Obama Plans to Spend More Instead of Reducing Deficit

I guess the Dems can take carping about the deficit out of their talking points. 

Not only does Obama say he won’t eliminate the deficit in his first term, as McCain aims to do, he frankly says he’s not sure he’d bring it down at all in four years, considering his own spending plans.

“I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America’s families,” Obama told reporters this week when asked if he’d match McCain’s pledge.

1. Not only does Obama say he won’t eliminate the deficit in his first term, as McCain aims to do ...

   How, praytell, will McCain eliminate the deficit in his first term?  Don’t make me laugh.

   You have one candidate offering an honest assessment, and one candidate with his fingers crossed behind his back.  And surprise, you celebrate the liar.

   Posted by folkbum on July 08, 2008 at 2143 hrs




2. McCain may be overly optimistic, but he does have a plan to do it.  That plan doesn’t stand much chance in a Dem Congress, but that’s a different story.  At least he intends to try. 

   Obama, OTOH, doesn’t even pretend to care about the deficit.  He intends to spend more.  I suppose you can give him credit for honesty on that point, but it’s also bad policy. 

   I’m just thinking back to all of you libs who have been bemoaning the federal deficit under Bush’s presidency (and rightly so).  Will y’all remain intellectually honest and condemn Obama?

   Posted by Owen on July 08, 2008 at 2150 hrs




3. McCain may be overly optimistic, but he does have a plan to do it.

   If by “overly optimistic” you mean “on crack,” then sure:

   The package of spending and tax cuts proposed by Senator John McCain is unlikely to achieve his goal of balancing the federal budget by 2013, economists and fiscal experts said Monday. [. . .]

   Mr. McCain said he would also slow the growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and fiscal experts agree that he would need to do that to achieve his goal. But Mr. McCain did not give details of how he would alter those benefit programs [. . .]

   Mr. McCain said he was counting on “rapid economic growth” to help reduce the deficit. While a growing economy generates additional revenue, several of Mr. McCain’s tax proposals would be costly, experts said. [. . .] Mr. McCain also wants to extend many of the Bush tax cuts, scheduled to expire by Jan. 1, 2011. That could reduce tax collections below the levels assumed under current law, and it could widen the deficit, many economists said.

   In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that extending the Bush tax cuts would cost more than $700 billion in the next five years.

   Since January, the economy has been weaker than expected, making the goal of a balanced budget more difficult to achieve. The budget deficit in the current fiscal year is running much higher than in the previous year.

   It’s a mixture of no numbers, made up numbers, and economic fantasy.  He’s making you a promise he knows he can’t keep.  He’s lying to you.

   Do I want a candidate who will return us to Clinton-era surpluses?  You bet.  But given a choice between Obama’s honesty about his deficit increases and McCain’s bald-faced lies, I will take the honest man.

   Whatever happened to integrity?

   Posted by folkbum on July 08, 2008 at 2212 hrs




4. That is quite the hatchet job of cuttin’ and pastin’ Owen.  You left out the good part of the article that gets down to the truth of the matter.  One of the candidates is lying… it isn’t the young guy with the big ears.

   “Hypothetically it’s possible to get to a balanced budget by 2013, but not under the policies that McCain has proposed,” Bixby said. “The policies he would propose would actually add to the deficit when you take them all together.”

   Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the center’s analysis, even assuming a fast drawdown of troops in Iraq, found McCain would have to cut around $400 billion worth of federal programs to balance the budget by 2013.

   “It seems unlikely, particularly given that Senator McCain has not been willing to be specific about what programs he would cut,” Horney said. “And even if he were willing to, there’s a real question of whether the Congress or the public would go along with the kinds of cuts required to balance the budget, assuming the tax policies that he’s proposing.”

   McCain says he would reduce spending by slowing the growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but he hasn’t said how he would try to change the benefits. He also says he would slow the government’s spending growth and stop spending on lawmakers’ special earmarked projects. But earmarks accounted for just $17 billion of the $2.9 trillion budget this year.

   I really wish Obama’s was proposing a balanced budget, but we are faced with one of those infamous choices between the lesser of two evils.  If I have to choose between a budget that invests in our infrastructure, education and health care and runs the same deficit we have now or a budget that increases our deficit while cutting taxes for the wealthy and widening the gap between the super rich and the rest of us the decision is a no brainer.  One choice sets us on the course for prosperity, the other continues us on the path Bush set us on towards third world status.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 08, 2008 at 2224 hrs




5. Do Congressional Dems know about this?  After all, they campaigned on PAYGO rules in 2006 (notwithstanding those broken promises since).

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 08, 2008 at 2251 hrs




6. “It’s a mixture of no numbers, made up numbers, and economic fantasy.  He’s making you a promise he knows he can’t keep.  He’s lying to you.”

   You weren’t talking about Dave Obey, John Murtha, John Conyers, and John Dingel were you?

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 08, 2008 at 2254 hrs




7. Publius, PAYGO was designed to do one thing and one thing only; ensure that government would never lower either the tax rate or the total tax take.

   Posted by steveegg on July 09, 2008 at 0715 hrs




8. When it comes to economics, truth is not the currency of McCain’s realm.

   From Ben Smith at Politico.com:

   This morning, the McCain campaign sent out a press release: OVER 300 ECONOMISTS SIGN STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF JOHN MCCAIN’S ECONOMIC PLAN.

   The statement leaves out two big chunks of McCain’s economic argument: the gas tax holiday and his promise to balance the budget by the end of his first term—there’s literally nothing in the release that mentions the deficit or national debt.

   Wouldn’t it be refreshing if GOP politicians would stop lying. Then again what would they have to talk about?

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 0715 hrs




9. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Dem politicians kept campaign promises?  Then again, what would they have to talk about?

   “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I’m going to earmark the shit out of it,” [Rep. Jim] Moran buoyantly told a crowd of 450 attending the event.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 0755 hrs




10. Steveegg - you are EXACTLY correct!  PAYGO rules are a farce, so much so that even our own Dave Obey can’t craft a budget that abides their own self-imposed budget rules…

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 0757 hrs




11. I’m just thinking back to all of you libs who have been bemoaning the federal deficit under Bush’s presidency (and rightly so).  Will y’all remain intellectually honest and condemn Obama?

    It’s not necessarily that we’ve been bemoaning the federal deficit per se, it’s that Bush inherited an enormous surplus and he squandered it on tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, and there’s nothing to show for it (except that the wealthiest Americans now control an even larger percentage of the nation’s wealth). History shows that liberals and conservatives alike will run a budget in deficit, and that it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Why should we condemn Obama for not making a promise he can’t possibly keep?

    http://www.statesman.com/ap/mediahub/media/slideshow /index/.jsp?tId=112458

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 0853 hrs




12. sorry.

    http://www.statesman.com/ap/mediahub/media/slideshow /index.jsp?tId=112458

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 0857 hrs




13. NoBama says, “...make some critical investments right now in American families.”

    Demspeak decoded, “We will income shift by ruinous taxation from the ones who produce and create wealth by work, risk and initiative to the dreck who make bad personal choices, are lazy, waste opportunities and despise others who use God given talents wisely.  Thereby we create a permanent underclass that will vote Democrat and keep us in power.”

    Posted by T. Bone on July 09, 2008 at 0938 hrs




14. This is news? A democrat wants redistribute income even more?

    I’m shocked.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 1210 hrs




15. Wow another partisan monkey knife fight.

    If you’re going to trust either party with tax dollars, you may as well send your bank account number and password to those guys from Nigeria who have millions to share with you.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 09, 2008 at 2206 hrs