As we receive news today that the Deficit for Fiscal 2011 will be $1.48T, I think our liberal friends need to begin explaining the obvious inconsistencies in what the President says and what he does.

His State of the Union speech was inconsistent to say the least.

OBAMA: Tackling the deficit "means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit."

THE FACTS: The idea that Obama's health care law saves money for the government is based on some arguable assumptions.

To be sure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the law will slightly reduce red ink over 10 years. But the office's analysis assumes that steep cuts in Medicare spending, as called for in the law, will actually take place. Others in the government have concluded it is unrealistic to expect such savings from Medicare.

In recent years, for example, Congress has repeatedly overridden a law that would save the treasury billions by cutting deeply into Medicare pay for doctors. Just last month, the government once again put off the scheduled cuts for another year, at a cost of $19 billion. That money is being taken out of the health care overhaul. Congress has shown itself sensitive to pressure from seniors and their doctors, and there's little reason to think that will change.

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OBAMA: Vowed to veto any bills sent to him that include "earmarks," pet spending provisions pushed by individual lawmakers. "Both parties in Congress should know this: If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it."

THE FACTS: House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised that no bill with earmarks will be sent to Obama in the first place. Republicans have taken the lead in battling earmarks while Obama signed plenty of earmark-laden spending bills when Democrats controlled both houses. As recently as last month, Obama was prepared to sign a catchall spending measure stuffed with earmarks, before it collapsed in the Senate after an outcry from conservatives over the bill's $8 billion-plus in home-state pet projects.

It's a turnabout for the president; in early 2009, Obama sounded like an apologist for the practice: "Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts, and that's why I've opposed their outright elimination," he said then.

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OBAMA: "I'm willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits."

THE FACTS: Republicans may be forgiven if this offer makes them feel like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football, only to have it pulled away, again.

Obama has expressed openness before to this prominent Republican proposal, but it has not come to much. It was one of several GOP ideas that were dropped or diminished in the health care law after Obama endorsed them in a televised bipartisan meeting at the height of the debate.

Democrats overall have no credibility on this issue. Since they took over Congress, the debt ballooned by $5.2T in 4 years. It's so bad they didn't even pass a budget this year. Still, in her last days as Speaker, Nancy Pelosi unloaded this lie:

"Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go."

Some on the Left here have previously talked about how debt is not important. Really? I understand we are paying $4B in interest a day. What could we do with that kind of money?

So far, the White House answer is: if we don't borrow more money, we face disaster. How long can that "work?"

Debt is not trivial. But neither is a failing economy going into double-dip. Our new government decided to prioritise reducing the deficit. The result? Our economy shrank 0.5% in the last quarter. As satisfying as it is to say "I told you so" to Tories, I'm a little concerned for the future.

The thing is, it's far easier to reduce deficits in a period of reasonable growth than it is in stagnation.

But hey, I'm not a liberal so what do I know?

danivon wrote:Debt is not trivial. But neither is a failing economy going into double-dip.

So, what are you saying? We must "invest" in green tech, etc, as the President suggests, OR risk a double-dip recession?

May I suggest a few alternatives?

1. Cut regulation instead of increasing it.
2. Increase energy production instead of restricting it.
3. Look at the discretionary spending increases over the last two years. I've read 84%. I believe that can be cut.

The only solution to economic troubles the liberals seem to know is "spend more." What if spending, and the resultant debt, is part of the problem--and not the solution?

Our new government decided to prioritise reducing the deficit. The result? Our economy shrank 0.5% in the last quarter. As satisfying as it is to say "I told you so" to Tories, I'm a little concerned for the future.

Look at all the things Obama has interfered in--energy, housing, healthcare--to name a few. Could it be that government intervention is causing stagnation?

The thing is, it's far easier to reduce deficits in a period of reasonable growth than it is in stagnation

.

Wasteful spending is never a good idea. Record deficits resulting in what, exactly? What are we getting for $1.5T?

But hey, I'm not a liberal so what do I know?

How to take money from those who make it and give it to those who do not?

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:Debt is not trivial. But neither is a failing economy going into double-dip.

So, what are you saying? We must "invest" in green tech, etc, as the President suggests, OR risk a double-dip recession?

\i'm saying look at the UK and see what happens when a government really tries to cut the deficit too quickly.

May I suggest a few alternatives?

Of course you may.

1. Cut regulation instead of increasing it.

Easier said than done.

2. Increase energy production instead of restricting it.

Energy efficiency would be a better long term bet.

3. Look at the discretionary spending increases over the last two years. I've read 84%. I believe that can be cut.

Define 'discretionary'.

The only solution to economic troubles the liberals seem to know is "spend more." What if spending, and the resultant debt, is part of the problem--and not the solution?

Yes, the deficit is part of the problem. It is also part of the solution.

Look at all the things Obama has interfered in--energy, housing, healthcare--to name a few. Could it be that government intervention is causing stagnation?

Did your economy shrink by 0.5% last quarter?

Wasteful spending is never a good idea. Record deficits resulting in what, exactly? What are we getting for $1.5T?

A lot of that will be a result of the recession. When the economy shrinks, tax receipts go down, and welfare claims increase. Additionally, the US government was in massive deficit before the recession started (and that was without much 'liberal' help). After those two major factors, what is left, Steve?

But hey, I'm not a liberal so what do I know?

How to take money from those who make it and give it to those who do not?

[/quote]Well, I make money, and I put it into the economy. And I pay my taxes, which tends to end up subsidising those who don't work. What you accuse me of is the very opposite of what I actually do. But hey, you love arguing against the image of me you have in your head, rather than the real me, so what should we expect?

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:Debt is not trivial. But neither is a failing economy going into double-dip.

So, what are you saying? We must "invest" in green tech, etc, as the President suggests, OR risk a double-dip recession?

\i'm saying look at the UK and see what happens when a government really tries to cut the deficit too quickly.

One quarter is determinative? On that basis, President Obama should be removed from office about 8 times over.

May I suggest a few alternatives?

Of course you may.

1. Cut regulation instead of increasing it.

Easier said than done.

Um, no, it's actually easy. You see, instead of having the EPA ramp up regulations because you can't get Cap and Trade through, you just keep the current regulations in place. It actually requires no effort--what can be easier than doing nothing additional?

2. Increase energy production instead of restricting it.

Energy efficiency would be a better long term bet.

No, both are needed. Obama has bet the farm on raising energy costs as a means of forcing efficiency--that cannot help the economy now. In the future, efficiency only guarantees we stretch current resources longer. He has done little to expand the energy sources available--and in fact has cut oil jobs and restricted the production of coal.

3. Look at the discretionary spending increases over the last two years. I've read 84%. I believe that can be cut.

Define 'discretionary'.

I can see where it would be difficult for you as liberals generally view all government spending as "mandatory." However, in about 2 seconds I was able to find this:

Discretionary spending is that part of the U.S. Federal Budget that is negotiated between the President and Congress each year as part of the budget process. It includes everything that is not in the mandatory budget, which are programs required by law to provide certain benefits, such as Social Security and Medicare. (See Federal Budget - Mandatory Spending)

The only solution to economic troubles the liberals seem to know is "spend more." What if spending, and the resultant debt, is part of the problem--and not the solution?

Yes, the deficit is part of the problem. It is also part of the solution.

Well now, did you get a credit for helping write the SOTU? Please explain the need for a $1.5T deficit. Please explain how owing more than $14T is "part of the solution." Please explain the benefits of borrowing money from China so we can by products from China? How does that strengthen the US or its economy?

Look at all the things Obama has interfered in--energy, housing, healthcare--to name a few. Could it be that government intervention is causing stagnation?

Did your economy shrink by 0.5% last quarter?

If you had our deficit (proportionally, of course), your GDP could not possibly shrink. The question is what did we get for our money? The answer is: stagnation.

Additionally, the US government was in massive deficit before the recession started (and that was without much 'liberal' help). After those two major factors, what is left, Steve?

How about some truth, Dan? I know it's inconvenient for you libs, but try to work on it, will you?

In its monthly review of the government’s finances, the Treasury Department said Tuesday that the budget was in surplus in January, but the deficit totals $87.7 billion so far this budget year, double the $42.2 billion imbalance recorded during the same period in 2007. The new budget year started last Oct. 1.

The Bush administration sent its final budget request to Congress last week, projecting that the deficit for all of 2008 will total $410 billion, very close to the all-time high in dollar terms of $413 billion in 2004.

So far this year, federal spending is 8.3 percent ahead of last year’s pace, at $949.1 billion. That is far ahead of the 3.2 percent increase in revenues, which have totaled $861.4 billion in the current budget year.

For 2007, the budget deficit totaled $162 billion, a five-year low.

The Democrats gained control of Congress following the 2006 elections. They ran up a $5.2T deficit in 4 years. You can blame Bush all you want, but Pelosi and that "paygo" mantra set the debt off like a rocket.

But hey, I'm not a liberal so what do I know?

How to take money from those who make it and give it to those who do not?

Well, I make money, and I put it into the economy. And I pay my taxes, which tends to end up subsidising those who don't work. What you accuse me of is the very opposite of what I actually do. But hey, you love arguing against the image of me you have in your head, rather than the real me, so what should we expect?[/quote]

It's your philosophy I'm speaking of--you support the government taking from those who produce and giving to those who don't. If you didn't support that, you could not be a liberal.

I'm not a liberal. I'm a socialist.

Fact or Fraud was the question
...Fraud

The speech sounded nice, he spoke about how wonderful America is, he mentioned how government must invest in this and that, government must spend money on this program and that, how government needs to do a whole host of things. These statements were immediately followed with how we must reduce spending?

And one thing that bothers me about BOTH parties, This whole "discretionary" spending nonsense. The military budget is untouchable? Screw that, SLASH the military budget. I was watching a football game on Sunday and they mentioned the game being broadcast on the armed forces network in something like 120 countries! (not sure of the exact number, it was over 100 though) why do we NEED troops in over 100 nations? Why must we be the biggest military while we enable other countries to spend a fraction of what we do (if anything at all?) on defense? It's stupid and should be part of the cuts that need to be made. I am all for a strong military, but we can be half our size and be strong at HOME, let others pay for their own protection, or hey, if they want it, pay us to protect them???

The speech was a fraud, spend spend spend save

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:]Well, I make money, and I put it into the economy. And I pay my taxes, which tends to end up subsidising those who don't work. What you accuse me of is the very opposite of what I actually do. But hey, you love arguing against the image of me you have in your head, rather than the real me, so what should we expect?

It's your philosophy I'm speaking of--you support the government taking from those who produce and giving to those who don't. If you didn't support that, you could not be a liberal.

Actually, here's a more pertinent response. I am talking about what I do, and what I've done. No point in high-falutin' philosophising if your live your life differently. Which brings me to you, Steve. How much of your life has been spend on the public payroll, or working for a company on publicly funded contracts? Looks to me like you took from those who produced.

And what does your current job produce in order to make money?

Danivon, by USA language convention you're both a socialist and a liberal. We don't care what party you vote for in Britain. You consistently - extremely consistently - defend the politicians in the USA who are, admittedly with little real sense of the word's true meaning, called "liberal". I've been trying to avoid that word and use "leftist" and whatnot as much as I can, but one cannot simply ignore common usage. You might try this: "I'm only a "liberal" in the sense you stupid Yanks use the term."

Hey! Better smilies!

Regarding deployment of US armed forces in 120 countries: this includes the contingent of Marines used at every US embassy for building security and/or pomp and circumstance. I don't see why they wouldn't get the Armed Forced TV Network piped in just like all other armed forces overseas. It might even include military attaches. Here is a map from Wikipedia of 2010 deployments:



Dark blue is more than 1,000; light blue is more than 100; orange indicates use of local facilities. HERE is a full listing of military bases overseas. Since 1989 the Base Realignment and Closure process has resulted in the shutting down of more than 350 military installations in the US and overseas.

Regarding Obama's speech: the promise-making habits of US Presidents in SOTUs are formidable by any standard. In this case it looked to me as though Obama's strategy team had adopted the following: that when times are tough, and the demand for real solutions is unusually palpable, the thing to do is to make more and bigger promises than ever (with no more or bigger intentions to actually fulfill them). (I did not watch the Republican response, but understand that huge promises were made regarding cost-cutting without a single specific being mentioned.)

Impression #2: compared to what some of us, back in 2009, worried Obama might be - revolutionary radical left hidden agenda closet commie - this speech proves just how unrealistic those worries have turned out to be. Not only has Obama scampered toward the center faster than Bill Clinton on a pound of amphetamines, he has committed what the radical left would consider unpardonable sins. I'm thinking in particular of one line in the speech that was almost a throw-away, a line he didn't have to include to please any important constituency; after trumpeting (mildly) the end of Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell he mentioned, slightly sotto voce, that this meant US colleges and universities ought to now open their doors to military recruiters. Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers must have had heart attacks. Now you can say that one throw-away line in a SOTU is nothing compared to the government takeover of GM and lots of other demonstrated priorities. True enough - and I'm not saying that Obama was a closet conservative when he entered office. Not even remotely. Or that he's become one. It's just that calling for universities to change a policy that the left and far left in so many locations fought for so strenuously for such an extended period of time is something no real champion of that constituency would include in a SOTU. He might mention it to a particular audience - like veterans, or in a town hall meeting in South Carolina, but not in a SOTU. My opinion.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:]Well, I make money, and I put it into the economy. And I pay my taxes, which tends to end up subsidising those who don't work. What you accuse me of is the very opposite of what I actually do. But hey, you love arguing against the image of me you have in your head, rather than the real me, so what should we expect?

It's your philosophy I'm speaking of--you support the government taking from those who produce and giving to those who don't. If you didn't support that, you could not be a liberal.

Actually, here's a more pertinent response. I am talking about what I do, and what I've done. No point in high-falutin' philosophising if your live your life differently. Which brings me to you, Steve. How much of your life has been spend on the public payroll, or working for a company on publicly funded contracts? Looks to me like you took from those who produced.

And what does your current job produce in order to make money?

And so, devoid of facts, you resort to ad hominem argumentation. Shocking.

I spent 20+ years "on the dole," I suppose. So what if I saved lives at the risk of my own? You're right. Since my philosophy is that smaller government is better government, I should have left public service to the slugs who don't care about government efficiency and simply wanted to collect paychecks. Good call.

As for what I do now, well, you may think whatever you like. It has nothing to do with government and everything to do with helping people--like the funeral I'll participate in for a drug-addicted mother who leaves behind three kids, one of whom would still be in my home if she hadn't been so bent on a lifestyle like her mom's. You know so much . . . it's just de-mazing.

Minister X wrote:I'm thinking in particular of one line in the speech that was almost a throw-away, a line he didn't have to include to please any important constituency; after trumpeting (mildly) the end of Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell he mentioned, slightly sotto voce, that this meant US colleges and universities ought to now open their doors to military recruiters.

True. However, since so much of the higher education establishment is now funded directly or indirectly through the Federal government, the President could force a change overnight on this if he really wanted to.

What I find staggering is the hypocrisy of claiming to have saved the US from a recession while promising to get 85% of our electricity from alternative sources by 2035. Why is that hypocrisy? Because the cost of "alternative energy" is very high, so the President is forcing the price of conventional energy higher in order to try and make "green energy" competitive. Forcing coal and oil prices higher will worsen the economy, but the President doesn't much care.

That's not moderation. He is not a moderate. He is a socialist trying to appear as a moderate. He will not continue to move toward the middle and these Republicans are clever enough to smoke him out.

Doctor Fate wrote:...since so much of the higher education establishment is now funded directly or indirectly through the Federal government, the President could force a change overnight on this if he really wanted to...

Why didn't Bush make the effort?

Minister X wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:...since so much of the higher education establishment is now funded directly or indirectly through the Federal government, the President could force a change overnight on this if he really wanted to...

Why didn't Bush make the effort?

He didn't repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

Obama signed that repeal into law and subsequently "mentioned, slightly sotto voce, that this meant US colleges and universities ought to now open their doors to military recruiters." He has standing to do more than mumble it, doesn't he?

Politically, government support of higher education tends to be popular, because folks don't factor in how much it raises the costs across the board. I think there is also a tendency to presume the government "should" do this.

There were plenty of conservatives who thought Bush should make the effort. I don't think it would have worked, given the popularity he enjoyed on college campuses--and within Congress after 2004.

Okay. Perhaps you're right. I doubt it would be as easy as signing an Executive Order saying, "Let the recruiters in or no more $$" but I could be wrong. In any case, even his sotto voce comment was something I found surprising, and something I took as evidence of his lack of interest in issues of central importance to the far left.

Minister X wrote:Okay. Perhaps you're right. I doubt it would be as easy as signing an Executive Order saying, "Let the recruiters in or no more $$" but I could be wrong. In any case, even his sotto voce comment was something I found surprising, and something I took as evidence of his lack of interest in issues of central importance to the far left.

I agree, but few things are as simple as signing an executive order--except, apparently, when it comes to restricting CO2 emissions via the EPA, reducing offshore drilling, cutting coal mining, etc.

If the President made putting recruiters on campus a front-burner issue, things would change.

Instead, he mentions it. You think it is a subtle whisper of his moderate nature. I think it is a minor bone thrown to the middle in the hopes they will overvalue it.