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I have seen the Mallard Fillmore cartoons by Bruce Tinsley but not these. Very funny.
The Obama budget plan is no plan. amazing! Can you believe it?
The very definition of "Budget" is to control spending based on a plan the goal of which is to have a surplus of revenue. Government officials make themselves look stupid when they are working on a budget where the spending exceeds revenue and still call it a budget. It's is called a, "deficit budget" and is a result of actions taken. But that is two words. In reality one side is arguing for a deficit budget and the other side is arguing for a budget. A deficit budget, especially a recklessly planned deficit budget, is not what a prudent business person would strive for in a free market in order to maintain being a going concern. When a government plans for a deficit budget it is no longer interested in the free markets. Ending up in a deficit budget is fiscally irresponsible and is the exact reason why over 90% of new business fail within the first 5 years. Also, there is no such thing as a "balanced budget" when the plan does not include "off-budget spending". This is the exact reason that the so-called balanced budgets of the 1990s were not really balanced budget. Spending on the side and not including it in the budget is cooking the books and in most is cases illegal. I see this sort of thing every single day. A deficit budget is a recipe for disaster. It is not something one strives for or even plans. Deficit budgets come about from unreasonable decision making. Nobody plans for a deficit budget. It is like saying you are going to buy a new truck even though the price will end up leaving you in default. It is like maintaining special interest spending even though you know it is going to lead to default. In other words, a deficit budget is a major indicator that an organization is risking default and its ability to maintain itself as a going concern. What I have done is logical write that anybody planning a deficit budge, a balanced budget with off the books spending, or ending up with a deficit budget is a high audit risk. It cannot be relied on to even tell the truth. It is like a person with a terrible credit score and yet said person continues to apply for and receive new credit cards. Basically, this is the plan the current administration is trying to sell to the public.
No plan because some people want to spend more or continue spending without raising taxes. The teabaggers can't seem to bridge the reality gap between the balance in the bank and what is needed for incoming revenue. Most of the republicans are ideologues, who toss out wonderful soundbites that have no basis in reality, or are just plain un-informed. But why be informed when Rush or Fox news can tell you all you need to know? The other side of the aisle is not any better. Everyone has their pet projects.
Bottom line is that a paradigm shift from previous fiscal policy era of Reaganomics and trickle down economics needs to take place. We have lost our industrial base and the tax revenue from it. We need to raise personal income taxes and close loop holes on the largest corporations to re-build this infrastructure. But no one wants to say those dirty words, let alone deal with the reality.
The dirtiest word of all is carried interest loop hole. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it. Your congressman will handle for you.
These guys (both republicans and dems) are an insult to used car salesmen. The republicans seem to have the edge in snake oil salemens at the moment.
So spend more and raise taxes. Nice. Tell your boss your spending more and you want a raise.
One is that taxing 100% of income from every evil rich fellow in the top 5% would not cover the deficit...Another is that doubling the income tax for all taxpayers would raise less than 1 trillion so we still would be over $300 billion in the hole...
The problem is not taxing but spending...simple math.
When it comes to economic growth, President Obama’s record falls far short of his rhetoric. Here's the decisions made by President Obama and Congressional Democrats over the past couple of years, and the disappointing results of their policy choices:
January 20: President Obama sworn into office
President tells the American people in his Inaugural Address: “Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.”
Debt Held By Public = $6.31 trillion
February 17, 2009
President Signs into Law the Spending Stimulus
The stimulus adds $821 billion in new spending according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The White House promises this infusion of spending and borrowing would keep unemployment rate below 8%. As millions of Americans are painfully aware, that promise was broken
Debt Held by Public = $6.48 trillion
February 26, 2009
President Issues FY2010 Budget
The President’s budget adds $2.7 trillion in new debt in FY2010 and imposes $1.4 trillion in new taxes.
March 11, 2009
President Signs FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act
The massive spending bill includes 8,696 earmarks at a cost of $11 billion.
The spending bill adds $19 billion in new spending above the baseline – an 8.6% spending increase.
Debt Held by Public = $6.66 trillion
April 29, 2009
Congressional Democrats Pass FY2010 Budget
The Congressional Democrats’ budget calls for a $2 trillion debt increase in 2010, and another 8.9% increase in non-defense discretionary spending.
The reconciliation process is abused to later pave the way for health care overhaul to be jammed into law.
Of note: this is the last time Congressional Democrats will bother budgeting.
Debt Held by Public = $6.85 trillion
February 2, 2010
President Issues FY2011 Budget
The President’s budget more than doubles the debt; pushes the FY2011 deficit to a new record of $1.6 trillion; drives spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion in fiscal year 2011; and raises taxes by more than $2 trillion through 2020, under the administration’s own estimates.
Debt Held by Public = $7.85 trillion
March 23, 2010
President Signs Health-Care Overhaul Into Law
The massive new law adds $1.4 trillion in new spending over the next decade, and over $2.5 trillion once the law is fully implemented.
Despite sluggish economic growth and high unemployment, the law imposes over $500 billion in new tax hikes. CBO Director Elmendorf would later testify that the law would reduce employment by roughly half a percent – a reduction of approximately 800,000 jobs.
Debt Held by Public = $8.18 trillion
April 15, 2010
Congressional Democrats Decide Not to Do a Budget for FY2011
The 1974 Budget Act requires Congress to pass a budget each year by April 15.
In an unprecedented budget failure, House Democrats not only failed to pass a budget – they opted to not even propose a budget.
Debt Held by Public = $8.39 trillion
July 21, 2010
President Signs Financial Regulatory Overhaul Into Law
In addition to heightened regulatory uncertainty, the massive new law adds $10.2 billion in new spending.
Debt Held by Public = $8.69 trillion
February 14, 2011
President Issues FY2012 Budget
The President’s budget yet again calls for the doubling of the debt in five years, and tripling the debt in ten years.
The President’s budget spends $47 trillion over the next decade, imposes over $1 trillion in new tax hikes, and fails to address the drivers of the debt.
Debt Held by Public = $9.45 trillion
April 13, 2011
President Delivers Speech on Deficit Reduction
The President appears to abandon his own budget by offering a ‘framework’ that calls for additional tax increases, defense spending cuts, and Medicare price controls – yet lacks sufficient detail to back-up claims of deficit reduction.
Debt Held by Public = $9.65 trillion
April 15, 2011
House Passes FY2012 Budget Resolution
The House proposed budget cuts $6.2 trillion in government spending over the next decade, saves Medicare, strengthens the social safety net, lifts the crushing burden of debt, and spurs economic growth and job creation.
Senate Democrats fail to meet their legal requirement to pass a budget by April 15.
Debt Held by Public = $9.68 trillion
April 18, 2011
S&P Issues Credit Warning on U.S. Debt
The rating agency sets off the latest alarm bells, warning of lawmakers of unsustainable fiscal course.
President Obama has still not proposed a credible budget; Senate Democrats have still not proposed any budget.
Debt Held by Public = $9.68 trillion
May 13, 2011
Medicare and Social Security Trustees Issue Warning of Looming Insolvency
According to the programs’ own trustees, the unsustainable future of Medicare and Social Security threatens the health and retirement security of America’s seniors.
President Obama and Congressional Democrats continue to engage in a partisan campaign to attack efforts to save and strengthen these critical programs – while offering no serious solutions of their own.
Debt Held by Public = $9.67 trillion
May 25, 2011
Senate Unanimously Rejects President’s FY2012 Budget; Vote is 97-0
While the President’s plan to accelerate our nation toward bankruptcy is unanimously rejected, the stunt on the Senate floorthe bankruptcy of Senate Democrats’ ideas.
Senate Democrats have still not proposed any budget.
Debt Held by Public = $9.72 trillion
June 23, 2011
CBO Director Further Discredits President’s Fiscal Record
In testimony before the House Budget Committee, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf responds to questions on the President’s ‘Framework’: “We don’t estimate speeches. We need much more specificity than was provided in that speech for us to do our analysis.”
Debt Held by Public = $9.74 trillion
July 8, 2011
Unemployment Hits 9.2%; Day 800 Since Senate Democrats Last Passed A Budget
A devastating jobs report that shows the unemployment rate at 9.2% coincides with the 800th day since Senate Democrats last thought the federal government needed a budget.
Debt Held by Public = $9.75 trillion
July 11, 2011
Senator Conrad Gives Budget Speech on Senate Floor
On Day 803 since the Senate last passed a budget, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad takes to the Senate floor to deliver a speech about the Senate Democrats’ non-existent budget resolution.
Senator Conrad makes the case for imposing over $2 trillion in new taxes, but provides no actual budget resolution and no credible details.
Debt held by Public = $9.75 trillion
July 15, 2011
President Holds Press Conference: “We’re Running Out of Time” to Deal with Debt
President Obama tells reporters: “I've got reams of paper and printouts and spreadsheets on my desk, and so we know how we can create a package that solves the deficits and debt for a significant period of time. But in order to do that, we got to get started now.”
The American people have still not seen any “paper” or “printouts” of what specific spending cuts the President supports. The American people have still not seen any “spreadsheets” from the White House to corroborate their claims of having offered a deficit reduction plan.
While it’s long past time for Washington “to get started now” on tackling our debt problems, President Obama has still not proposed a credible budget, and Senate Democrats have still not proposed any budget.
Debt Held by Public = $9.75 trillion
The problem is not collecting too little tax revenue, the problem is the reckless spending, of which Obama has taken to a whole new level.
edit;
The Ryan budget would have revitalized the economy, spurred economic growth, cut taxes across the board, preserved medicare for seniors, medicaid, and the S-chip program for children.
The community organizer-in-chief didn't think so. Chuck Schumer didn't think so either, Schumer lied about the Ryan plan 'killing' medicare all the while knowing that the Ryan plan DOES NOT touch medicare and knowing that Obamacare will in fact, destroy medicare.
Now, Schumer is saying that the Cut, Cap, and Balance budget will "kill medicare".
I guess "kill medicare" is just like using the word "extremist" in which Schumer replied, "I use the word extremist because that is what I've been instructed to say."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_eCS4nU9J8
If this were the private sector, these frauds would either be unemployed, or in prison.
Solution: Washington needs to operate off of a limited budget just as responsible American citizens have to do in their daily lives. NO MORE TAXES because it will NEVER be enough to satisfy the bureaucrats in Washington.
WASHINGTON — Negotiations over a broad deficit reduction plan collapsed in acrimony on Friday after Speaker John A. Boehner suddenly broke off talks with President Obama, raising the risk of an economy-shaking default.
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DOCUMENT: Boehner's Letter on Leaving Debt Talks
Interactive Graphic
Roll Call Vote in the Senate on the House's Budget Plan
Graphic
Comparing Deficit-Reduction Plans
The latest turn in the summer’s epic clash between the White House and Congressional Republicans came little more than a week before the government hits its borrowing ceiling, and set off accusations from both sides about who was to blame.
A visibly angry President Obama, in a hastily scheduled White House news conference, demanded that Congressional leaders come to the White House on Saturday morning. “I want them here at 11 a.m. tomorrow,” he said. “They are going to have to explain to me how it is that we are going to avoid default.”
Mr. Obama said Mr. Boehner had stopped returning his calls when it became clear that rank-and-file House Republicans would not agree to raise revenues on wealthy Americans as part of a debt-reduction deal, despite Mr. Obama’s concessions on reducing future spending for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Both sides have sought a deficit-reduction agreement as part of the essential vote to raise the government’s $14.3 trillion debt limit, which will be reached Aug. 2.
In a letter to his Republican colleagues on Friday night, Mr. Boehner said, “A deal was never reached, and was never really close.” He added: “In the end, we couldn’t connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country.”
The speaker said Mr. Obama wanted to raise taxes too high and would not make “fundamental changes” to entitlement benefit programs like Medicare.
But according to a White House official, Mr. Obama had agreed over the coming decade to cut $250 billion from Medicare spending and $310 billion from other domestic entitlement programs, like farm subsidies and education programs. And Mr. Obama was willing to change the formula for Social Security cost-of living adjustments, which many economists say would more accurately reflect inflation, for savings of about $125 billion more.
All of Mr. Obama’s concessions on the benefit programs were contingent, however, on Mr. Boehner and Republicans agreeing to higher taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations.
At the news conference, Mr. Obama said Republicans were forfeiting an “extraordinarily fair deal” to trim the deficit and raise the debt ceiling. “I have gone out of my way to make compromises,” the president added.
“Essentially what we had offered Speaker Boehner was over a trillion dollars in cuts to discretionary spending, both domestic and defense,” Mr. Obama said. “We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We believed that it was possible to shape those in a way that preserved the integrity of the system, made them available for the next generation and did not affect current beneficiaries in an adverse way.”
Republicans, though, said that the White House pushed for more revenue midway through the talks. “The White House moved the goal posts,” Mr. Boehner said in a news conference.
The breakdown was the second time this month that Mr. Boehner had walked away from the table with Mr. Obama after word of their private talks were leaked to the news media, provoking protests from Republican lawmakers and antitax conservative groups.
“I’ve been left at the altar now a couple of times,” Mr. Obama said. “And I think that one of the questions that the Republican Party is going to have to ask itself is, Can they say yes to anything?”
This time, however, Mr. Obama had also faced a firestorm from within his party, because of the spending cuts he was considering with Mr. Boehner.
Hours before the tempest, the three top stewards of the nation’s financial system — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner; Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — had met to discuss how to react to shield the economy from the blow if Congress failed to raise the debt limit. But in a joint statement, they said they remained confident Congress would act.
Mr. Obama, too, said he thought that default could be avoided. “I am less confident at this point that people are willing to step up to the plate and actually deal with the underlying problem of debt and deficits.”
NY Times
Boehner had a deal involving over $800,000,000,000.00 in new revenues, a BIG concession from him BUT, on Thursday, Obama trashed the agreement and demanded another $400,000,000,000.00...
Nothing like politics to entertain and get the blood flowing!@!
It's like what water rafting off Niagara Falls but lasts longer.
The only problem is that after it's over, you don't really know what happened.
... and please always remember...
If you get the majority of your news from only one of these
CNN
FOX
NPR
Radio Free America
You are pretty much brainwashed. Read a paper, NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist,
Hell, even reading Barons or the Wall Street Journal.
Getting the news from only those three is like trying to get a masters degree in psychology from watching "Friends" on television.
Getting your information from the media doesn't mean it is okay to get your information from the New York Times. What planet do you live on?