Full Article

Quote:There is a lot of blaming Bush in this speech. Quick perspective: Using numbers from the U.S. Treasury, we see that the debt during Bush’s eight years in office increased from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, or $4.9 trillion over eight years. That’s bad; that’s basically $610 billion per year. But in the less than three years Obama has been in office, the debt has increased from $10.6 trillion to $14.2 trillion, a $3.6 trillion increase in about 27 months. In other words, Obama is increasing the debt by $1.6 trillion per year, three times as fast as Bush.

Quote:Early on, Obama declares, “Politicians are often eager to feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse — that tackling the deficit issue won’t require tough choices. “ Minutes later Obama declares, “Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending.” Then, talking health care, he says, “My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments.” So talk about eliminating waste and abuse is a distraction from the real issues, but Obama will do it anyway.

When you get a contradiction like that, I suspect it means the speech was written by committee and they tried to paper over the disagreements.

The Debt piles up quick when you put 10 years of Wars on a Credit Card.

(04-13-2011 09:15 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Debt piles up quick when you put 10 years of Wars on a Credit Card.

Does that mean you think Debt interest is a significant part of the deficit? Just so you know the interest is less than 5% of total spending (too high for my taste but the 163 Billion in interest is *not* the reason this years debt is 1.7 Trillion...

Platitudes about evil bush do not trump the numbers...

(04-13-2011 09:21 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  Platitudes about evil bush do not trump the numbers...

The left doesn't believe in numbers. They go with feelings.

I don't understand how the left can bluntly bombard it's flowers with such outrageous lies, and they eat it up, clean the plate.

(04-14-2011 07:10 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  I don't understand how the left can bluntly bombard it's flowers with such outrageous lies, and they eat it up, clean the plate.

Oddly enough, the same can be said about you and your rightwing masters.

(04-14-2011 12:45 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(04-14-2011 07:10 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  I don't understand how the left can bluntly bombard it's flowers with such outrageous lies, and they eat it up, clean the plate.

Oddly enough, the same can be said about you and your rightwing masters.

and that's basically why they got voted out, isn't it?

(04-13-2011 09:21 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:15 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Debt piles up quick when you put 10 years of Wars on a Credit Card.

Does that mean you think Debt interest is a significant part of the deficit? Just so you know the interest is less than 5% of total spending (too high for my taste but the 163 Billion in interest is *not* the reason this years debt is 1.7 Trillion...

Platitudes about evil bush do not trump the numbers...

Its not the interest, but the expenditures. And every supplemental War Authorization Bill from 2006 onwards had tons of Pork tacked on needed to ensure passage.

(04-14-2011 05:14 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:21 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:15 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Debt piles up quick when you put 10 years of Wars on a Credit Card.

Does that mean you think Debt interest is a significant part of the deficit? Just so you know the interest is less than 5% of total spending (too high for my taste but the 163 Billion in interest is *not* the reason this years debt is 1.7 Trillion...

Platitudes about evil bush do not trump the numbers...

Its not the interest, but the expenditures. And every supplemental War Authorization Bill from 2006 onwards had tons of Pork tacked on needed to ensure passage.

Wait wait... So the fact the war this year is a *very* small part of our budget is immaterial? Obama has *tripled* the annual budget in just two years, that's not the war..

(04-14-2011 06:27 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(04-14-2011 05:14 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:21 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:15 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Debt piles up quick when you put 10 years of Wars on a Credit Card.

Does that mean you think Debt interest is a significant part of the deficit? Just so you know the interest is less than 5% of total spending (too high for my taste but the 163 Billion in interest is *not* the reason this years debt is 1.7 Trillion...

Platitudes about evil bush do not trump the numbers...

Its not the interest, but the expenditures. And every supplemental War Authorization Bill from 2006 onwards had tons of Pork tacked on needed to ensure passage.

Wait wait... So the fact the war this year is a *very* small part of our budget is immaterial? Obama has *tripled* the annual budget in just two years, that's not the war..

When you add in the 03-08 "Supplemental" DoD Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan (plus Pork) they were in the neighborhood of 300 Billion plus each year.

Most of it was for Iraq.

(04-14-2011 09:13 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(04-14-2011 06:27 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(04-14-2011 05:14 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:21 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 09:15 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Debt piles up quick when you put 10 years of Wars on a Credit Card.

Does that mean you think Debt interest is a significant part of the deficit? Just so you know the interest is less than 5% of total spending (too high for my taste but the 163 Billion in interest is *not* the reason this years debt is 1.7 Trillion...

Platitudes about evil bush do not trump the numbers...

Its not the interest, but the expenditures. And every supplemental War Authorization Bill from 2006 onwards had tons of Pork tacked on needed to ensure passage.

Wait wait... So the fact the war this year is a *very* small part of our budget is immaterial? Obama has *tripled* the annual budget in just two years, that's not the war..

When you add in the 03-08 "Supplemental" DoD Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan (plus Pork) they were in the neighborhood of 300 Billion plus each year.

Most of it was for Iraq.

What does that have to do with this years 1.5 Trillion dollar deficit?