Feb 13 2009
We’se Been Robbed!
Forget about millions or billions or trillions, most people cannot get their minds around these numbers. But percentages can be related to. So as the economy grows we can support more debt as a PERCENTAGE of our Gross Domestic Product. Basically, we can loan ourselves a few percent each year to deal with some challenges.
But this year Obama and the Democrats have broken all records in terms of raiding the treasury and leaving bogus IOU’s in OUR name. This chart says it all:
Folks, we’se been robbed.
The bill as written with interest is equal to just less than the annual GDP of Australia, the 15th largest economy in the world.
If as the Heritage Foundation suggests that once higher funding levels will be given to programs and that the Dems will refuse to return them to pre stimulus levels the life cost of the bill will exceed 3 Trillion dollars and be equal to the annual 5th largest GDP in the world.
AJ,
The government has been robbing us for 8 years. Bush inherited a budget surplus and ran a budget deficit every year since then. Bush set the record for leaving office with the highest deficit in our country’s history and the highest deficit in terms of percentage of the GDP in 50 years. Here is the graph you should be looking at. http://zfacts.com/p/318.html. Keep in mind that the projected deficit for 2009 includes far more than just the stimulus package that is going to be passed shortly. It also includes the enormous on-going cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, problems that Bush had 6 years to resolve and conveniently left for the next President to fix, the $700 billion TARP program that Bush initiated, and the Bush tax cuts that will largely remain in effect through 2009 regardless of what the Democrats do this year.
So yeah, when you rack up the largest deficit in our history simultaneously with running the economy so far into the ground that it literally comes to a screeching halt, you are going to be passing along a big problem to future generations. I’m glad you finally figured that out. What you apparently haven’t figured out yet is once you allow yourself to get in that kind of a predicament, you can’t just wave a magic wand and make it all better.
Our government is going to vote on the biggest spending/debt bill in our history while admitting they have not had time to read the bill?
How many Americans accept this? This is plain stupidity.
And, besides the CBO’s own report saying this bill hurts the economy in the long run, economists say it won’t stimulate the economy:
Will the stimulus actually stimulate? Economists say no
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/62082.html
VIDEO: German Economist Who Predicted ’87 Crash Says Obama Plan Doomed
http://www.evilconservativeonline.com/2009/02/even-euros-see-it-german-economist-who.html
conman –
Who do you think you’re conning? Dems controlled the Senate Bush’s first two years and both houses Bush’s last two years. Guess who allocates funds?
You’re right about TARP – Bush owns that.
Iraq is won. Accept it.
Afghanistan? Vacillation by the current occupant at 1600 Penn has resulted in pushing Afghanistan towards the Soviets, we’ve lost an airbase in one of the ‘stans. If we lose in Afghanistan, the Dems own it.
As for running the economy into the ground, thank your beloved Dems who forced the banks to make bad loans – while Dems themselves profited (Fannie and Freddie bonuses, anyone? What’s up with Dodd’s mortgage, eh?).
The attempt to blame Bush for Obama’s raid on the treasury is about the lamest excuse I have heard. I suspect this is the first of many such raids. Obama is in danger of setting the Civil Rights movement back to square one. If he and his party continue to loot the treasury to pay off their supporters and selected special interest groups like ACORN he will go down in history as Barak Mugabwe Obama. If all this unregulated and out of control spending continues he will reinforce all the old stereotypes about black incompentency as true. Surely he and his Clintonista advisors know the end result of excessive Government debt and spending is inflation. What good is redistributing the wealth if your wealth won’t buy anything? I suspect we are about to get an education on the falacy of electing untried incompentents to high office because of feeling of guilt and by being gullible to smart talking jivesters who can talk the talk but don’t know how to walk the ewalk.
NewEnglandDevil,
Both parties bear some responsibility for the spending over the last 8 years, but the degrees of responsibility are based in part on the degree of control they had over this time period. So let’s compare.
Republicans controlled: (1) the White House for all 8 years (including the power to veto any pork-ladden bill and ensure its doom since neither party had a 2/3 majority control), (2) House for 6 years, (3) the Senate from 1/2001-6/2001 (Senate was divided 50-50, with Cheney the tie-breaker) and 2003-2006.
Democrats controlled: (1) House from 2007-2008 and (2) a one-vote majority from 6/2001-2002 and a one-vote majority from 2007-2008 only because Joe “I almost was nominated as the Republican party V.P. candidate in 2008” Liebermann caucused with the Democrats. And let’s remember the 110th Congress (2006-2008) was uniformly referred to by left and right as the “do nothing Congress”.
So yeah, I tend to place a little bit more of the blame on the Republicans for what happend in this 8 year stretch. Silly me, I didn’t realize that a one-vote majority in the Senate was so powerful!
Iraq has not been won yet (do I need to send you links of our military commanders saying over and over again that it is much improved but still a fragile situation or the bombing that just happened yesterday?), but I agree that it is vastly improved and has a good chance of succeeding long term. But it will end up costing us over $1 trillion when all is said and done. Sorry, but it was not worth that amount of my children’s future to remove a weakened despot who turns out never had the WMDs we were told he had.
Afghanistan has far bigger problems than Russia’s intervention or the lose of the Manas Base in Kyrgyzstan. The problem is that 6 years of neglect, while we diverted all of our resources to Iraq to keep it from spiraling out of control, is going to come back and haunt us big time. Had we not neglected Afghanistan over the last 6 years and finished the job there, we wouldn’t be worrying about these issues would we? And the base closing has nothing to do with Obama’s vacilliation. It has to do with Russia’s agreement to lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion, write off $180 million in debt and add another $150 million in aid. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/61394.html Same thing with Afghanistan – they will take money and aid from anyone offering it at this point. Russia’s more aggressive posture has a lot to do with our efforts to expand NATO and put missles in their border countries, something both Clinton and Bush advocated.
As for your claim that the economic crises is due to Democrats forcing the banks to make these bad loans, I just have to laugh. You need to stop drinking the cool-aid. Do you really believe this entire economic crises is a result of housing regulations that pushed for more minority loans at Frannie and Freddie? The government didn’t and couldn’t force the private lending institutions to make these loans. If Fannie and Freddie were responsible for the subprime crises, maybe you can explain how it is that the entire private banking industry has been hit so hard? Based on the Federal Reserves own statisitcs, Fannie and Freddie only held 15% of the subprime loans. Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was even subject to the housing law you are referencing. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
Maybe you can also explain how these housing regulations allowed for the unregulated securitization of these loans, allowing banks to bundle the bad and good loans to hide the risky ones, get the ratings agencies to give them inflated ratings, thereby creating the current mess where none of the banks really knows how bad the loans are that they hold?
Maybe you can explain how these housing laws led to the problems with the Credit-default swap market? The 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, championed by Senator Phil Gramm and passed by a Republican controlled Congress, exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It is currently a $60 trillion market that is literally unregulated. The credit-default swaps was what almost took down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far. It will continue to create problems as we work out way through this economic mess.
Maybe you can explain how the housing regulations forced the SEC to fall asleep at the switch over the last 8 years? Do the names Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, to name but a few, ring a bell?
I recognize that you can’t lay all of the blame at the feet of the Republicans. In many regards, I view the Democrats as the lesser of two evils. But sorry, the Republicans owned the last 8 years in Washington D.C., even when the Democrats were in power given how pathetically weak they governed, and are the primary party responsible for the mess we are in. So I won’t sit silently by while AJ and others criticize Obama and the Democrats for making imperfect and tough decisions to try and get us out of the mess they largely inherited because tough decisions in a crises come with consequences. We should have thought of those risks and consequences before we went down the many roads that led us to where we are today.
Because of this bill and others that still have to be dealt with this year as part of Obama’s recovery ‘plan’ there is a provision to raise the debt ceiling to just above 12 Trillion dollars.
This may be the basis for charging these SOBs with gross negligence—admitting to not reading the bill and rushing it through is akin to a doctor not reading your chart to see if you are allergic to something and then prescibing exactly that medicine. But seriously if there is any legal recourse then it should be commenced immediately—where is my ACLU!!!
And when the Chinese and Saudis finish buying up the debt, how pissed will they be when we default—hey if that is a way of getting our oil/cheap toys monies back then it is pure genious. The Russians probably won’t be so stupid—mobsters appreciate cash too much and tend to be savvy investors. Just like the way Trump played the real estate industry in the 80’s by getting the banks to renegotiate his high yield junk debt when he decided he didn’t want to pay such high rates. Black Carter may need a new hairdo though.
Tonight’s vote on this stimulus bill and all of the things that Obama said and did in the past month has already made Bush look 100 percent times better. Obie is already leading us further into debt. So all of the financial numbers quoted under Bush’s watch are going to look like pennies while Obie’s will bring us to anything worse than the pre-WWII Germany’s inflation rate. The value of the dollar has become meaningless.
You are absolutely right, AJ. Obama & Co. have officially robbed the US treasury and paid it out to their pals.
They are acting like juvenile delinquents looting a candy store.
I am livid. This isn’t political. This is common sense. I am a parent and responsible management of money is important to keep our lives together. These people are acting like some teenagers that have got hold of their parents’ checkbook and are having a field day.
This is going to wreck us for years; possible decades.
Obama is going to destroy this country and I rest the blame directly in the laps of those so-called Republicans who decided not to cast a ballot this past election. This is not something that can be undone next election cycle. Once that money is spent, it is gone.
This country has become a mob of idiots.
conman:
Do you honestly think anyone reads your crap?
BTW, when the Democrats took control of Congress back in 2006 the deficit was about $153 billion dollars. It is completely ridiculous to whine and complain about Bush when your guy is breaking the bank right now.
I hear that all these jobs are going to union people. That means 85% of the people in this country will not be able to get the jobs. Unless they join unions.
Let’s see, people join unions, give money to unions, unions give money to crooked Democrats who give pud jobs to unions.
Nice.
AS for TARP, I don’t think there was any real choice but to step in and shore up the banks. Countries all over the world were doing the same thing, if they had the resources. It was an honest to God global financial disaster that the likes of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sure as hell did not have any answers to. In fact if anything, their policies of easy money to low income people made it worse.
This entire thing is an insult. And the American people KNOW it. This administration has ZERO credibility now and that can be PROVEN. Example: 48hrs to look over legislation BEFORE it is signed into law. One of MANY frauds, imho.
Dave Ramsey should have a few choice words about all this BORROWING.
And as to TARP, I do believe that a one congressman named Kanjorski, informed us that on Sept. 18th, 550 BILLION DOLLARS in money market funds had been withdrawn within ONE HOUR. By 11 am to be exact. And the President was told that, if nothing was done, 5.5 TRILLION DOLLARS would be withdrawn by 2pm that day. (it is believed that the withdrawals started on 9/16, I understand). The Fed closed it’s window.
Tell us, all, WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE CORRECT THING TO DO AT THAT TIME?
Imho, the TARP DID what it was supposed to do at that time: PREVENT A WORLDWIDE COLLAPSE. There was NO CHOICE, imho.
We are NOT in that condition now. But, the real question is, WHO was withdrawing those funds? and HOW have they been compensated for the deed?
AJ said “most people can’t get thier minds around these numbers”.
Let me try:
It is more than if we spent one million a day since Christ was born…..and, it will be the second coming of Christ before it is paid back.
terrye, I stopped reading conman’s posts and after yesterday, he’s lost all arguments.
Just because you folks know Conman is wrong is no reason to stop reading his posts.
One should always know what ones enemy is thinking no matter what.
Just don’t waste time replying to him.