Think Again: Deficit Coverage: 'What's Missing?'

[La_Serpiente]

Think Again: Deficit Coverage: 'What's Missing?'

"Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't matter," snapped Vice President Richard Cheney to about-to-be-fired Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill a little over a year ago. He's wrong – as wrong about deficits as he was about Ahmad Chalabi's popular support in Iraq or Saddam Hussein's capability to threaten America. Deficits do matter.

How much do they matter? How much they matter is what's missing from the mainstream press. In fact, you'll have a hard time finding deficit forecasts by reading the mainstream press.

You'll have an easy time finding the Bush administration's official deficit forecast for 2009: $237 billion. But reading through the news section of the Washington Post will tell you almost nothing more. You will read uncontradicted quotes from OMB head Josh Bolten about how "with Congress' help in enacting the budget… we will be well on the path to cutting the deficit in half within five years." You'll come away with the (false) impression that the Bush budget manages to do this and provide $1.24 billion in tax cuts too. You'll find news reporters writing with a straight face about Bush's "confidence" that the deficit can be halved by 2009 alongside big boosts in Defense and Homeland Security spending and the extension of all the Bush tax cuts.

more...

Think Again: Deficit Coverage: 'What's Missing?'

[JasonDeter]

1. Republicans always quote Ronnie cutting taxes but not raising taxes.

Kind of disingenuous of them is it not?

[mrdmk]

2. Did Reagan rise taxes 1982 and still ran a deficit?

I love this paragraph

<snip>
Everyone else will have few problems with what I have written. After all, it is what the chairs of Bush's CEA teach their classes when they are at their academic jobs. It is what O'Neill begged Cheney to help him get Bush to understand. It is what Bolten and NEC Chair Stephen Friedman and current Treasury Secretary John Snow said before they joined the Bush administration. Why aren't they effective on the inside in getting policies like those they used to advocate when they were on the outside? That's really what's missing.
<snip>

White man speak with fork tongue.

[54anickel]

3. Heck, Snow is lying about it at the G7 this weekend. And they'll

probably buy it.

http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?storyID=4305481&type=bondsNews

Speaking after a bilateral meeting with Snow ahead of a meeting of Group of Seven finance chiefs on Friday, Eichel said the U.S. budget pledge was a "good commitment".

Snow said the administration planned to bring the deficit below 2 percent of gross domestic product, adding that this was very low by historical standards.

[kalian]

4. Just wait until intrest rates start to sky-rocket....

then we'll see whether or not deficits matter or not....
As for the sheeple...they'll quiver in fear of losing their worldly
possessions...

[swinney]

5. Reagan record

1. increased spending by 80% (his budgets not congress)

2.increased debt by 187%

3.increased deficits by 110%

4.Had 18 tax increases placed before him for his signature.
He signed 15 without a whimper.He vetoed 3 and 2 were overridden.
1 for 18. not even grade B.Rookie league will turn you down.

5.Reagan created 167,000 jobs per month compared to Carter's 220,000 and Clinton's 237,000.

Bush jr. will read minus. minus. get it. move backwards.


Haynes Johnson in his book Sleepwalking Through History said it was most scurrilous administration in history.

Scandals in 27 departments of the federal government while Reagan slept and pals robbed the vault. Shades of Halliburton!

Clinton Administration was lily white compared to Reagan and Bush jr.

Clinton had one---one--can you read--one.
person who was "convicted" of a "felony" which was commited while he worked for Clinton.

ONE.

clarence swinney burlington nc

[ramapo]

6. Have to hand it to Republicans

They have been masterful at propaganda.

Remember Reagan railing against the Carter deficit, a pile of bills 60 miles high or so? The deficit then was ~1 trillion. Now it's about 7 trillion.

Republicans have for the most part controlled Congress the past 20 years. Now of course they have total control.

They still blame Democratic policies and get away with it.

7. You think the deficit is BAD? Well, think again

I have been doing quite a bit of research on certain economic relationships lately.

I stumbled upon some strange figures and relationships. One of which suggests that the deficit is actually far worse as percent of GDP than is otherwise apparent.

Stay tuned!

[Pops]

8. Here's part...

http://www.dailyreckoning.com

SEX, LIES AND AMERICA'S EMPIRE OF DEBT
by Bill Bonner

A recent NYTimes provides a comment from David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. "The Federal government's gross debt - the accumulation of its annual deficits - was about $7 trillion last September, which works out to about $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country," he announces. "But that number excludes items like the gap between the government's Social Security and Medicare commitments and the money put aside to pay for them. If these items are factored in, the burden for every American rises to well over $100,000."


Oh, but I guess all those numbers just confuse the good taxpayers.