CBO foresees $1.2 trillion budget deficit

In a wiser time, this information would create a blush of alarm to the cheeks of politicians from both parties. Both would call this deficit explosion a crisis and convene a bipartisan effort to review every single government department, agency, and program to consider disbanding it, cutting it, merging it with another agency or outsourcing large portions of it --- with the aim of doing whatever was necessary to control spending. Now these pols just use it as an excuse to spend even more money that we don't have. In a wiser time, the new media would demand explanations on how they are going to pay for all their largesse from every pol promising the sun, moon, and stars to voters. In a wiser time, ordinary people from every income level would hear all these politicians' promises, call it "BS", and demand an explanation for how the pol intended to pay for it --- really "pay" for it, instead of just borrowing trillions from the Chinese. But we're not in a wiser time --- the leaders in politics, business, and academia are just too sophisticated to ask the hard questions or make the tough budget decisions.

Jaeger wrote: But we're not in a wiser time --- the leaders in politics, business, and academia are just too sophisticated to ask the hard questions or make the tough budget decisions. ********************************************* In a wiser time Reagan nor Bush would have been elected.

Deficit of experience, deficit of judgement ... what else can we expect of Obama than budgetary deficits? ***Trillion dollar*** deficits for years? This will be his legacy.

ds80 wrote: Deficit of experience, deficit of judgement ... what else can we expect of Obama than budgetary deficits? ***Trillion dollar*** deficits for years? This will be his legacy. ********************************************** Those are Bush's deficits! What disconnect so like the conservatives. It is always the other guys fault. Can't you read? ********************************************** The federal budget deficit will hit a record $1.18 trillion this year even before President-elect Barack Obama can spend a dime of taxpayer money to stimulate the economy, the Congressional Budget Office said in a forecast released Wednesday.

sorry, truthwilltell: it's not Bush proposing trillion dollar deficits for the unforseen future, it's Obama. Spend, tax, spend, tax. But let's see: I think the Democrats have controlled Congress now for a few years. And did Congress - who controls the purse - CUT spending? Nope. Keep milking the "It's Bush's fault" mantra.

truthwilltell: What is your point? Are you seriously claiming that if Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, and Gore had been elected, the nation would have a balanced budget? That's quite a stretch, don't you think, given the massive expansion of government social and entitlement programs they all proposed during their political campaigns. The greatest single category presently in the federal budget is entitlement spending. We can't stay within budget at the present level. Had your Democrat candidates been elected, the budget would have exploded by far more. Your candidate and party are taking the fiscal folly of the Republicans to levels well beyond Reagan and Bush ever did or ever would have. The GOP doesn't get a pass on fiscal stupidity, and, if you ridicule them for that, then I'm with you all the way. However, neither does your side get a pass on this. What's amazing is that your side has the gall to condemn Republicans for this, and, then, turn around and spend trillions of dollars per year well into the future. If you're going to condemn Reagan and Bush, then you must also condemn Obama and the new Congress.

ds80 wrote: sorry, truthwilltell: it's not Bush proposing trillion dollar deficits for the unforseen future, it's Obama. ******************************************** The nonpartisal budget office said the cumulative federal deficit for the next five years is projected to top $1.9 trillion. *********************************************** Thats two trillion dollars and he has not taken the oath as yet. Read with understanding.

Jaeger wrote: truthwilltell: What is your point? Are you seriously claiming that if Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, and Gore had been elected, the nation would have a balanced budget? That's quite a stretch, don't you think, given the massive expansion of government social and entitlement programs they all proposed during their political campaigns *********************************************** The facts are Reagan started this economic slide that America is on. Supply side economics caused tremendous deficits. The deficits were so huge that Reagan raised taxes twice in 1982. The national debt when Reagan took the oath was 954 billion dollars, when he left office it was close to 4 trillion dollars. Bush will leave office with the national debt at 11 trillion dollars and with another 2 trillion dollars or more on his tab. Under Reagan we turned into a debtor nation. Reagan, Bush and collectively the Republican party haved ruined this country and started it on a path of world decline.

Truthwilltell: The United States was a debtor nation under Nixon, Ford, and Carter. The budget was last balanced in 1969, aside from the 1999-2000 periods with Clinton and a Republican Congress. Under Carter, the economy was under stagflation --- high interest rates and high inflation. Under Reagan, the economy did boom. It was a great time, and he ended the very costly Cold War. He could have done much better on the budget, but he did have a Democratic Congress to deal with as did also Bush, Sr. But forget all that --- let's say that everything you asserted in your last post was perfectly true. You're now the ruling party controlling both the executive and legislative branches so you can't just get away carping and moaning from the sidelines any longer without offering solutions. If the Republicans are so dumb, wasteful, and stupid about the budget, then why is your ruling party repeating the recent Republican policies of massive deficit spending? If Reagan's deficit spending created what you call a long economic slide, then how can you possibly justify Obama deficit spending far more massively than Reagan ever did? How is Obama's massive deficit spending not going to create an even greater economic slide? Please explain because it sounds to me like your beliefs are simply blind faith and hope in Obama. The trillions of dollars that must be paid back with trillion of dollars of interest on top of that are neither Republican or Democratic. America's creditors could care less whether they were accrued by Democrats or Republicans --- they will just want to get paid. It's the next generation and their children that will be stuck with these massive deficits. I wonder who will then give them change that they can believe in when the day of reckoning for all of this comes.

Jaeger wrote: Truthwilltell: The United States was a debtor nation under Nixon, Ford, and Carter. The budget was last balanced in 1969, aside from the 1999-2000 periods with Clinton and a Republican Congress. ********************************************* The national debt consist ot two parts the amount of money we owe ourselves (entitlements,social security etc) and the amount that we owe to others (foreign nations etc). Until Reagan started running large deficits we were the worlds largest creditor nation (nations owed us). Reagans large deficits forced him to borrow money from foreign governments and under Reagan we became the worlds largest debtor nation. As for Obama running deficits, deflation is the operative word. Bush through Paulson and Bernanke is trying to keep the economy inflated, most conservative and liberal economist believe this is the right path at this time. Deflation is 100 times worst than inflation. They know how to stop inflation (tighten interest rates). How do you stop deflation? Obama has to try and inflate the economy.If the private sector is not creating jobs or putting money in the economy only the government is left to do the job.

From CNBC: "Obama also confirmed that he plans to lay out a roughly $775 billion economic stimulus plan on Thursday but indicated that the amount could grow once it gets taken up by Congress. We've seen ranges from $800 (billion) to $1.3 trillion," he said. SO truthwilltell would have us believe that this will be Bush who will be spending away our children's prosperity. "Reagan, Bush and collectively the Republican party haved ruined this country and started it on a path of world decline." Oh no, it goes back much further than that: try FDR and LBJ. The only thing we have to fear is Democrats and liberals in power ... fear itself is quite manageable in comparison.

Major misconception by truthwilltell, but typical of "gov't knows best" liberals: governments DO NOT create jobs. Governments TAX, then redistribute, which has only the appearance of "creating" a job.

Truthwilltell: The point is that, since 1969, having massively expanded its federal government and its entitlement programs, the U.S. was well on the path to cease being a creditor nation due to recurrent deficit spending. Going from creditor to debtor was inevitable. Heavy deficit spending already was well established under Carter, Ford, and Nixon. Fiscal profligacy is a bipartisan sin. That's why I despise both your party and the other one. You're absolutely right that Obama's policies are going to prevent deflation alright since his budget-busting stimulus package is going to involve massive printing of more money. With deficits as high as the CBO projects if carried year after year, not only will America not have to worry about deflation, it will have to worry about hyperinflation. That will be much worse than any afflictions created by deflation. Most economists failed to predict the dotcom collapse and they also failed to predict this real estate market collapse. Their opinions on how to get America out of this mess carry little weight --- at least with me. I don't subscribe to the conventional wisdom shared by both your party and the GOP that there is a quick fix to get out of this economic meltdown. What the economists are failing to consider is that America is already heavily, very heavily in debt. They are disregarding the very adverse future effects of this on the American economy. This is going to take time, and there is no quick fix. More beneficial to the economy for the longterm would be to do the opposite of increasing deficit spending since the payback is heavy on the other end, and create policies that encourage business investment and growth.

Regardless of the volume of humpty-dumpty dollars "invested" by the government, it's not going to put us back together again. These "stimulus" programs are predestined to become pork-pourri for special interests and will only prolong the pain. If we'd just bit the bullet and let the market work itself out, we'd end up stronger sooner.