national debt

[abbott]

seems we will be to $15 trillion soon

1/2 of our debt's interest is adjusted every 3 years

so $600 billion a year in interest is coming soon....

The higher our debt the weaker our dollar..

Does it even matter?

[Adam]

The higher our debt the weaker our dollar..


so the lower the debt?

If the dollar is worth less, then your debt is worth less to right?

[abbott]

seems to punish the people who gives us the debt....

[abbott]

@ $14.3 today

so do we get to $17 trillion by next week?

we can do it ... the more debt the better... right?

those dam republicans trying to limit our debt is a bunch of bullshit ..

we all need to stand behind our president and support him.

we can do it

[abbott]

so the lower the debt?

If the dollar is worth less, then your debt is worth less to right?

I hope your right, but our debt is not being paid back to us, it is being paid back to people who only have 10% give or take of their income paid to debt vs. the USA has 101% of our income paying debt.

So the money paying debt is worth less and that is why there will be higher interest when adjusted 3 years to make up for the weak us dollar.

Fuck I probably have no Idea really, but going further in debt seems bad to me but my $15 trillion guess/prediction came to quick.

[HAL 9000]

Adam makes a good point, a key issue is that one way for a government to get out of crippling debt is to let its currency become worthless. If the US owes $x trillion then it can print x trillion dollar bills tomorrow and the debt is paid. Germany did this to pay off post WW2 debts.

The US creditors (many of whom are US citizens whose pensions are partly invested in Gov Debt) are worried that the Government will try to let their currency value fall. This would help pay debts and create a short term employment boom (as real wages fall) and reduce trade deficit (more demand for US goods/services).

So in response creditors will ask for higher rates of interest on their lending to the US (to offset the currency devaluation risk). This has a number of impacts. 1) It pushes up the cost of borrowing for everyone else - business suffers, innovation restricted and growth stalls and 2) It means the debt gets bigger faster.

And probably some other stuff that is to complicated to think about right now.

The big problem faced by European Governments is that their currency values are fixed, so they can not let currency devaluation take away their debt burdens. So creditors want lots of interest. Hence the European debt crises.

[abbott]

so how do you get read of the debt? Or is it sound to keep building debt and continue to devalue the dollar?

I am going to stick my neck out her and say if we do not get our debts under control and actually pay our debts and stop getting further in debt, I think we will find our self/America in trouble.

[HAL 9000]

Like any business, it makes sense for a country to run with a certain amount of debt most of the time, it represents investment in the future growth of the country.

Obviously the US (and most countries) have too much debt. By this I mean that the high repayments start to create a default risk and represent a significant proportion of tax revenue.

The usual way out is through growth. When GDP grows, tax revenues rise, welfare coss fall and you get surpluses. The alternative is to cut spending and raise taxes, but this tends to reduce growth and reduce tax revenues in the medium term. The benefit of the latter option is that it has a more immediate impact, the growth route may take years to have an effect.

This is the dilemma facing countries now and I do not know the right answer. Most countries (including UK where I am) seem to be cutting spending and raising taxes, presumably the debts have grown to large to boom our way out of and worried bond markets need to see improvements quickly (also the debts have not been accumulated from invesmtent in future growth that we can expect to reap later - its not like we spent billions creating the worlds greatest public education system). The price we will pay for this is years of sluggish growth.

The US, from what I see on the news, seems to be attempting to boom its way out of debt but now, apparently for the first time, there seems to be a realisation that this alone cannot get debt under control quickly enough, so some attempt at austerity must be made.

[p-branez]

Well said, Hal. A country can run budget deficits as long as its politicians are making productive investments in the country's long-term future.

There's also a third way out of a recession, if we take your route #1 GDP growth to mean private sector growth, as most economists believe is the key indicator. This third route is the the Keynesian way, supported most notable by Paul Krugman, which advocates that we need massive public spending to stimulate aggregate demand.

Unfortunately for the American public, arcane but important macroeconomic policy is the domain of one of the least regulated and understood federal institutions: the US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve. And it's been three decades since Paul Volcker, the last chairman of the Fed to do anything beneficial for the American people rather than politicians and their Wall St. friends. If Americans think we can inflate our way out of debt, let the Volcker Disinflation of the early 1980s be a starting point for study.

The problem with the current American debt crisis, that any international finance player will tell you, is that we continue to ignore the real issues in the federal budget. Politicians ignore the real budget problems: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and American Defense Spending. Instead, our lackluster leaders quibble about fractions-of-fractions of debt in the discretionary fund. Markets, the only indicator politicians answer to, know that the latest "debt compromise" is a short-term solution with no real impact.

[saz]

fuck austerity measures, or punishing the middle-class, working poor, the impoverished and seniors for wall street destroying the economy.

12 ways to reduce the federal deficit (http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/0434ff491a)

1. repeal bush tax breaks for the rich

2. establish millionaires' surtax

3. end tax breaks for overseas outsourcers

4. end big oil and gas tax breaks

5. end abusive offshore tax shelters

6. establish wall street speculation fee

7. tax capital gains and dividends the same way we tax ordinary work

8. create progressive estate tax

9. end wasteful pentagon spending

10. required medicare drug price negotiations

11. enact robust public health insurance option

12. end government waste, fraud and abuse

[valvano]

fuck austerity measures, or punishing the middle-class, working poor, the impoverished and seniors for wall street destroying the economy.

12 ways to reduce the federal deficit (http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/0434ff491a)

1. repeal bush tax breaks for the rich

2. establish millionaires' surtax

3. end tax breaks for overseas outsourcers

4. end big oil and gas tax breaks

5. end abusive offshore tax shelters

6. establish wall street speculation fee

7. tax capital gains and dividends the same way we tax ordinary work

8. create progressive estate tax

9. end wasteful pentagon spending

10. required medicare drug price negotiations

11. enact robust public health insurance option

12. end government waste, fraud and abuse

you must be part of that appx 50% who pay no federal income taxes....if so, next time thank one of those "rich Bush supporters" for paying your share for you..

[saz]

no i pay taxes and unlike yourself, i don't whine about it.

[valvano]

no i pay taxes and unlike yourself, i don't whine about it.


so how much extra do you send the IRS every year beyond your normal taxes due?

nice to see you want people to pay even more to a government that you admit is full of waste, fraud, and abuse. you left out the words "inefficiency", "beauracrats", and "bloat" among others.

yep, the best way to an economic recovery is to punish even more the parts of the economy that drive a recovery. and as obama's failed stimulus has proven, its not govt spending....

[saz]

i'm not american, and even if i were, as if i'd disclose such information on a public internet message board, especially to the likes of yourself. and i certainly wouldn't ask for that kind of information from you. that's just weird.

yes, millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share. why should only the middle-class, the working poor, seniors etc be the ones to make sacrifices? i don't see how generating more tax revenue from millionaires and billionaires, who will not feel it, is punishing anyone.

as for the stimulus, which was 40% tax cuts




Stimulus creates, saves more jobs in June: committee

Washington | Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:58pm EDT


(Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/27/us-usa-infrastructure-jobs-idUSTRE56Q4TS20090727)) - The number of jobs created or saved by infrastructure projects funded by the U.S. economic stimulus plan more than doubled in June from May, according to a report released Tuesday by a House of Representatives committee.

At the end of June, 49,377 jobs had been "created or sustained" by water, highway and public transportation projects, compared to slightly more than 21,000 jobs at the end of May.

The Pacific Northwestern state of Washington accounted for the most jobs of any state or territory at 3,481, with the bulk of those concentrated in highway repairs.

According to the Transportation Department, Washington has also been obligated some $627.8 million out of the $22.7 billion the states have requested from the federal government under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.




Stimulus cash lifts states, localities

Updated 8/2/2009 11:19 PM |
By Dennis Cauchon, USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-02-stimulus_N.htm)


A huge influx of federal stimulus money to state and local governments more than offset a sharp drop in tax collections, helping to put the brakes on the nation's economic decline, new government data show.

The stimulus funds helped reverse six months of spending declines, pushing state and local government expenditures up 4.8% in the second quarter, reports the Bureau of Economic Analysis (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Bureau+of+Economic+Analysis).

"The money has caused a very sharp change in the path of the economy, which had been in steep decline," said Chad Stone, chief economist at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Center+on+Budget+and+Policy+Priorities) in Washington, D.C.

State and local governments are adding new workers andraising pay:

•Employment. State and local governments added 12,000 workers, a 0.1% increase, in the quarter, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Bureau+of+Labor+Statistics). The private sector cut 1.3 million jobs, a 1.2% reduction, during this time. Federal employment was flat.

•Compensation. Pay and benefits rose at a 4% annual rate in the second quarter for state and local workers, BLS reports.

For private workers, compensation was up at a 0.8% annual rate, the lowest since the government started keeping track in 1980.

The jump in government spending — federal, state and local — was the key reason that the nation's gross domestic product declined just 1% in the quarter, a sharp improvement from a 6.4% first-quarter drop.

"The stimulus is working as intended," said Stone.

Economist Randall Pozdena said the temporary boost will hurt the economy in the long run because taxes will rise.

"The question is, are you spending money productively?" said Pozdena, managing director of ECONorthwest, a consulting firm in Portland, Ore.

Most of the extra spending in the second quarter went for buildings, highways and other capital projects, said Donald Boyd, a senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y.

Other state and local spending was flat, after adjusting for inflation.

The stimulus funds let states avoid cuts, rather than increase spending, Boyd said.

Federal cash is now the No. 1 revenue source for state and local governments, surpassing sales and property taxes, the government data show.




U.S. Economy Gets Lift From Stimulus

Economy l September 2, 2009
By Deborah Solomon
The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125185379218478087.html)


Washington -- Government efforts to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy appear to be helping the U.S. climb out of the worst recession in decades.

The U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many economists asserting the worst is past and data pointing to stronger-than-expected growth. On Tuesday, data showed manufacturing grew in August for the first time in more than a year. "There's a method to the madness. We're getting out of this," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight.

Much of the stimulus spending is just beginning to trickle through the economy, with spending expected to peak sometime later this year or in early 2010. The government has funneled about $60 billion of the $288 billion in promised tax cuts to U.S. households, while about $84 billion of the $499 billion in spending has been paid. About $200 billion has been promised to certain projects, such as infrastructure and energy projects.

Economists say the money out the door -- combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon -- is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action.




New Consensus Sees Stimulus Package as Worthy Step

By Jackie Calmes and Michael Cooper
Published: November 20, 2009
The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/business/economy/21stimulus.html?_r=1&hp)


The legislation, a variety of economists say, is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would. Mr. Obama’s promise to “save or create” about 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 is roughly on track, though far more jobs are being saved than created, especially among states and cities using their money to avoid cutting teachers, police officers and other workers.

“It was worth doing — it’s made a difference,” said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a financial forecasting and analysis group based in Lexington, Mass.

Mr. Gault added: “I don’t think it’s right to look at it by saying, ‘Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn’t work.’ I’m afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus.”

In interviews, a broad range of economists said the White House and Congress were right to structure the package as a mix of tax cuts and spending, rather than just tax cuts as Republicans prefer or just spending as many Democrats do. And it is fortuitous, many say, that the money gets doled out over two years — longer for major construction — considering the probable length of the “jobless recovery” under way as wary employers hold off on new hiring.

Among Democrats in the White House and Congress, “there was a considerable amount of hand-wringing that it was too small, and I sympathized with that argument,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com and an occasional adviser to lawmakers.

Even so, “the stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do — it is contributing to ending the recession,” he added, citing the economy’s third-quarter expansion by a 3.5 percent seasonally adjusted annual rate. “In my view, without the stimulus, G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus.”





Exclusive: Obama stimulus reduced our pain, experts say

By Paul Wiseman and Barbara Hansen, USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-01-25-usa-today-economic-survey-obama-stimulus_N.htm)
Updated 1/25/2010 4:38 PM


President Obama's stimulus package saved jobs — but the government still needs to do more to breathe life into the economy, according to USA TODAY's quarterly survey of 50 economists.

Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December's 10% rate — without Obama's $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists' median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs.

But almost two-thirds of the economists said the government should do more to spur job growth. Suggestions included suspending payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, increasing spending on infrastructure, enacting a flat tax on income and extending jobless benefits.

The economists expect the jobless rate to remain in double digits until the third quarter.

David Berson, chief economist at PMI Group, worries that the housing market and the economy will suffer when the government's tax credit to first-time home buyers expires in April and the Fed stops supporting the housing market by purchasing mortgage-backed securities by March 31.

Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, is relatively optimistic. He sees unemployment falling to 8.9% by the fourth quarter of this year. Cheney says other economists are "nervous Nellies," shell-shocked by the length and depth of this downturn. They've forgotten that "the deeper the recession, the faster you come out of it."

But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, says creating jobs is tougher than it was the last time unemployment passed 10% in the early '80s. The reason: The 1981-82 recession was engineered by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation through high interest rates. The Fed brought the economy back simply by reversing course and cutting rates.




Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2

Tue, Aug 24 2010
By Andy Sullivan
Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE67N55X20100824)


Washington - The massive U.S. stimulus package put millions of people to work and boosted national output by hundreds of billions of dollars in the second quarter, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

CBO's latest estimate indicates that the stimulus effort, which remains a political hot potato ahead of the November congressional elections, may have prevented the sluggish U.S. economy from contracting between April and June.

CBO said President Barack Obama's stimulus boosted real GDP in the quarter by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent, adding at least $200 billion in economic activity.

During that time the economy was growing at an anemic pace.

Gross domestic product rose just 0.6 percent during that period, according to preliminary Commerce Department data which economists expect will be revised sharply lower when new figures are released on Friday.

The massive package of tax cuts, construction spending and enhanced safety-net benefits was passed in February 2009 in the midst of the deepest recession since the 1930s.

It raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs during the second quarter of this year, CBO estimated.

Measured another way, CBO said the stimulus increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by up to 4.8 million, as part-time workers shifted to full-time work or employers offered more overtime work.




Moody's Chief Economist: Boehner Was Wrong, Stimulus 'Did Exactly What It Was Intended To' (Video)

Sara Yin
First Posted: 08-25-10 04:10 PM
The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/25/mark-zandi-boehner-was-wr_n_694506.html)


Joining the backlash (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/biden-reacts-with-sarcasm_n_692623.html) against House Minority leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) economic speech yesterday, Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist, said Boehner was "just wrong" to call the $787 billion stimulus spending "a failure." (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/us/politics/25boehner.html?src=me)

If there was no stimulus at all, Zandi said, unemployment would be at around 11.5% rather than 9.5%.

"I think if we had not had the stimulus, estimates put forward by the Congressional Budget Office are absolutely right: we'd have 2.5-3 million fewer jobs than we'd have today," he said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast (http://fora.tv/2010/08/25/Monitor_Breakfast_Moodys_Mark_Zandi#Zandi_Says_Sti mulus_Ended_Recession_Jump-Started_Economy) briefing this morning.

What needs to change are people's expectations, he said. "The stimulus did exactly what it was intended to do. It was intended to end the recession, jump-start the economy, and it did that," said Zandi, who has advised both Obama and John McCain (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/25/boehners-economic-take-at-odds-with-cbo-biden-and-guru-mark-z/) in the past.

As Zandi points out, the government spent "a minor amount" of stimulus money in the first quarter, which jumped to $100 billion in the second quarter and another $100 billion in the third quarter.

"It's that key change that provides the economic juice...that's when the recession ended," Zandi said. "This is why the benefits of stimulus are fading, because we've gone from $100 billion in spending to zero."

In another excerpt from the briefing which you can view below, Zandi said unemployment could reach up to 10 percent by November elections.

"We need 150,000 in monthly payroll gains to stabilize unemployment. We're running at 100,000 at best, probably south of that at the moment," he said. "The math, the arithmetic is clear: unemployment is going to rise."

So when can we expect to see those 8 million lost jobs again? "It'll probably take 5 years."

WATCH Zandi's remarks at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgG0WHxnMqw)

[valvano]

can you not defend your point by using your own words vs C&P a bunch of news articles? and at what point do millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share? 50%, 65%, 70%, 90% tax rates?


its laughable to see you defend the failed stimulus. what's the current unemployment rate, 9.2%? i though the stimulus was to bring it in under 8%. and the true unemployment rate is probably in the 20% range. even pelosi said at the time obama care was passed that 400,000 jobs would be immediately created. ha ha ha.

of course, what do you expect from a president whose only experience was "community organizer". he's never run a business, never had to meet payroll, i bet he's never had to punch a time clock in his life.

i am sure jimmy carter is saying to himself that obama will hopefully replace him as the worst president ever.


oh, just curious. why has nobody around here brought up the "Fast and Furious" fiasco. This has to rank right up there with anything Nixon, Reagan, etc did. havent seen much from the gun control folks around here upset over this.

and here's some stimulus failure articles:

Sept 2010 Real Clear Politics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/23/the_failure_of_obamas_stimulus_107273.html
No one spends money like the federal government. This year alone, it will shovel out $3.7 trillion, which works out to $7 million a minute. So it may surprise you to find out the clearest lesson from the Obama administration's fiscal stimulus program: The government is not very good at spending money.

On the contrary, it's slow and clumsy. Nearly a third of the $787 billion package, signed into law in February 2009, was assigned to infrastructure projects -- from fixing roads and building bridges to weatherizing buildings and upgrading electrical grids.

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Steve Chapman RealClearPolitics
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The idea was to simultaneously improve our physical facilities while putting people back to work, which in turn would provide a badly needed surge of adrenaline to the overall economy. But it hasn't quite worked out that way.

The Wall Street Journal reports that 19 months after the plan was approved, federal agencies have managed to use only one-third of the infrastructure money. Federal contracting rules and labor requirements are among the hurdles that have slowed the process down.

This is not entirely unexpected. The Congressional Budget Office said before the program was approved that less than half the infrastructure money would be spent in the first two years.

That's always been one of the big problems with using fiscal policy -- changes in spending and taxes -- to manage the level of activity in the economy. By the time a policy takes effect, it may be too late to serve the original purpose.

Supporters insist there's no such danger this time, since the economic recovery has been feeble and promises to remain that way. A Bloomberg survey of economists found that most expect the unemployment rate to stay above 9 percent until 2012.

But if that's true, it doesn't say much for the potency of fiscal policy in boosting short-term growth. Obama's program, after all, is the biggest stimulus package, as a share of the economy, in our history. Yet it has landed with the force of a damp sponge.

If the slow-arriving infrastructure spending were the only component, the weak comeback might be understandable. But the other components of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were designed to get money out in a big hurry.

The program included $282 billion in tax cuts, which took effect immediately to boost the take-home pay of workers. It also furnished $140 billion in aid to state and local governments, so they could maintain programs and avoid mass layoffs of public employees.

What's wrong with those elements? For one thing, there is no compelling evidence that they function as intended. Tax cuts are supposed to induce consumers to spend more, but past experience indicates that people use most of the windfall to increase their savings or pay down debts -- neither of which puts people back to work.

A recent study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, by Joel Slemrod and Matthew Shapiro of the University of Michigan and Claudia Sahm of the Federal Reserve Board, says that's exactly what happened with Obama's tax cut. The effect on spending, they concluded, was "modest at best."

Giving money to states and municipalities to spare them from firing teachers and slashing social programs undoubtedly achieves that simple purpose. But when it comes to generating economic activity, it's flying on a wing and a prayer.

Economists William Gale and Benjamin Harris of the Brookings Institution and Alan Auerbach of the University of California, Berkeley, note in a new paper that "while the argument for transfers to states being stimulative is plausible, there is surprisingly little evidence on the countercyclical effects of federal transfers to states."

It is safe to say, though, that they have a destructive impact on taxpayers. During good times, states and cities tend to enlarge their budgets, rather than put money away for a rainy day. Economic downturns serve as a corrective by forcing these governments to eliminate low-value programs to live within their new constraints.

When the federal government bails them out during a recession, it spares them this unpleasant obligation. It invites them to keep spending more than they can really afford.

Of course, the use of deficit spending as a cure for recession has the same effect at the federal level -- reinforcing our leaders' habit of loading debt onto future generations.

As a way of expanding the economy, it's a proven failure. But as a way of expanding government, it's definitely a keeper.


Even a Harvard Business School study determined it to be a failure
http://americanmissive.com/2010/07/11/harvard-business-school/

LANTA— Researchers at the Harvard Business School published a study in late May of this year that turns recent Obama Administration arguments about the efficacy of stimulus spending on their head. The Harvard researchers began with the intent of proving that states and communities benefit substantially when their state’s congressional delegation grows in power in Washington and takes leadership roles on key appropriations committees in the House and Senate. The study was supposed to prove that federal spending in the state would correspondingly increase, and that businesses and the local economies would benefit greatly. What those researchers learned was almost entirely the opposite, however.

The research went back 40 years and did demonstrate that spending definitely increased when a state’s congressional delegation grew in power. However, the study demonstrated that on average, “companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses. Indeed, in the years that followed a congressman’s ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent.”

The researchers considered the causes of their findings, which they found extremely surprising. They concluded:

Some of the dollars directly supplant private-sector activity—they literally undertake projects the private sector was planning to do on its own. The Tennessee Valley Authority of 1933 is perhaps the most famous example of this.

Other dollars appear to indirectly crowd out private firms by hiring away employees and the like. For instance, our effects are strongest when unemployment is low and capacity utilization is high. But we suspect that a third and potentially quite strong effect is the uncertainty that is created by government involvement.”

Fascinating study. But we probably didn’t need Harvard to do a study for us to learn that Keynesian stimulus does little to stimulate lasting private sector economic activity. There is already abundant evidence of this- and two recent events prove particularly instructive.

Most significantly, Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package failed to stem the rise of national unemployment. In fact, unemployment turned out much worse than the Administration’s projection of an 8 percent maximum if the law was passed. As we all know, unemployment has been hovering at or very near 10 percent for over a year since the law’s passage. Not surprisingly, a big part of the reason for this is that companies nation-wide have been doing the very things that the Harvard researchers found local firms doing: hoarding cash, holding back on hiring, cutting expenses, and blaming the overall uncertainty caused by government encroachment into the private sector for their behavior.

Another telling example of this is the career of Robert Byrd, the Senator from West Virginia who passed in June. Mr. Byrd was long a powerful mover-and-shaker on Capital Hill and was considered the king of pork-barrelling. He earmarked billions for the beautiful state of West Virginia. Practically every bridge, road, and monument is named after the man. Despite all of his spending, West Virginia’s economy remains in perpetual malaise, with some of the highest incidences of poverty in the country.

At any rate, progressives are too thick-headed to see past ideology and recognize that economics is more than simple numbers concerning spending and demand. All progressives see is diminished demand, and the need for government to step in.

However, the expectations of economic participants are at least as important in determining future economic activity as demand and government spending patterns. If free people can expect to keep a substantial portion of their own profits; can expect the rule of law to protect private property rights and can expect to be allowed to pursue their economic self-interest without fear that government will play favorites by funding certain industries while demonizing others, then those economic participants will be a whole lot more willing to work, spend and invest. Unfortunately, in Barack Obama’s America, the opposite is almost all too frequently true.

[saz]

by "C&P a bunch of news articles", i'm providing the data and the conclusions of economists that the stimulus worked. as for the mega rich and their fair share, a half decent start would be to raise their tax rates to where they were under clinton.

right, it's laughable to point out the data and the facts, the conclusions of top economists, especially moody's chief economist mark zandi.

as for the rest of your pathetic diatribe, george w. bush had "business experience", and he ran your country into the ground: record deficits, rampant deregulation of wall street and economic collapse, two unnecessary wars, tax cuts for the rich, the prescription drug bill, all of which was down by borrowing trillions on wasteful spending which brought the economy to its knees while gutting the treasury. and how about mitt romney's "business experience"? oh that's right, he inherited his fortune from his father, and romney made more money by purchasing companies and firing thousands of employees. oh and of course there's more "business experience" losers like meg whitman and carly fiorina. government isn't supposed to be run like a business, it isn't supposed to turn a profit, because yeah, america really needs the marine core to turn a profit.

and posting some rubbish opinion piece by someone who is in complete denial and fantasy land regarding the stimulus, ie the fox news bubble where facts, reality and science do not matter, is only making you look even more pathetic.

[valvano]

and how about mitt romney's "business experience"? oh that's right, he inherited his fortune from his father,


i guess you wouldnt have approved of JFK then as President...

and at least the owners of Fox News pays taxes, unlike one of the major owners of MSNBC despite billions in profits...

its funny you say its not supposed to be run like a business...does that mean that the govt is free to not be accountable to tax payers for waste, fraud, overlap, regulatory overloads, bloated programs, unintended consequences, etc?

bush might have left a big terd for obama, but obama has taken that terd and turned it into an absolute shit storm....

[saz]

your jfk remark makes no sense. he was a pretty decent president, and romney as governor as massachusetts wasn't that bad. he's a moderate, but way too pro-business. still, romney is a lot less scarier than bachmann or rick perry.

i agree though about general electric not paying taxes.

no, the government should be accountable for waste et al. however it's not supposed to turn a profit.

as for obama, he made the dumbass decision to extend the bush tax cuts which is adding an additional trillion dollars to the national debt. good call on bush though. he made a colossal mess, and obama is doing a half-assed job of cleaning it up.

it'd be cool if there's one or two additional independent presidential candidacies next year, as opposed to the same old two party sham.

[Burnout18]

its funny you say its not supposed to be run like a business...does that mean that the govt is free to not be accountable to tax payers for waste, fraud, overlap, regulatory overloads, bloated programs, unintended consequences, etc?



No. Why would you suggest that not making a profit somehow means the government is not to be held responsible?

That was easy.

Oh btw anyone who regurgitates what the cheerleaders on radio say, about obama being the worst president ever, has to google james buchannon.... or more recently George W. Bush.

[Dorothy Wood]

What's your solution to solve our debt and employment problem, valvano?

[kaiser soze]

more tax cuts!

that's how all these wonderful and exponentially growing well paying jobs were made for the past 10 years!

or war....that always gives poor men and women a job

[abbott]

we can print a trillion more dollars and put it on red... and that might work

or we can promote private business and cut government spending.

[valvano]

by "C&P a bunch of news articles", i'm providing the data and the conclusions of economists that the stimulus worked. as for the mega rich and their fair share, a half decent start would be to raise their tax rates to where they were under clinton.


$500,000 in Obama stimulus funds to create 1.72 jobs....

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/22/taxpayer-union-slams-stimulus-project-for-lack-jobs-officials-say-it-wasnt/?test=latestnews

[saz]

fox news lol

regardless, bush created this mess, and obama's extension of the bush tax cuts for the rich isn't helping either.

[valvano]

fox news lol

regardless, bush created this mess, and obama's extension of the bush tax cuts for the rich isn't helping either.

failed stimulus.....not LOL because its our tax money... i am glad you think its funny.

[valvano]

bush created this mess, .

bush left the mess, obama turned it into a super mess

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/obama-national-debt.html

[saz]

wrong again (http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/486/usdebt.jpg)

[valvano]

wrong again (http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/486/usdebt.jpg)

thanks for proving my point. how much in debt has obama racked in his few months in office vs all the months of all the other presidents? he has spent at a much greater pace than all other presidents


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obamas-unparalleled-debt-creation/2011/03/29/gIQAI8iOYJ_blog.html

" The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term."