Need help debunking Heritage Foundation claim...

[renie408]

I have been at this all night and I am getting worn out. I know somebody who just barfs out all this CRAP on his FB wall. I have gotten sick of it and I am debunking the shit he is posting item by item. I have already gone through several articles and a couple of Youtube attack ad things.

Now he has put this up and I just need some help finding a link that shows this is crap.



If anybody can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.

[renie408]

1. Kicking

[Common Sense Party]

2. That's an old graphic, isn't it? `

The debt is already at $16 trillion, so I'm not sure what the point is.

What the graphic completely omits is what the debt would be WITHOUT President Obama's leadership.

[renie408]

4. I don't know

It is WAY past my bedtime and I have two of these things that I am having a hard time finding anything that debunks them. There is this one and an article from WSJ.com about some CBO report that basically says that Obama is going to drown us all in debt. I am tired and I know better than to try to get into it with this twit, but I started and I don't want to quit.

[lastlib]

3. start here:

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42905

Can't find anything more authoritative and non-partisan than Congressional Budget Office. Heritage Foundation is a right-wing bought-and-paid-for rotten apple.

[Tennessee Gal]

7. According to the link:

CBO's Current-Law Baseline

CBO projects a $1.1 trillion federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2012 if current laws remain unchanged. Measured as a share of the nation’s output (gross domestic product, or GDP), that shortfall of 7.0 percent is nearly 2 percentage points below the deficit recorded in 2011, but still higher than any deficit between 1947 and 2008. Over the next few years, projected deficits in CBO's baseline decline markedly, dropping to under $200 billion and averaging 1.5 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period.

[Ohio Joe]

5. Sheesh... OK...

First, the graph was made by the Heritage Foundation in 2009:

http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/debt-would-double-under-obama-plan

And is speculating what the debt could rise to based on their lies about President Obama's first budget.

Next... Their numbers are lies. According to that chart, we had a debt of 5.8 trillion in 2008... Bullshit:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Speculation based on lies on top of lies. Right wing bullshit is always so predictable... It's always simply bullshit.

[hfojvt]

11. the chart says debt - "held by the public"

And, as such, the $5.8 trillion seems to be accurate. As the total of $10.024 trillion was $5.8 trillion held by the public and $4.216 trillion in intragovernment holdings. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_debtposactrpt_0809.pdf

[krispos42]

6. Obama didn't hold office until '09...

...so starting the reddish part (his term in office) in 2008 is of course vastly misleading as it puts the immediate fallout from the collapse on OBAMA, not BUSH. Bush's term should go to the first bend in on the red line.

And of course, the fiscal year starts October 1st, so if Congress did its job well, the first budget passed under Obama would have not kicked in until the end of 2009, or... almost 2010.


Ask about the following holes in the budget:

Bush tax cuts 2001, 2003, which did not have to be paid for because they were for 10 years or less.

Iraq and Afghanistan, which were funded through "emergency" appropriations on top of base Pentagon spending

Medicare Part D.

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. Are they assuming that we keep the Bush Tax Cuts? - nt

[Tennessee Gal]

9. Try this:

Obama spending binge never happened

Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s

?uuid=3666ead6-a384-11e1-827e-002128049ad6

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor

[bhikkhu]

10. This isn't a bad look at the figures:

From: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/dueling-debt-deceptions/ (though generally they are less than impressive.

While I don't have any big ideas on what to do about the debt, any more than the republicans do, if you want to assign blame it is easy to look at the totals and say that Obama inherited an accelerating problem, and a large amount of debt has piled up during his short time in office. On the other hand, 8 years of Bush's budgets had a pretty much built-in $800 billion a year deficit, and there's no way that could be fixed up in the midst of economic collapse. In 2008, this whole debt mess we are in was pretty well laid out and inevitable.

The one comforting thought I have is that much of that debt actually relates to out-of-control health care costs, a gift from a completely broken system that should have been reformed in 1994. Even the ballooning pentagon budget has been "eaten alive" by health care costs. If there is a path to fixing the mess, I think it has to do with fixing the health care system - and that is a project now in the works.

[hfojvt]

12. "big ideas on what to do about the debt"

Well, for one thing, the "compromise" extension of the Bush tax cuts was projected to cost $.4 trillion in 2011 alone. With 25% of that money going to the top 1%, and 38% of that money going to the next 19%. http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxcompromise2010.pdf

So, if one is really concerned about the debt, it seems to me that $4 trillion dollars in extra revenue over the next decade would help at least a little bit (plus interest). Yet Republicans are adamant that the Bush tax cuts MUST be preserved for even the very richest, and they propose - through Romney and Ryan - even more tax cuts for the very rich.

This from people who claim to be concerned about the debt.

Seriously?

[bhikkhu]

13. Sorry - that was a pretty obvious one!

...and $200 billion in revenue or so (if the +250k cuts roll back) would be a pretty good dent in the deficit, especially projected out over some years.

Looking at the total cost of healthcare in our system vs others - we spend about $2.3 trillion total for services that other countries spend about $1 trillion for. That could benefit from some fixing.

[HiPointDem]

14. yeah, that's how we know they don't give a damn about debt. and since they don't want to

cut the military either, or any of the goodies for their buddies, it's pretty obvious all they want to do is get a hold of social security money & cut the safety net.

lying pricks.

[pa28]

15. It's not up to you to debunk. It's up to him to explain and prove.

Ask him to define "Obama's plan" and "government expansion". I went to the Heritage Foundation's web site and they seem to be rather thin on supporting facts and documentation.

Paul Ryan's draconian plan of cuts combined with top end tax cuts might balance the budget in 20 years. Might.

According to the CBO if we do nothing we'll nearly balance the budget in just a few years. No Bush tax cut extensions. No derailment of the sequestration agreement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cbo-if-congress-does-nothing-deficit-plummets/2011/08/25/gIQATgE9eQ_blog.html

If your friend really wants to balance the budget soon he'll be in favor of the do nothing now approach. If he doesn't like it maybe he can go argue with the CBO.