from 6/10/09: More from yesterday

This is along the same vein as yesterday's comments that further show the need for the Republican party to regroup.

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

Over the last several weeks there has been significant arm flailing by the Republicans about Obama's fiscal irresponsibility. Yesterday Obama released a plan which included an edict that "If you want something, you show me how you will pay for it." called the "Pay as you go" rules. The Republican's claimed that request was "unrealistic" and "unreasonable". Really? If I want to buy something I have to prove I can pay for it. Why doesn't the government?

Let's take a realistic look at the current deficit and the last decade:

Starting in January 2001, Clinton was leaving office with a plan that would have resulted in an $800 Billion/year budget surplus from 2009 to 2012. However, the current deficit for that same period is $1.2 Trillion. That is a total of a $2 Trillion swing.

The deficit falls into essential 4 categories: Business cycle, Carry over of Bush Policies, Extension of Bush Policies, and New Proposed Policies under Obama.

37% of the swing comes from business cycles. That includes recession, current tax reductions, safety net programs, and revised economist assumptions.

33% of the swing comes from policies Bush signed in before leaving office like tax cuts and the Medicare drug benefit.

20% of the swing comes from extension of Bush policies that were approved under the Obama administration like funding for the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250K per year.

7% of the swing comes from the Stimulus signed by Obama in February

3% of the swing comes from health care, education, and energy reforms.

I guess the republicans think people in their party are too stupid to read or count. It's not the 3% in energy and healthcare reform that is bringing this country down. It's the other 97%. Yet the Republican leaders still hold to the rhetoric that HealthCare reform is the end of our economy.

Here are some additional comments I found:

From the New York Times:

Mr. Orszag (Peter Orzag, White House Budget Director) says the president is committed to a deficit equal to no more than 3 percent of gross domestic product within five to 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of at least 4 percent for most of the next decade. Even that may turn out to be optimistic, since the government usually ends up spending more than it says it will. So Mr. Obama isn’t on course to meet his target.

But Congressional Republicans aren’t, either. Judd Gregg recently held up a chart on the Senate floor showing that Mr. Obama would increase the deficit — but failed to mention that much of the increase stemmed from extending Bush policies. In fact, unlike Mr. Obama, Republicans favor extending all the Bush tax cuts, which will send the deficit higher.

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, announced a plan last week to cut spending by $75 billion a year. But they made specific suggestions adding up to meager $5 billion. The remaining $70 billion was left vague. “The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending,” the conservative Cato Institute concluded.

Source: http://dailythoughtsandeditorials.blogspot.com/2010/08/from-61009-more-from-yesterday.html