Here is an amusing slice of history, from this day (August 25) 11 years ago::
“President Bush said today that there was a benefit to the government’s fast-dwindling surplus, declaring that it will create ”a fiscal straitjacket for Congress.” He said that was ”incredibly positive news” because it would halt the growth of the federal government.
In a 45-minute news conference in a community hall next to an RV park here, Mr. Bush avoided specific answers to several questions about how he would find the money for his next big initiatives, from missile defense, to overhauling the military, to reforming Medicaid, without dipping into Social Security surpluses that both parties have declared off limits. And he made it clear he would not re-think his tax cut, saying, ”I can’t tell you how proud I am to be traveling around the country and people say, ‘Thanks for the $600.’ ”
At the same time, Mr. Bush talked in some detail about the economic slowdown, which he called a ”correction,” and left open the possibility that he might dip into the Social Security money if a further economic stimulus was needed . . .
In an age of suddenly scarce resources, though, he insisted that Congress must adjust its spending attitudes. ”The surest way to make sure that the recovery doesn’t happen in a meaningful period of time or a reasonable period of time is to overspend,” Mr. Bush said. He said his job was to ”make sure we keep fiscal sanity in the budget.” (emphasis added)
Now that we have gotten rid of that damned surplus, we just have to await all the fiscal constraints on Congress!
Source:
PRESIDENT ASSERTS SHRUNKEN SURPLUS MAY CURB CONGRESS
DAVID E. SANGER
NYT, August 25, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/us/president-asserts-shrunken-surplus-may-curb-congress.html
Category: Really, really bad calls
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
Thanks for the $600, Monkey Boy!
Oh, the current GOP product is promising you more of the same… and the suckers are eating it up.
I remember that entire sales job — for that was all it was, there was no real-world connection between the policy and the putative outcome — and thinking, “well, we are certainly in the era of doublespeak, wonder if there is real Orwellian Doublethink going on now as well.” viz
“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies …”
The first Harvard B School whizz put is in this hole and the second is waiting with a new shovel to dig us in deeper!
Same formula, more tax cuts for the wealthy and another unfunded, unnecessary war – Iran this time!
Well, to be fair, that was 3 weeks before 9/11. That doesn’t excuse his behavior and fiscal policies for the next 7 years, but it certainly derailed them for a while.
Republican “starve the beast” hypocrisy has never been more clearly on display. They then went on to pass Medicare Part D, largest new socialist give-away since the Great Society, and double the deficit.
Paul Ryan is perfect example of this type of hypocrisy. He voted for Medicare Part D, TARP, and supported bailing out the auto industry as well as Wall Street. He voted for most of the big-government programs of the Bush era. Ryan still argues that these were the least bad of the available unpleasant options, telling the New Yorker that the period made him “miserable.”
I don’t want Paul to suffer through another 4 “miserable” years of unpleasant options, so I’ll do my part to ensure he doesn’t have to face those tough decisions.
It doesn’t hurt that Bush had his own television channel to help him along with his work.
That would be the “Friends Of Xtremists” channel sometimes just called FOX.
1. Government always spends all its revenue plus what it can borrow. If there is a surplus that looks like it will hang around, you can bet there will suddenly be new programs that will sop up the surplus. Politicians will talk about paying down the deficit, but it has not happened since the late 40′s. There is no reason to think a pay down will work now. So, the only way to keep the government from growing is to cut taxes to give the money back.
2. We keep hearing from people on the left complaining about Medicare Part D. But, a drug benefit was a campaign promise from both Bush and Gore. At least Bush honored his campaign promise. Medicare Part D still costs less than projected when it was adopted. How many government programs can say that?
It is important to remember that drugs have replaced many medical procedures or untreatable conditions since the 1960′s and 70′s when Medicare was starting. In fact even with Medicare pat D, my drug plan costs more than my Medicare supplemental policy. Then, there is the “donut hole” which ObamaCare is getting rid of. Eliminating the “donut hole” will cost upwards of $2k for many people. So, if anyone is complaining about Medicare part D, they need to also complain about ObamaCare which is now projected to cost a total of about $2.6 trillion over 10 years.
3. Finally, no rational person should be complaining about the Bush deficits without noting the Obama deficits. Who was talking about “cognitive dissonance” again.
Just reading how Romney may have been paying more in foreign taxes than he paid in US taxes during those 10 “wonder years”. Some patriot! Great qualification to be Tax Dodger in Chief
PS This armchair warrior who can’t wait to get it on with Iran also has multiple explanations for how he dodged service in Vietnam in his best Eddie Haskell style “I would have gladly served if I only had the opportunity” (4 deferments, only one less than Lead Chickenhawk Chaney). I always thought his Mormon missionary service (in France, tough assignment) was his dodge but the Mormon church was gung ho on the war and ended those ministerial deferments)
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/07/romney_dodged_the_draft/
History proves he was a Moron, but the “Shit For Brains” americans watched him steal the Presidency not once but twice. Of course what do you expect from a nation of morons! The corruption elects the President and if that can’t get’er done the courts finish the job!
People forget deficits don’t matter when GOP holds the White House.
Greenspan heaped praise on Clinton’s growing budget surplus, producing long term charts and graphs depicting sharp, accelerating reductions in our nation’s debt. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were no longer unsustainable. In fact, benefits could be enhanced – SCHIP was incorporated into the Balanced Budget Act 1997 (co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy and notorious socialist GOP Senator Orrin Hatch).
Just a few short years later Bush #2 proposed his 1st unfunded, trickle-down tax cut. Greenspan’s support was partially based on projections the national debt could go down too far, too fast. Suddenly he became worried about a potential lack of new U.S. treasury security issuance creating product voids that would disrupt and cause turmoil in credit markets, throwing them into disarray.
@Defining Quality Says:
Morons?
Maybe, but still exceptional.
Exceptionalism means never having to apologize for anything, … ever.
Recession or boom, deficit or surplus, the Republicans party of the last 30 years has always looked for an excuse to justify tax cuts even though higher rates never hurt growth (and may have helped foster it), at least since the end of WWII, and it has always been willing to run up debt while they are in power, and then blame the other party for that debt when they are not.
But the Dems roll over and play dead most of the time.
Rinse. Repeat. Ad nauseum.
Barry, just one person’s opinion but I liked TBP when it showed less political snark. There’s been a growing level of late, most of it lefty-ish, coming either from you or your invited guests. Don’t kid yourself that it’s all good by reading your enthusiastic “press,” aka the comments. I suspect you’re turning off an equal number of readers. Call it Newton’s Third Law of Blogging.
The late great Gore Vidal taught us, we have one political party in this country, with two branches. And they are equally and thoroughly corrupt, only in different ways.
Spending in Bush’s first year (FY2001) was $1.863 trillion,
Bush was thus roughly responsible for $3.414 trillion of spending in 2009
An 83-percent increase in overall federal spending, which includes defense, domestic, entitlements, and interest. Even without TARP and Fannie/Freddie, spending was up a huge 70 percent under Bush over eight years. By contrast, total spending under eight years of President Clinton increased just 32 percent. These are the overall increases in nominal dollars.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/george-w-bush-biggest-spender-since-lbj/
Thanks for the small government, W ! Heckuva job !
…and what about:
How to Avoid Recession? Let the Fed Work
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/business/23view.html
From GOP’s shining economist Greg Mankiw whose “McDonald’s is a manufacturing” is positively Todd Akin/Niall Fergusoneasque
Rick Caird,
“Government always spends all its revenue plus what it can borrow.”
False.
“If there is a surplus that looks like it will hang around, you can bet there will suddenly be new programs that will sop up the surplus.”
False.
1998 – $069 billion SURPLUS
1999 – $126 billion SURPLUS
2000 – $236 billion SURPLUS
2001 – $128 billion SURPLUS
[Independent Non-Partisan CBO]
“Politicians will talk about paying down the deficit, but it has not happened since the late 40′s.”
False.
The Clinton administration paid down about $600 billion of the federal debt previously run up by Reagan/Poppy Bush.
“So, the only way to keep the government from growing is to cut taxes to give the money back.”
Wrong.
That’s the very cause of our current massive federal deficits & debt.
“We keep hearing from people on the left complaining about Medicare Part D. But, a drug benefit was a campaign promise from both Bush and Gore. At least Bush honored his campaign promise.”
Without PAYING for it.
Just like the massive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the Rich & Corporate were not paid for. Just like the two wars that were not paid for.
“…ObamaCare which is now projected to cost a total of about $2.6 trillion over 10 years.”
According to the independent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, “ObamaCare” REDUCES federal deficits.
“Finally, no rational person should be complaining about the Bush deficits without noting the Obama deficits.”
Except the overwhelming majority of “Obama deficits” are as a direct result of the policies of Chimpy Bush.
BenGraham,
“Well, to be fair, that was 3 weeks before 9/11. That doesn’t excuse his behavior and fiscal policies for the next 7 years, but it certainly derailed them for a while.”
Except, according to the independent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the four rounds of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the Rich & Corporate was almost THREE TIMES AS GREAT as the cost of the Iraq war (including the costs of all military operations and subsequent reconstruction), all homeland security expenditures, the costs of rebuilding after September 11, all military action in Afghanistan, and all other costs of the so-called ‘Global War On Terrorism’, COMBINED.
Great! Another Political post that makes fun of Bush……Are you kidding me?? Really are you kidding me, how old is that..What happened to this blog? I don’t need another NY Times….
GM
Barry a little less politics would be better IMHO.
Bush was a great leader and he kept us safe.
Defining Quality Says
“History proves he was a Moron, but the “Shit For Brains” americans watched him steal the Presidency not once but twice. Of course what do you expect from a nation of morons! The corruption elects the President and if that can’t get’er done the courts finish the job!”
Really? Were still having this same argument? Didn’t the left leaning media (cnn,la times,etc) debunk that?
This site resembles zerohedge more and more.
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/clip/3666049
At 2:00 that’s a democrat saying the numbers for the Clinton surplus were false.
I think it is fair I can say the notion Clinton had a surplus is false after fact checking Sen. Hollings with the treasury records, right?
4. The Treasury’s debt to the penny web page disagrees with you:
Table 7.1—FEDERAL DEBT AT THE END OF YEAR
1997 5,369,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700
2001 5,769,881
2002 6,198,401
2003 6,760,014 Note the Clinton Debt ALWAYS GOES UP.
“Both Democrats and Republicans are all running this year and next and saying surplus, surplus. Look what we have done. It is false. The actual figures show that from the beginning of the fiscal year until now we had to borrow $127,800,000,000.” – Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings, October 28, 1999 Video: CSPAN