCHOOL
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/01/atlas-exclusive-obama-organizing-for-communism-and-youth-corps-in-the-publc-school-1.html
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Obama is using our public school system to recruit for his Alinsky-inspired private army. Organizing for America is (and I quote) recruiting in our high schools to "build on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda" ............of national socialism.

Check out the recommended reading list page 4:
Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky
The New Organizers, Zack Exley
Stir It Up: Lessons from Community Organizing and Advocacy, Rinku

Sen Obama Field Organizers Plot a Miracle, Zack Exley, Huffington Post
Dreams of My Father Chicago Chapters, Barack Hussein Obama

THE OBUMBLE CONTINUES TO STUMBLE . . .
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An Agenda in Shambles
The ‘New Foundation’ collapses.
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/agenda-shambles
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In April 2009, President Obama laid out his domestic agenda in a speech at Georgetown University . . . “We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity,” Obama said.
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Less than a year later, this agenda is in shambles. The president’s “new foundation” is just another part of America’s crumbling infrastructure. Its pillars are strewn across the congressional landscape. Democrats are afraid to touch them—and for good reason. They are radioactive.
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To read Obama’s Georgetown speech today is to see a president at the height of his power. The ambition was huge. The language was bold. The theme was clear: The financial crisis had repudiated unregulated markets and a small social safety net; hence the need to reform the financial sector and provide for the uninsured and unemployed. In the president’s view, the crises he inherited proved that the Reaganite model of governance—low taxes, a budget favoring defense over social spending, limited regulation—had outlived its usefulness. It was time to replace it.
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Obama had five goals: reform the banks, spend more on education, create a “green economy” through cap and trade and government subsidy, pass universal health insurance, and shift the focus of discretionary spending from defense to social programs. Strip away the spending initiatives, and you see that none of Obama’s goals has been achieved.
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The bank bill awaits action in the Senate. Cap and trade and health care died in the Massachusetts snow. That leaves education, which is a bipartisan issue and an area of domestic policy where Obama is probably doing more good than harm. It’s small fry, moreover, to a president who billed himself as FDR’s heir.

$273 million for Thompson? Now The Mighty Quinn can waste another quarter-billion to lard-up his Union-pleasing pork program. I was going to say, "The election can't come too soon." But then I remembered the gaggle of jamokes and fat cats who are running for governor. Despair!

Jimmy Carter is the happiest person in the world as he is no longer the worst president in the history of the Unnited States. He says "Thank You!!" to Barack "NICHOLAE CARPATHIA" Obama.

Charging ahead with yet another flawed proposal. Screw the people.

"Bobby: HEY MIKEY FROM CHICAGO. KEEP BLAMING BUSH"

Just stating the facts. If you disagree with them, please be specific and please try to find the Caps Lock key on your keyboard.

I know all of the Obama haters want to blame him 100% for the deficit we face, but that's just not true, is it?

It's now his responsibility to dig us out of it, but given that he inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, it's not going to happen overnight, is it?

And according to every economist, conservative or liberal, by far the biggest contributors to future deficits are health care related and that's exactly why health care reform is essential.

Here's a quote from your favorite source of information - foxnews.com - describing the Senate version of the health reform bill:

"The Senate bill, which includes a government-run insurance plan that would allow states to opt out, would extend health care coverage to more than 94 percent of the population, or 31 million additional Americans. It also would cut the federal deficit by $127 billion over the first 10 years and as much as $650 billion over the next 10 years, according to the analysis by the nonpartisan CBO."

$270 million could be saved by keeping the terrorists in Gitmo -- that prison is already paid for.

President Obama's biggest hurdle in passing his budget intact may not be only Republicans but opposition from within his own Democratic Party. Record deficits, high unemployment and a very feeble and sickly recovery has many Democrats and some Republican incumbents worried that the voters will take it out on them in the November Elections. It is unfortunate that Obama and the Democratic Leadership wasted a whole year on their Health Bill when they should have been addressing the continued loss of jobs and the bad economy. There are even reports this morning that Nancy Pelosi is trying to sneak the Health Bill though but has met resistance from some in her own Party. Don't expect any major things to get accomplished this year by Congress. In an Election Year it is always very difficult to get any Congress, especially this one, to make difficult decisions. They are more worried about their reelection prospects.

For those on the left that either accept this budget or feel that it's still Bush's fault, please tell me why Obama needs $650 BILLION in discretionary spending.
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This is money that our elected officials in the legislature will never again vote on, where it goes will never come to light, and it represents almost 20% of the budget!
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You've got to be nuts to support this.

"Yve: Where did the money go for the 850 billion dollar stimulus package we paid for?"

Yve, first of all, you're either not very smart or you're good at playing stupid.

Second, if you really want to know where the stimulus money went to (and don't just want to spout lies about it), go to this link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.html

Now one interesting thing you will find, if you take the time to read this, is that a lot of the stimulus hasn't been spent yet - the peak year for spending is 2010, which has just started. The other things you will learn (if you can open your mind for a few minutes) is that the stimulus goes all over the economy: Agriculture, defense, energy, education, housing, transportation, Medicaid, veterans, tax cuts. In other words, you couldn't be more wrong.

$1 Billion to keep a bunch of innocent goat herders & fava bean farmers in GITMO, and now they want $250 Million more?

and it represents almost 20% of the budget!
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You've got to be nuts to support this.

Posted by: Greg | February 1, 2010 11:38 AM

Re-do the math!!!!!

Dear Mike from Chicago,

Everyone has the right to be stupid, but there isn't a good reason to flog this right.

Record Budget Deficit.
Record Spending.
Thank you, president Obama.

Dear Mike from Chicago,

Everyone has the right to be stupid, but there isn't a good reason to flog this right.

Posted by: Chris | February 1, 2010 11:59 AM

Everything Mike has said has been an objective fact. Everything you've ever said is predictable right wing stupidity.

------------

If we want to solve the budget problem we need to do what the cowardly right would never consider: dramatically cut the Pentagon's budget. You simps focus on $200/300 items mn while the Pentagon blows tens of billions on cold war weapons systems that will never be used. Let's have the courage to reduce a our defense budget by 25% -- at that level we'd still spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined.

"Thank GOD I'm a conservative: Obama is using our public school system to recruit for his Alinsky-inspired private army."

TGIc: First, you're paranoid. Second, you use Saul Alinsky's name as if it were a perjorative. Have you ever read anything about the man? Do you know what awful things he did? He organized poor people into groups so they had a voice in the communities they lived in. Doesn't that sound like something your GOD would appreciate? Glenn Beck doesn't really tell you the whole story. Go to wikipedia and read about Saul Alinksky and you might form an opinion of him that isn't based on political posturing.

Very disappointed in this president.

THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR HIS 1.5 TRILLION DEFICIT.

He takes care of the government and the unions primarily. Government service used to mean self sacrifice for your country - now they have the best pay, benefits and retirement plans in the country - and Obama likes it like that.

The rest of the American people are suffering to pay the ever increasing taxes with less jobs because company's can do better in another country.

Obama's tax and spending binge is typical behavior for any addict who refuses to accept reality.

It is my understanding Obama refuses to reveal his academic records - that was news to me. I'm sorry but all his talk about change and to then to come up with this budget I can't wait til he's out of office.

"Greg: For those on the left that either accept this budget or feel that it's still Bush's fault, please tell me why Obama needs $650 BILLION in discretionary spending."

Interesting point, Greg. Even more interesting is the $1.21 TRILLION in discretionary spending in President Bush's last budget:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget

Amazing what you can find when you look for it. For those on the right, what's up with that?

YEAH MIKEY, THOUGH LEFTAPEDIA IS THE WRONG PLACE FOR ANY SUBJECTIVE INFO, SUCH AS POLITICS OR GLOBAL WARMING. HE WAS A LEFT-WING MARXIST COMMIE. WROTE RULES FOR RADICALS, THE LEFTIE SOCIALISTS' PLAYBOOK.
MANY LEFTIE WING-NUTS IDOLIZE HIS TEACHINGS.
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Alinsky adviseD his followers that the poor have no power and that the real target is the middle class: "Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is. ... Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority."

But that didn't stop Alinsky and his followers from using the middle class for their own purposes. They counted on the guilt and shame of the white middle class to get what they wanted. In order to take over institutions and get power, the middle class had to be convinced that they were somehow lucky winners in "life's lottery."

Alinsky's radicals found a perfect vehicle for their destruction of the American system and more particularly for taking and maintaining power. That instrument was the Democratic Party.

YEAH REAL NICE GUY!!!

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In any event, Alinsky's rules include:

"Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat."
"Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
"The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself."
"In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt."
"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it." (Think Gingrich, Lott and the success of name-calling used by the likes of Bill Clinton, Paul Begala, James Carville, Maxine Waters and others against conservatives and Republicans. Think of how Clinton "enemies" like Paula Jones or Linda Tripp were treated.)
"One of the criteria for picking the target is the target's vulnerability ... the other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract." (Trent Lott comes to mind. Meanwhile, a former Klansman by the name of Sen. Robert Byrd got away with saying "nigger" on Fox News at least three times, and he still maintains his Senate seat and power.)
"The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength." For instance, Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof. These red-herring tactics work.

Hey help me!!! I could use a million or two and that would help me out if the trouble I am in, the heck with all of that...

"Chris: Everyone has the right to be stupid, but there isn't a good reason to flog this right."

I think you meant "flaunt this right", not "flog this right". I don't mind flogging the right, as in "flogging this right-wing jerk", but I usually don't "flaunt my right" to be stupid.

Bobby Mobbie: Aren't you glad you learned something today? Saul Alinsky wasn't a bleeding heart liberal and he wasn't a marxist, socialist or any other label the lazy want to pin on him. He particularly rejected communism, which was popular among some lefties during that time. He was effective - he helped to empower poor people who had no power and to do that he stepped on a lot of toes and didn't pull any punches. The old Mayor Daley hated him because he didn't knuckle under like everyone else. A lot of people have learned his organizing lessons, including the Tea Party activists, which is pretty obvious if you look through your list of his "rules". The conservative white majority at the time feared him, just like they feared Martin Luther King. They didn't want the poor empowered - they wanted to keep the poor right where they were.

The right-wing zealots (and you sound like one) like to throw the "socialist" label out there. "Alinsky was a socialist, Obama's a socialist ..." and so forth. What's hard for you to recognize in your simplistic attempts to understand the world is that these people have done more to help people than you and your fellow "patriots" will ever do. The world would be a much worse place without their efforts. I wish we could say the same about you.

Obama has really short changed his home state of Illinois, or is it Hawaii, on his budget. Last week it was announced that Illinois was getting only 1.3 billion dollars for "High Speed Rail" instead of over 4 billion dollars that Governor Quinn and the State were expecting. And now the only thing Illinois is getting out of this budget is a prison to house International Terrorists. This is something the majority of the State, except the hard core Obama supporters, do not want. They should keep the Terrorists in Cuba. Illinois does not need to become a target for these murders.

NICE TRY MIKEY, WITH THE BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL CRAP. THE WORLD IS NOT A BETTER PLACE WITH RADICALS OF HIS ILK. JUST LOOK AT HIS RULES. YOU WANT THAT CRAP TURNED ON YOU? HOW "PATRIOTIC"!!!!

Illinois gets the Gitmo terrorists and the rest of the country gets the Federal $$ pork.

@ Mike_from_Chicago.......It seems a waste to have any intelligent conversation with most of the rabid. They are not interested in debating the issues. First comes the name calling....... Socialist, Marxist...... none of it seems they understand the meaning of. Then comes the childish demeaning use of your name. Finished off in the finest CAPS AND YELLING!!!!

In the last budget of the Clinton administration our national debt rose by 130 billion dollars. In the last budget of the Bush administration our deficit grew by 1.3 trillion dollars. A ten fold increase. Who can possibly believe that Republicans are the fiscally resposible ones? Unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts (when we have a huge debt to repay), unfunded drug program The great part is the hypocracy of the right wing and only now seeing government as too big.

"Bill R: It seems a waste to have any intelligent conversation with most of the rabid."

Bill, I know what you're saying, but it's like when I take my puppy for a walk. He's not very well trained and he barks a lot, but every walk is an opportunity to teach him something. You just have to be very patient and try to ignore the worst behaviors.

911 must have been Bushes fault? Saddam was Bushs fault? The prescription drug program was half of what co-author Teddy Chappaquidick Kennedy wanted yet the cost is Bushs fault? Nearly all of Bushs administration he warned of dire consequences of Fannie and Freddie impending failure yet Dodd and Frank and all Democrats argued Bush was an idiot.... The Community Reinvestment Act of Carter then strengthened by Clinton that just happened to fall while Bush was POTUS is once again actually ALL Bushs fault...

"Depot-Jim: And now the only thing Illinois is getting out of this budget is a prison to house International Terrorists. This is something the majority of the State, except the hard core Obama supporters, do not want."

Depot-Jim, where do you get your information? From Fox News? When you were watching Fox, did you see this:

Residents and politicians from the small town of Thomson, Illinois, believe the infusion of federal funds into the area could economically revitalize the area. Thomson's village president, Jerry Hebeler, courted Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to have the local prison house some Gitmo detainees, reports Fox News."

Here's how I see it - if the people from Thomson don't want the prisoners, then they shouldn't send them there. If the people of Thomson want the 3,000 jobs that will result, and they really need and want them, then who are we to tell them no? Thomson, by the way, has always been stanchly Republican.

Mike_from_Chicago

I do not care if Thomson is staunchly Republican or Democratic, I do not like the Terrorists being brought to Illinois. It could make our State a Terrorist target. Remember these are the crazies that back Terrorists that fly airplanes into buildings killing innocent people all in the name of God. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue but a safety issue for the citizens of Illinois.

Mike in Chicago: I usually don't "flaunt my right" to be stupid.

You sure about that, Mike?

Mike from Crooked Politics Town,

"1. $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009." What does this have to do with the 2010 or 2011 budget?

"2. 2 wars which weren't paid for in the previous administration's budget". They should have been part of the budget, but the cost of the war is part of the expenditures and deficits of the Bush Administration. Once again, what does this have to do with the 2010 and 2011 budgets?

"3. 2 tax cuts which weren't paid for by previous administration's budget". These tax cuts did generate more revenues thru economic growth than what they "cost". Since BO is going to raise these taxes next year, his deficits should be smaller than Bush's? By your thinking, isn't that correct?

"4. Prescription drug bill - not paid for by previous administrations budget" I'm no fan of this legislation, since providing healthcare is not part of the federal gov'ts function. Once again, since BO and the dems have been whining about this, why don't they either repeal the legislation or raise taxes to pay for this?

"5. Recession which generated $3 trillion shortfall over next 3 years." Not sure of your source of numbers. Recession is probably over by now anyway. However, if BO were to put some policies in place that would generate employment, there wouls be taxes coming into the treasury. Instead, his policies are creating dependency.

It's the 2011 budget, his second budget, this is all his responsibility.

"that he inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression," - Guess you didn't live thru the 81-82 recession when interest rates and inflation and unemployment were ALL double digits.

Most of Stimulus will be spent thsi year - it's called the re-elect democrats political slush-fund.

BillyR,

"President Bush on Monday submitted a $3.1-trillion budget for the next fiscal year that reflected his strategy for dealing with a costly war and a troubled economy"

I thought Bush didn't budget for his war expenditures?

So BO's budget has increased by 22% from Bush's. Has inflation gone up that much?

worst president ever

* * * * *
Posted by: Mike_from_Chicago | February 1, 2010 9:44 AM (and @ 11:01 AM.)
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No Mike, you weren’t stating the facts. You were regurgitating the spin offered by the Obama administration in defense of its neck breaking budget. It doesn’t wash.
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In the first place, a President does not “inherit” a deficit in any meaningful manner; and especially not in his second year in office. The country may inherit the addition to the debt that deficits from previous years may bring, and it may force SOME changes in the way future budgeting is handled (for instance, in allocating more money for debt service). However, neither the Constitution nor any federal law requires a new administration to adopt the same deficit-creating budgeting practice from a prior year’s budget. The suggestion of you and your comrades to the contrary is simply false.
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Had Obama and company really wanted to reverse some of the high price items brought by the Bush administration, he could not be proposing their repeal to reduce the budget numbers for the ensuing years. Despite their complaints about all of Bush’s spending (which I didn’t like either), it doesn’t appear that they have spent much effort to trim the budget. (For example, Obama hasn’t raised a finger to eliminate the Prescription Drug program I keep hearing Democrats moan about.) And let’s make this very clear: By October of 2008, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - combined - had not cost us more than $1 trillion. Thus, even if we assume all of Bush’s war spending constituted deficit spending, his greatest addition to the debt was still caused by his approval of approximately $4 trillion in excessive domestic spending in eight years. In which case, Obama’s failure to reverse Bush’s domestic spending is very telling.
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In the second place, you entirely understate the influence of Congress in the budget process. It is Congress that ultimately decides what goes into the budget - and not the President. The Constitution gives ultimate power to decide spending first to the House of Representatives and then to the Senate. (I commend your attention to Article I of the Constitution.) The President may “propose” a budget, but Congress ultimately decides its content. Once Congress decides the content of the spending bill, the President can either sign it into law or veto it. He can’t amend it or veto it in part.
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Congress’ role is significant insofar as the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress for the last two years of Bush’s second term. The two yearly budgets prior to Obama taking office - that represent the deficits Obama complained about - were largely the product of the Democrat Congress. If the Democrats didn’t lead the spending charge, they were certainly complicit in it. (In fact, every time supplemental funding for Iraq came up, the Democrats put on a façade of opposing it, only to flip-flop and support the supplemental spending bills after Bush vetoed their attempts to control the withdrawal process.) Those belly busting budgets could never have made it out of Congress without the Democrats’ help. (In this sense, I would also like to remind you that Bush’s Wall Street bailout program initially failed due to a Republican revolt. It was only after the Democrats rallied support - including that of Senators Obama, Clinton, Biden and most of the other usual Democrat suspects - that it passed the second time around. It was very convenient of you to forget these facts.)
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In the third place, you (and other Democrats) routinely fail to take responsibility for what your party has done to expand the federal budget. It would be an understatement to suggest that the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is the product of Democrat legislators over the years, and especially since the 1960s. In the last few years of the Bush administration, the budget of the DHHS equaled or exceeded that of the DoD as the most expensive part of the budget. This is due in large part to the accretion of domestic welfare-state spending programs that just won’t go away. Since the 60’s we have literally thrown trillions and trillions of dollars at the problem of poverty and services for the poor, only to discover that we still have as many poor people per capita as we had before, that many of the poor are the same people living below the poverty level when those programs started, and that the system breeds dependence rather than self-sufficiency. However, instead of trying to improve any of these programs, work to reduce fraud and corruption, or change them to make them have their intended effect, we keep throwing more and more money at them. I think it was Einstein who said that insanity consists of “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In any event, the existence of all the domestic welfare programs gives Congress a lot less elbow room to determine spending priorities. The budget is going to remain a tight fit until someone gets some of the elephants out of the room.
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I am going to stop with the examples now, because I could go on for longer than would be tolerated. The truth of the matter is that this budget represents Progressivism gone wild. It raises spending, raises taxation in a time of economic trouble, and has but a few cosmetic cost cutting features to present a false façade of fiscal responsibility. It is an unmitigated disaster.
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Progressivism: It’s not an ideal; it’s a political disease.

"John W: No Mike, you weren’t stating the facts."

Hey John, you are obviously a smart guy and I agree with a lot of things you say.

However ...

1) Each President inherits the national debt or surplus upon taking office and that does affect future policies and budgets. Each President also inherits his first year budget which is passed the year before they take office.

2) You are correct that Congress comes up with the budget numbers, but Presidents can veto them. The ultimate responsibility lies with the President. I don't think Congress had Democratic numbers to override a Bush veto for any of the 8 budgets that were passed during his tenure.

3. The biggest contributor to future deficits will be health care costs related to Medicare, Medicaid and prescription drug coverage. Conservatives are trying very hard to shoot down the health care reform bill which, according to the CBO, would lower future deficits. Leaving the health care system and Medicare the way it is now would be a disaster, but conservatives seem to be content with the status quo. They talk about things like tort reform and interstate insurance, and those would help, but they don't go anywhere near far enough in fixing the looming disaster.

Mike,

"the health care reform bill which, according to the CBO, would lower future deficits."

The only way that is possible with ten years of revenues and six years of expenses. Also, there are the billions in medicare cuts that any honest person knows will never happen. The democrats health care bill was an accounting sham.

Can you name a gov't social program that has come in under budget and meets the customers' needs? If you are honest, the answer is no, since there isn't one. So why do you think this will be different?

Mike,

You mention that BO inherited the deficits and causes of these deficits were 2 wars, an unfunded prescription Medicare drug plan, and the Bush tax cuts.

What are you estimates for these items on an annual basis? Do they total to $1.2 Trillion? The repeal of the Bush tax cuts is part of BO's budget, so that is a moot point. Also, the Bush budgets and actual expenditures had the effects of the 2 wars and the Medicare prescription drug plan and yet his deficits (except for the last year) did not even approach $500 billion, let alone a $1,000,000,000,000.

"Terry: The democrats health care bill was an accounting sham."

You sound like every other Republican - taking shots at the Democrat's bill without coming up with a viable alternative. As Obama has said many times, doing nothing is not an option. Everyone knows that the bill isn't perfect, but to dismiss it in it's entirety as a "sham" is lazy and counter-productive. Cherry picking things that you don't like in the bill and then making sweeping generalizations about it's overall worth is just playing politics. That's the game the Republicans are going to play and it doesn't help anyone, except maybe help them get re-elected. It's like the guy above who said that the stimulus package just went to help out unions. That's just ridiculously stupid - something you would expect to hear from a Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann - but it's just wrong. You don't like the bill, be specific and say exactly what you don't like and how you could make it better - that's what's needed.

"Terry: 1. $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009." What does this have to do with the 2010 or 2011 budget?"

It's like your checking account - if you spent too much money on holiday gifts at the end of last year and you don't have any money, does it affect how much you can spend this year? Wait, you say, I can borrow more money from the bank and then spend as much as I want this year and I can borrow more next year and do the same thing. Yeah, but you have to pay interest on what the bank lends you and sooner or later they will cut you off.

If last year's deficit didn't affect this year's budget then the Republicans wouldn't be whining so much right now.

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Posted by: Mike_from_Chicago | February 2, 2010 12:10 PM
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Mike,
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I have a few thoughts to add to the discussion, in the following:
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1. No President has ever really inherited a “surplus.” Clinton’s so called surplus didn’t stop government spending from adding to the federal debt every year of his administration. A surplus that doesn’t reverse the debt numbers is worthless, even if one wants to call it a surplus under the special rules of math used by the federal government (and no one else).
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2. I agree that a new administration must cope with budget decision of a preceding administration. The budget in effect when a new President is sworn in is the budget passed by Congress and approved by the past President. That’s a good excuse for one year.
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3. In a President’s second year, however, he has the ability to submit a budget that corrects what he views as fiscal defects from the prior budget. Congress has the power to repeal any legislation for programs and expenditures that waste money. If Congress fails to do so, and the budget isn’t to the President’s liking, he can veto it (at the risk of bringing the federal government to a screeching halt).
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Barack Obama has now started his second year in office, and the budget is his, not Bush’s. True, his current budget and all future budgets must address the debt. That is taken care of by paying more toward debt service. (Debt service is what? 10 to 11 % of the budget? It was about 9% under Bush.) A 1.6 trillion deficit (i.e. expenditures in excess of revenues) cannot be explained away by the need to pay more for the debt service.
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4. Congress was and is responsible for the last two budgets under the Bush administration because Bush never vetoed any spending bill that didn’t try to control his executive authority. Bush took the wrongheaded view that he would let Congress do what it wanted - with the expectation that Congress would give him everything he wanted in return. Those in Congress knew this and took advantage of it by loading up on the spending. Bush has his share of responsibility for the deficits in the last two years for failing to properly function as a check against congressional excess. For that, I blame him sorely. However, were it not for the non-conservative Republicans (that is to say, most of them) and Democrats (who could have voted against these excesses - ehhh - in an alternate universe, anyway), those budgets and spending bills would never have made it to Duh’bya’s desk. When a power is share between two branches of government, the blame for wrongdoing in the exercise of that power is shared as well.
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5. I, like Terry, am skeptical of government accounting and actuarial practices. These are the scandalous pastimes of scoundrels. In 1965, when Medicare was being proposed, the federal government's lead actuary projected that the hospital program (Medicare Part A) would grow to only $9 billion by 1990. The program ended up costing more than $66 billion that year, equaling seven times the projected cost. And see http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3700 How’s that for trustworthy?
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And furthermore, the idea of deficit reduction is a little on the ludicrous side when we are told by the CBO and/or the GAO (I forget which) that we are going to have a $1 trillion deficit in 2020 if we follow this path. That’s not deficit reduction by any definition of which I am aware.
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6. The budget will raise taxes on those capable of providing jobs to the jobless. That will not just discourage job creation. It will discourage investment in labor intensive industries, and in many cases, take away the wherewithal to create jobs in the private sector. It will also require the continuation of support for the unemployed. That is simply unwise at this point in history. The President should go back to the drawing board and take a long hard look at making major cuts in the budget to pay for whatever programs he wants to add.

Mike,

Here is the GOP health care plan - only 219 pages instead 2,000+ pages of burecratic mumbo-jumbo. The line that the GOP stood for the status quo is bunk.

http://rules-republicans.house.gov/Media/PDF/RepublicanAlternative3962_9.pdf

I wasn't cherry picking anything - I was showing that the democrat health care bill is not deficit neutral as advertised.. You don't even address the points I made that show the accounting sham - more years of revenues than expenses and a phony cut in medicare payments to health providers.

Your second posts - I'll give your interest expense on the incremental debt from the Bush deficits, but add that interest expense and the cost of 2 wars, and the unfunded Medicare perscription plan and you have an amount that is nowhere close to the $1.2 Trillion deficit nor the deficits of the out years. He needs to cut back on his own spending increases that have been implemented in 2009 & 2010.

Excellent news from the Obama Administration. The 2011 budget cuts tax benefits for oil and coal companies, while dedicating new funds to nuclear and clean energy sectors. Let’s hope lobbyists don’t stall or derail this important shift in federal funding directives.

Researching how to make your company, product, or next project more Green? Go to http://www.greencollareconomy.com for sustainability white papers and the largest b2b green directory on the web.

Casey,

The new funds for nuclear energy is a mirage since BO has cut funds for Yucca mountain..

I like how they keep removing post that show how Obama lies.