A President that is OUT OF TOUCH!

Published on July 11, 2006 By COL Gene In Politics

Today Bush is running around holding a news conference to brag about the new estimate that shows the Annual Budget deficit for FY 2006 will be per the president ONLY $300 Billion down from an earlier estimate of $425 Billion. Who would boast about an economic policy that during this so called boom is producing a $300 Billion dollar deficit in ONE year?

Then when you look at the Bush numbers you see he has LIED about the deficit by subtracting the surpluses from Social Security and Medicare BEFORE he reports the numbers. HE COOKS THE BOOKS by reducing the actual deficit by the $200 Billion surplus from these two unrelated funds. The earlier budget deficit for 2006 was actually $625 Billion and is now down to $500 Billion. The actual deficit in 2005 was $625 Billion not the $425 Billion Bush reported.

Anyone that could run around bragging about adding Â½ a Trillion dollars this year to the National Debt shows how our president is OUT OF TOUCH! That is NOT an accomplishment but a DISGRACE.

If Bush needed a quadruple Bypass surgery, his solution would be to fix one of the four blocked arteries and then claim he was healthy! He truly made himself look pathetic by the statements he made today about running a $500 Billion annual deficit! If he had BALANCED the budget the way it was when he took office and had begun repaying the debt HE ADDED, then the president would have a reason to brag.

Comments (Page 2)

COL Gene

on Jul 11, 2006

stutefish

The budget was balanced when Bush took over.
Bush created the imbalance by increasing spending and cutting taxes
The Bush tax Cuts have caused over a trillion dollars of the debt Bush has piled up
Cutting the annual deficit in half does not STOP the debt from growing and does NOT pay off the more then 4 Trillion Bush added to the debt.

COL Gene

on Jul 11, 2006

IslandDog

Republicans do not do Nation Building (Iraq)

Real Republicans BALANCE THE BUDGET

I am the REAL Republican not like Bush and the GOP in Congress!

COL Gene

on Jul 11, 2006

It took 19 years to fix the budget Reagan screwed up. Bush destroyed it the FIRST year he was in office. It could take decades to fix what Bush has done. Spending 1/2 a Trillion dollars paying interest on a debt that should not exist is a VERY BIG DEAL that will harm our country.

ParaTed2k

on Jul 11, 2006

~The budget was balanced when Bush took over. LIE.. Prs. Clinton NEVER balanced the budget, he merely submitted a budget that left much of the spending to the states or just "off budget".

~Bush created the imbalance by increasing spending and cutting taxes. LIE... The government has collected MORE revenue since the tax cuts... now if you want to talk about how they still spent a lot more than they took in.. you have a point.

~The Bush tax Cuts have caused over a trillion dollars of the debt Bush has piled up
Cutting the annual deficit in half does not STOP the debt from growing and does NOT pay off the more then 4 Trillion Bush added to the debt. LIE

The recent announcements show that this isn't even arguable.

Once again Col.. Liar Liar pants on fire..

Island Dog

on Jul 11, 2006

Bush destroyed it the FIRST year he was in office.

That statement alone shows you have no idea what you are talking about. Bush didn't destroy the economy his first year. The economy was already heading downhill from the policies of a democratic administration. Do you know anything besides blaming Bush.

I am the REAL Republican not like Bush and the GOP in Congress!

Your arrogance is just as amazing. Every policy and idea you favor is the direct talking points of the DNC and far left liberals. You are no Republican.

COL Gene

on Jul 12, 2006

Parated2K

Better look again:

In 2000 the federal budget, NOT INCLUDING the Surpluses from Social Security and Medicare, was BALANCED. That was the result of four factors:

Good economic growth during the 1990's
The Bush 41 tax increase (read my Lips)
The Clinton tax increase
Reduced spending on Defense which started during the Bush 41 Administration.

As to shifting expenses to the states, Bush is the champion of that process. Just look at what he has done with Medicaid and the funding for Homeland Security.

The growth from the Bush tax cuts has not created enough NEW TAX Revenue to offset the loss in tax revenue from the tax cuts and the increased spending. GAO and the Comptroller General of the U S has documented that the tax cuts ARE CAUSING part of the annual budget deficit.

Reagan did the very same thing. If you go back to 1981 when he was selling his tax cuts to Congress, he said that if Congress passed his tax cuts, which they did, by 1985 the Federal Budget would BE BALANCED! That NEVER HAPPENED. In fact, during the Reagan years the National Debt went from $900 Billion to $4 Trillion dollars. The deficit continued through 1999 and from 1988 to 1999 another $1.7 Trillion was added bringing the total National debt to $5.7 Trillion when Bush 43 took office. OMB, part of the President's department, has said that by the end of the Bush 43 second term, the National debt will be $10 Trillion and the annual interest we will be REQUIRED to pay on that debt will have jumped from $90 Billion to $500 Billion and in 2009 we will still be running a annual budget deficit of between $250-300 Billion per year not counting the SS and Medicare surplus.

COL Gene

on Jul 12, 2006

IslandDog

The NO Nation Building is and has been a Republican Principal.

A balanced Budget likewise has been a Republican Principal - Remember the Push by the GOP for the Balanced Budget Amendment?

Today the DNC has adopted these two principals because they are what are BEST for our country. The GOP has abandoned what is best for America!

Island Dog

on Jul 12, 2006

Today the DNC has adopted these two principals because they are what are BEST for our country. The GOP has abandoned what is best for America!

What will the DNC do for this country then col? If you support them so much then why don't you finally admit that you are a true liberal?

The DNC has adopted two of your core principles, surrener and high taxes. Thanks guys.

COL Gene

on Jul 12, 2006

If higher taxes are needed to BALANCE the Budget then that is what must be done!!! We can not continue to simply put it on the TAB like Bush and the GOP is doing!

stutefish

on Jul 12, 2006

As it turns out, tax revenues track more with economic growth than with tax rate increases.

Indeed, economic experts both inside and outside the government are pointing to the Bush tax cuts as one of the primary causes of the recent increase in tax revenues.

How does that fit into your theory, Gene?

Gideon MacLeish

on Jul 12, 2006

So unless Bush was president in 1997/1998, this has been going on since well before GWB came into office.

Funny...In PolySci in 1991, we were talking about "offbudget" expenditures as a longtime Washington thing...even then, it wasn't new.

I find it hilarious, though, that COL is doing the EXACT same thing he is accusing the Bush administration of doing...he is "spinning" the numbers to fit his agenda. The fact that a tax cut on the wealthiest segment of American taxpayers resulted in a net tax revenue INCREASE kills him and his fellow socialists, who want to believe the only way to run a state is with oppressive taxation on the wealthy and a massive redistribution of wealth, as well as the creation of a nanny state.

singrdave

on Jul 12, 2006

So unless Bush was president in 1997/1998, this has been going on since well before GWB came into office.

Funny...In PolySci in 1991, we were talking about "offbudget" expenditures as a longtime Washington thing...even then, it wasn't new.

I couldn't find anything on the Internet farther back than that without subscriptions to newspaper archives. But yeah, it's an established principle to add SS funds to try and pass off a balanced budget. Not a reputable principle, but it's got precedent.

COL Gene

on Jul 12, 2006

The tax cuts have increased economic growth but they have not offset the loss in tax revenue from the cuts and paid for inflation and increased. Spending. The fact remains that in 2001 we had a BALANCED BUDGET- the amount we spent was equal to the tax revenue collected. That is NOT the case today and since the first year of the Bush Administration we have been spending hundreds of Billions more EVERY year then we have been collecting in tax revenue. That can not continue. For Bush to be telling us that lowering the annual budget deficit from over $600 Billion this year to an estimate of $500 Billion is good is a joke. We need to STOP adding to the National Debt and begin repaying the over 8.5 Trillion currently on the books. That will take given the revised estimates first $500 Billion to stop adding to the debt and then is we generated $200 Billion in a REAL SURPLUS that was paid on the existing debt; it would take 30 years at $200 billion per year to repay the National debt.

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Tax Cuts Create Deficits
Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial

By COL Gene
Posted Tuesday, May 30, 2006 on Bush Truth
Discussion: Politics

Below is the Editorial today from the Philadelphia Inquirer titled, Tax Cuts and the Deficits which is 100 % in sink with the analysis I have included in my new book. In a nut shell, the Presidents former economic advisor, N. Gregory Mankiw admits that the NEW revenue generated from the Bush tax cuts have only provided 1/2 the revenue lost from the tax cuts and the other half have become part of the deficits. For those that claim the deficit is because of the added spending on hurricanes, terrorism and the War in Iraq. The Comptroller general, David Walker said only 1/3 of the growing deficit has been caused by that added spending.

In other words, the Bush Tax Cuts are driving America into debt that our children will pay for in the years to come! The sources of this analysis are the CBO and OMB. So please do not tell me it is some liberal conspiracy. What we have is just what Bush 41 said, Voodoo Economics. Another good reason to retire Senator Rick Santorum who supported the Bush Tax cuts including the $70 Billion raid on the treasury in early May.

Posted on Tue, May. 30, 2006

Tax Cuts and Deficits

Editorial | Bad math, slick politics: We'll pay, eventually

For the past five years, Congress and President Bush have been cutting taxes in the face of huge deficits, all the while peddling a math myth to the public.
Tax cuts won't make the deficits worse, they say. Tax cuts will stimulate so much economic growth that federal tax revenue will actually increase. Tax cuts, they are fond of saying, pay for themselves.
Actually, no. Economists of all stripes agree that federal tax cuts by themselves do not boost federal revenue back to the level before the cuts were enacted.
Tax cuts do boost economic activity. This growth does replace a portion of the revenue once generated by the eliminated taxes. But far from all. Very far. Researchers' estimates of this replacement effect vary from around 15 percent to 50 percent, depending on the type of tax cut and the prior rate.
Any responsible politician should know this, but polls persist in peddling the cozy myth. Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) played along earlier this month when Congress extended tax cuts on capital gains and dividend income for two years, at a cost to the federal treasury of $70 billion.
"We've put these tax provisions in place," Santorum said, "and they've raised money."
Even President Bush's former economic adviser, N. Gregory Mankiw, concedes that activity spurred by the capital gains tax cuts made up only about half of the lost revenue.
What do you call the other half? Under this administration, you call it "deficit."
Data from the president's own Office of Management and Budget refute the argument that tax cuts "pay for themselves." Over the past three years, with tax cuts in effect, federal revenue was $316 billion lower than OMB had predicted, in 2003, that it would have been without tax cuts.
The federal deficit this fiscal year is projected at more than $330 billion.
From 2001 to 2005, federal revenue fell at an average rate of 0.6 percent when adjusted for inflation and population growth, according to the left-leaning think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington.
Some Republican lawmakers point out that tax receipts through April were up about $137 billion, or 11 percent, compared with the same period last year. Credit tax cuts for some of that, if you want, but be aware that national economies are complex creatures that grow or shrink based on dozens of factors, of which tax rates are only one. Inflation, too, could partly explain it.
But that increase still is not nearly enough to offset recent losses to the federal coffers. Nor do the White House's own projections expect deficits to end anytime soon.
Again, the key point: No matter what you've been repeatedly told, an improved economy does not generate all the tax revenue that was lost due to cutting federal taxes in the first place. The evidence proving this basic point has been piling up since Ronald Reagan's tenure, but many tax-cut fans still won't admit it. Why? Because the pay-for-themselves theory was never based on fiscal evidence. It was a theology, a faith-based system defended all the more strenuously because of that.
(A side point: Tax cuts can come much closer to paying for themselves on a local stage, in a city such as Philadelphia, where comparatively high taxes really do discourage investment, and those seeking to escape those taxes do not have to leave the nation but merely take a step across City Avenue.)
The federal tax-cut mythology wouldn't have such dire consequences, if Congress and the president reduced federal spending in line with the lower revenues.
Since Reagan, that draconian balancing act has been the goal of some conservatives bent on cutting the social programs that always have irritated them.
Trouble is, that plan hasn't worked. In five-plus years of almost total domination of Washington by the self-described "conservatives" of the White House and Capitol Hill, federal spending has increased about 29 percent, even as tax cuts drained the Treasury.
And, no, not all that spending is due to hurricanes, terrorism and wars. (Let's not even get into the point that the wildly costly Iraq War was a choice, not a necessity.) David Walker, comptroller-general of the United States, says only about a third of the stated deficit can be traced to those causes.
Remember those golden days of the 2000 presidential campaign when the big issue was how to spend the roughly $5.6 trillion in federal surpluses projected for this decade?
Instead, surpluses turned to deficits, with a vengeance, once the Bush tax cuts went into effect. During the Bush years, the national debt has soared from $5.8 trillion to more than $8.3 trillion.
Why haven't the Republican powers inside the Beltway cut government more? Well, some of them were too busy throwing government money at the corporate friends who keep them in power and get them onto all the nice golf courses.
But the bigger reason is that every time budget-cutters hover their ax over any of the middle-class benefits where the big money flows, voters scream bloody murder.
Turns out people really like most of what big government provides.
They like the help with J.J.'s college tuition, and with Grandma's nursing home bills and prescription drugs. They like having a teaching hospital full of brilliant doctors and expensive equipment nearby. They demand a strong national defense and better homeland security. And they are really, really fond of the tax deduction for their home mortgage interest.
Taxpayers are human. They like a good deal. If politicians tell them they can get all the government benefits they secretly love at a discounted price, they'll cheer.
And, as some genuine fiscal conservatives are ruefully coming to realize, people who are getting government at what feels like a discounted price (i.e. lower taxes) aren't going to clamor for less government. They're going to clamor for more, for benefits like a prescription drug benefit that Medicare has no idea how to pay for.
But, in fact, these government benefits aren't really being bought at a discount. They're being bought with reckless borrowing. They'll get paid for, all right, but the payment will come down the road in higher taxes, higher interest rates and economic anxiety.
Tax cuts pay for themselves? That's just an irresponsible alibi for making our children and grandchildren pay for our self-indulgent little party.

The Comptroller of the United States DOCUMENTED that we are loosing MORE revenue from the tax cuts then than new revenue from growth. His data from both GAO and OMB showed that only 50% is being paid by the tax cuts.

stutefish

on Jul 12, 2006

Ah, but a growing economy due in part to tax cuts is a sustainable long-term plan for future economic growth and stability.

An increased government revenue and shrinking economy due in part to tax increases is NOT a sustainable plan for future economic growth and stability.

And as usual, Gene gives no countenance at all to the very real possibility that perhaps finding people with money and taking it away from them IS NOT a good way to fund government projects, no matter how profitable it is, and no matter how much money the government thinks it should spend.

stutefish

on Jul 12, 2006

Also, a nation can function just fine over the mid term with even a huge budgetary deficit.

A nation can't function at all without an economy.

That is why I'm in favor of fixing the economy first, and the deficit later, and it's why I approve of Bush's policy of fixing the economy first, and the deficit later--especially since he seems to be making good headway on both right now.

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