It’s great that President Bush is calling on Congress to curb the use of budget “earmarks.” But as the Wall Street Journal asked in an editorial Thursday, what took him so long? “Mr. Bush never did say much about earmarks when the GOP was in charge,” the editorial noted. The use of special budget allotments for home state projects exploded while the “fiscally conservative” GOP ran things. And not only did Bush rarely complain, he didn’t veto any spending bill, no matter how bloated. Still, better late than never.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 06 Jan 2007 at 11:44:39 AM GMT is:$8,673,250,029,955.47
The estimated population of the United States is 300,646,067so each citizen’s share of this debt is $28,848.70.
My check is in the mail.All you other deadbeats pay up so we can invade Iran.
Bush screwed up in failing to exercise fiscal discipline via use of his veto power. Now, when he uses it, it is going to look partisan, no matter what he says.
Well DUH! For six years Bush supported massive fiscal irresponsibility as Congress spent like the out-of-control Republicans. NOW, when Democrats are in power, Bush threatens to try to block legislation.
Some bipartisanship!
Soon you will hear the WE screaming that our congressional team in DC is not brining home the bacon. Just like they do with our state legislators. If they don’t bring home the bacon (on things the WE believes they should) then the legislators are not doing their job.
Come on WE you cannot have it both ways.
I have an idea. Oops, it’s gone now. Actually, it’s somone elses idea, because I’m just way to stupid to come up with one of my own. That’s the nice thing about being a Kerrycrat.
Turns out that Bush signed an agreement with the Secret Service to suppress the names of folks visiting the White House; among them, Jack Abramoff.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16491370/?GT1=8921
So, Repukes, when I call George Bush a “liar” and “intentionally deceptive” or “meretricious,” it’s shennanigans of this sort that I have in mind.
outlander,
Boy. That was the lamest attempt at an insult I’ve seen in awhile, particularly the clunky Limbaugh-esque epithet at the end. Wingnut see, Wingnut do.
Now that you’re second-best, you’ll have to try harder, outlander.
AND THAT’S JUST THE NATIONAL DEBT.We haven’t looked at the deficit numbers here yet!
STS”Come on WE you cannot have it both ways.”That’s what I say about tax cuts.We continue to run up the debt and deficit, all the while the Bushies have promised to make permanent tax cuts.Stew-pud.
“President Bush proclaimed that a report by leading economists concluded that the economy would grow by 3.3 percent in 2003 if his tax cut proposals were adopted. No such report exists.”….Gordan Livingston, 06.03.03
What’s the real federal deficit?
How many billions (or trillions) of dollars depends on how you do the accountingBy Dennis CauchonUSA TODAY
The federal government keeps two sets of books.
The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
The set the government doesn’t talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government’s accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.
Congress has written its own accounting rules — which would be illegal for a corporation to use because they ignore important costs such as the growing expense of retirement benefits for civil servants and military personnel.
Last year, the audited statement produced by the accountants said the government ran a deficit equal to $6,700 for every American household. The number given to the public put the deficit at $2,800 per household.
A growing number of Congress members and accounting experts say it’s time for Congress to start using the audited financial statement when it makes budget decisions. They say accurate accounting would force Congress to show more restraint before approving popular measures to boost spending or cut taxes.
“We’re a bottom-line culture, and we’ve been hiding the bottom line from the American people,” says Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., a former investment banker. “It’s not fair to them, and it’s delusional on our part.”continued…..
sheesh, no, double sheesh.
Actually CF, the 9:01 am entry is not mine, (although I am not beyond clunkiness at times). I think that someone didn’t like my saying something critical of the president.
Totalitarian Bush is ready to lead our country into ruins in order to satisfy fanatical idealogoues.Nuff said.
good morning outie
’sup?
SSDD.I’m outa here.
If anyone wants to pay off the national debt mentioned by Tracy above, write the check to the U.S. government this way: eight trillion, six hundred and seventy three billion, two hundred and fifty million, twenty nine thousand, nine hundred fifty five dollars and forty seven cents.
That’s even more than the previous Sedgwick County Commissioners wanted to charge Sedgwick County taxpayers for the proposed white elephant, albatross, downtown ice hockey arena!
Tiahrt ran on the platform of being a fiscal conservative as well as bringing pork barrel spending for a useless airborne laser program which doesn’t work. I wonder how stupid his supporters have to be to be unable to see the contradiction.
Maybe it’s a good idea for the Republicans to sit the next couple of years out so the grown ups can get to work cleaning up the mess they’ve inherited.
Just because George W. Bush says something does not make it true. So why are we believing him now when he is encouaging bipartisanship? His past actions, and the rest of the Republicans, will dictate their future actions. More of the same spending like a drunken sailor.
lucee – please apologize to drunken sailors.
Doug–good point.
Some rock-ribbed right-wingers asked me on another thread “how society is not fair” to the working class.
This is a perfect example. Taxpayer dollars sucked into a boondoggle welfare-for-the-rich program.
It’ll never work, but boy will a lot of wealthy people make a lot more money feeding at the gov’t trough!
What’s not to like if you’re a rich industrialist . . .
Economic wisdom re: tax cuts courtesy of Andrew Samwick of Dartmouth, the following is from one of the best econ blogs out there, imo, as well as one the most (economically) conservative, a.k.a. Vox Baby:
To anyone in the Administration who may read this blog, I have one small wish for the new year. Please stop your boss from writing or saying the following:
[George W. Bush:] “It is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues.”
You are smart people. You know that the tax cuts have not fueled record revenues. You know what it takes to establish causality. You know that the first order effect of cutting taxes is to lower tax revenues. We all agree that the ultimate reduction in tax revenues can be less than this first order effect, because lower tax rates encourage greater economic activity and thus expand the tax base. No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts. Not a single one.
If I’m wrong, show me the evidence … and tell me why the tax cuts were so small given their effects on revenues.
http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-years-plea.html
To repeat:
Not a single one.
“No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts.”
Well for a “thoughtful” person, a blanket statement like that is troubling. No qualifiers like “over blank period of time”. Or blank percentage of reduction”. We all know that tax cuts can fuel economic activity and thus tax revenue. And tax increases discourage economic activity and thus reduce tax revenue.
flike, your source doesn’t pass the common sense test.
outlander, take it up with the Director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, as well as Prof. of Econ, Dartmouth.
Oops, almost left out all other economists.
Sorry. Should have read: take it up with all economists, outlander.
There is a point of peak efficiency that maximizes tax revenue. For anyone to claim that a tax reduction could not fuel an increase in economic activity sufficient to increase tax revenue is simply wrong. This has been proven so many times, in so many cases.
And a pretty sizable percentage of economists agree with this theory.
“In fact, however, the evidence tells a very different story: the tax cuts have not paid for themselves, and economic growth and revenue growth over the course of the recovery have not been particularly strong.”
http://www.cbpp.org/3-8-06tax.htm
Greg Mankiw agrees with this, btw.