President Barack Obama continues to claim that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. Earlier this week we ran a Washington Post graphic which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context. Now we have produced our own graph that shows how Obama’s spending plans will double the national debt.
Heritage Analyst Brian Riedl details how Obama accomplishes this feat:
- President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
- President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
- President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.
- President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. President Obama would double it.
- President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already increased this spending by 20 percent.
These numbers are terrifying. He is bankrupting our nation. He destroying our economy intentionally or due to complete inaptness. Either way we end up in the same place.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
Apparently they didn't teach Economics or Basic Math at Harvard. Oh, I forgot, he never ran a company, so, what does he know about running America?
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I, too, fear a bankrupt nation is imminient – the picture is bleak for our children and grandchildren. A question from an admitted economic illiterate (both current and historic)…I'd to see a similar comparison of the years of the Depression (29-3?) and the FDR years that followed. Is this proposed deficit spending similar in proportion (of course nowhere near in real dollars)? I believe once the pre-WWII buildup started, the comparison would be faulty, but I'd still like to see the numbers.
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well I do have to admit that is change now isnt it
It's amazing to see the Liberal drive to spend more and grow government more in the face of the absolute NEED to cut spending and lower taxes. Amazing!!!
You even see them in this quadmire do the sillest things like give automobile companies money and in the same breath, grow Unions!!!
Another example is the need for citizens to spend more to get the economy moving and turn right around and in the same breath, tax more and create more government w/ massive programs like Univ. Health.
Don't these people have a brain!!
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the rich out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the end fo the nation. You cannot multiply the wealth by dividing it.
His plan is illogical. Want answers? Check out the History of International Banking…Plenty on You Tube.
Ben C., you hit the nail right on the head, "You cannot multiply the wealth by dividing it."
I have a sibling that is older than I am. This sibling has, very deliberately, NOT held a steady job for her entire life, very deliberately worked to NOT have a career. She has no money.
I have had a career. I am now retired and living on a pension. I have a credit card, but I do not overload it, I pay it off every month.
Am I gong to "bail out" my sibling? No. Me giving her money will NOT make her wealthy, it will only make her figure that not having a steady job is OK, because "little sis" will help out. No, she won't.
Same with the nation, except this government is FORCING us to do so, regardless of what "we, the people" really want. It's sad, it's disgusting, it's shamefull. The great United States of America is rapidly falling into an abyss of mediocrity.
I am so afraid for our children and grandchildren. Our govenment is not only bankrupting the country but are taking our freedoms, one by one. People to not have a voice anymore.
Pelosi is the most dangerous person in the nation right now with Obama second.
I see them going after our guns next under the disguise of "helping Mexico".
I think I am living in Venezula now. Obama and Chavez ruling in the same manner.
During Mr. Obama's last "press conference", Mr. Obama said several times that he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
I noticed that none of the hard hitting journalists in the crowd asked him how he intended to do this. Nor did they ask what deficit he was talking about, the one that exists today, or the one that is today projected to exist in four years, or will be be told four years from today that whatever the deficit is at that time "it would have been twice as much if not for my restraint"?
Where was the unrelenting journalistic scrutiny of Dan Rather at the Nixon press conferences? We need more indepth probing such as Ann Compton's. Perhaps she can ask the President's favorite TV program next time.
There is no way Mr. Obama can honestly make the claim of cutting the deficit in half in four years, or forty-four years, because he is not through increasing it yet.
Congress doesn't read the bills they vote to approve, but this is offset by the President's not reading the bill he signs into law. This way, all parties can be shocked, shocked to find the real cost involved and then can share outrage with the general public. How many times will this fly? Fool me 30 or 40 times, shame on you; eventually, shame on me.
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President Obama is obviously too bright to be bankrupting America out of ineptness so the only conclusion left is by intention! The motivation behind intentionally bankrupting this country is abominable!
Thomas Jefferson said…" The tree of Liberty, from time to time, must be refreshed with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants." It is now that "time". The only way to regain control of our nation is to put fear of the citizenry back into the hearts of our elected Masters.
Obama cares nothing for those he says he is trying to help, while he takes our money. He is in it purely for the power.
He wants us all to fall in line and make us all indentured servants. But I don't think he understands the American spirit. Do not be discouraged and trust in the Lord.
I am laughing at the right wing paranoia as I read these comments. Should the blue collar worker who works 2 jobs to feed his family or the school teacher who educates our children, be taxed proportionally more than the unscrupulous businessman or heiress? Yeah, they don't work, lol.
Should Health Care be restricted to only those who can afford it? Oh, Oh, but the its the market forces at work when an insurance company charges outrageous prices for questionable coverage. Gotta love a greedy profit-driven health care system.
While I'm no fan of Obama, some of these blanket statements of panic coming from the right are down right scary (worse than those coming from the liberal left during the years of Bush's corrupt administration).
Simply put, a percentage of tax on the working classes is much greater proportionally than that percentage is on the wealthy. I have no sympathy for them.
Phil from S.C.
"Thomas Jefferson said…” The tree of Liberty, from time to time, must be refreshed with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.” It is now that “time”. The only way to regain control of our nation is to put fear of the citizenry back into the hearts of our elected Masters."
This is the kind of frightening rhetoric coming from the right that will leave impressionable minds with the idea of doing something downright extreme as their "patriotic duty."
Aaron, i agree with Phil, and im what those who believe in putting all political/economic philosphy onto an imaginary 1-dimensional line would call "far left."
have a nice day
Aaron,
You make me wonder what (had they not been thinking something along the lines of what you said, in response to Phil) the redcoats must have had running through their heads when we fought for our independence. It couldn't possibly be anything like what you just said, of course…
How to lie with numbers:public rather than total debt — since the social security trust fund is gone all deficit funding is now public debt making the graph jump up.
How to lie with numbers 2: Somehow president Obama is given 10 years to create his debt. If Obama gets credit for 2018 then Bush should get credit for 2010. Oh wait the 2010 budget has Bush's signature on it (literally). Presidents are limited to 8 years by the Constitution. Think people think.
I believe it is misleading to say "obama's spending plans" will double the debt. The spending that will double the debt is primarily due to the "spending plans" of past administrations. The primary drivers of the national debt are (i) interest on the existing debt, (ii) medicare, (iii) social security, (iv) national security, along with plunging tax revenues due to the economic crisis. They are most certainly not Obama's spending plans.
This is not to say that Obama's spending plans won't add to the national debt over the next ten years. They will. But honest debate requires a discussion of what Obama is proposing in light of the dire economic and fiscal situation that we face, rather than trying to fully blame the situation on him.