RAF",The same CBO that showed how obamacare estimated costs have rose from an estimate of $940 billion for a decade, 2012-2022, to $1.76 trillion for a decade 2013-2023. Yet somehow the "fact-checking" journolisters declare a decade is not a decade after all."
This is a lie, and you know it. The $940 billion estimate was for 2009-2019. One "decade" is not a different "decade" except in your mind. Completely dishonest.

I should have known asking you to be honest was not going to happen.

As was stated when the initial faux claims of costs came out, millions stated the estimated costs were tweaked by taxes up front with little to no payouts; front loaded.

"As ObamaCare sinks in the polls, Democrats are complaining that the critics are distorting their proposals. But the truth is that the closer one inspects the actual details, the worse it all looks. Today’s example is the vast debt canyon that would open just beyond the 10-year window under which the bill is officially “scored” for cost purposes." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo-...

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/i...

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/he...

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports...

Just once try to be honest. The estimates for the first decade were actually lower when they were redone in 2012. As for the future, who knows.

Keep looking for others with your point of view...

Doesn't change the fact the initial price claims were FASLE, as millions stated. This entitlement program, like every other one ever started by the fed, will quickly GROW well past initial predictions in cost as it strangles our nation budget even more...like the rest of them do.

"CBO's most recent estimate of the insurance coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act has sparked a debate about how CBO's estimate of ACA has changed over time. Some lawmakers (see here for example) claim that CBO's cost estimate has doubled in the two years since the bill's passage, while others claim that the bill's cost is now lower than we previously thought (see here and here). Let's examine these competing claims.

The recent claim arguing that costs have doubled cites the gross cost of coverage provisions as CBO estimated in 2010 and 2012: $938 billion and $1.76 trillion, respectively. However, the time windows differ: the initial estimate covered 2010 through 2019, while the latest estimate covers 2012-2022. Since most of the law's provisions don't kick in until 2014, the 2012 estimate includes three additional years where the coverage provisions are fully in effect. With that three-year shift in the projection window, one would expect the ten-year cost to increase significantly.

Also, we would quibble with using the gross cost, since it is a less comprehensive measure than the net cost estimate given that the bill also included penalties on people who do not have insurance or employers who do not provide it to help reduce costs (and these policies are closely related to the coverage expansions). When looking at net costs and using a common projection window (2012-2019), the cost of the coverage provisions has remained roughly the same in the two estimate"
http://crfb.org/blogs/fiscal-fact-checke...

Ahh so show where this admin and the dems ADMITTED the projected cost would double a year before full implementation....

Ah! I see. Now show where the estimate that was produced when the act was passed says the estimate would cover any decade besides 2009-2019.

Who said they were the same decade? Clueless...

The fact they both cover the same amount of time, but one cost nearly twice as the other is VERY meaningful...unless it doesn't fit your meme.

Is 2009-2019 the same decade as 2013-2023? Keep trying.
"But the law’s costs haven’t doubled, and CBO didn’t say they did. That claim results from an inappropriate apples-to-grapefruit comparison. The original gross cost estimate – at $938 billion over 10 years – was for 2010-2019. CBO’s latest $1.76 billion estimate is for 11 years, ending in 2022.

Lookie here, another obamacare tax sees the light of day via the AP...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012...

03/14/2013 $16,708,225,460,175.14
16.7 Trillion

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGatew...

Since I mentioned the faux savings of obamacare I see that finally the AP has decided to report what millions of tax paying common sense thinkers have said since the beginning...how it will cost all more money--not less.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/i...

In other news the declared reductions in the senate dem budget plan are already in place as part of current law in the sequester. Double counting dems once again....just like obamacare "savings".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...

The same CBO that showed how obamacare estimated costs have rose from an estimate of $940 billion for a decade, 2012-2022, to $1.76 trillion for a decade 2013-2023. Yet somehow the "fact-checking" journolisters declare a decade is not a decade after all.

Ahhh, the famous economists working as economists for the CBO, the source for Factcheck's accurate reporting.

ahhh the famous economists, hiding as reporters, at factcheck.

"But the law’s costs haven’t doubled, and CBO didn’t say they did. That claim results from an inappropriate apples-to-grapefruit comparison. The original gross cost estimate – at $938 billion over 10 years – was for 2010-2019. CBO’s latest $1.76 billion estimate is for 11 years, ending in 2022.

In the chart below, we compare only apples to apples — the eight fiscal years covered both by the 2010 report and by the latest report. (See Table 2 in the latest report, and Table 4, page 24 in the 2010 report). And as you can see, the estimate of gross outlays have crept up since the original projection — which the CBO said is due in part to an economy that is recovering more slowly than originally projected. But the net costs — after accounting for revenue measures related to insurance coverage — have declined just a bit."
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/03/gop-mis...

By your own admission, two different spans of time, and 11 years, not ten.

pharm you really need to read more. The first amount was for 2012-2022, the larger amount is for 2013-2023. Only one year difference, both the same 10 year spans.

Nearly a doubling in cost...no problem for some from one year to the next.

The cost has not been raised for the ten years that were originally projected. The new projection covers a different decade, years that were not originally counted. Only if the costs for the original bill were raised could you say that the estimate was wrong. Has CBO said that the ACA would not lower the deficit? Not in the letter to Boehner in December.

"President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law."

http://washingtonexaminer.com/cbo-obamac...

http://cbo.gov/publication/43076

WASHINGTON -- "The health insurance provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will cost $84 billion less to implement than previously expected, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Tuesday.

In a revision of estimates made in March, the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) said in a report that "the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of $1,168 billion over the 2012–2022 period -- compared with $1,252 billion projected in March 2012 for that 11-year period."
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-W...

It was originally projected to go up $200 billion a year. Every time you add a year it goes up, as I said. Your chart does not show what you state it does.

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/c...

The projected 10-year cost has increased by $233 billion.

Cite the CBO revision. The last one I saw was a letter to Boehner in December about the rise in the deficit if the ACA is repealed.

http://news.yahoo.com/afge-critical-sena...

hmmm, funny how the CBO revision says just the opposite.

The government didn`t revise up the estimate for Obamacare, they issued one for a new ten year period. That estimate still reduces the deficit, and for the second decade it still says around a trillion dollar savings.

pharm, you need to re-check your huff post piece quoting the union, they had to correct it...imagine that.

lol, estimates. Would that be like the "claimed" estimates of the cost of obamacare? In the past year the govt has officially revised, UP, the costs of this program...

We all think we know a lot of things, until we find out different.

Naive to quote "government estimates"...we all know what that means in reality.

"The government estimates its online application will take a half hour to complete, on average. If you need a break, or have to gather supporting documents, you can save your work and come back later. The paper application is estimated to take an average of 45 minutes."

This is what you Obamanits voted for.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/U...

If the federal government would cease to expand maybe we wouldn't have these pay issues. More government programs and expansions by Democrats leads to more layers of fat that have to be sustained through increased payroll troughs.

"But in making the case for a smaller, lesser-paid workforce, the proposal from the House Budget Committee chairman may mislead readers when it comes to recent federal pay. "Immune from the effects of the recession," the budget reads, "federal employees have received regular salary bumps regardless of productivity or economic realities."

Federal employee pay rates have been frozen for more than two years, part of a shared sacrifice toward budget control announced by President Obama in 2010 and backed by Congress. Individual workers have still received pay increases due to performance or promotions, as the Washington Post notes, but workers have not been receiving their regular cost-of-living increase each year.

A Ryan spokesman said the statement in the budget addressed the fact that workers are still eligible for "step and grade increases" as part of the federal workforce, even though they aren't receiving their traditional cost-of-living bumps.

But without those automatic annual raises, many federal workers haven't seen a pay hike at all, said J. David Cox, Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a federal employee union. "There's been no across-the-board raises for three years, no cost of living adjustment," Cox said. "Everyone has to have a raise occasionally."
Ryan still lying.

So it's budget week in Washington and the Repubs are going all soft on us. Boehner tweeted that everyone should check out the results of the new McClatchy Marist Poll which found that a majority of Americans strongly prefer tax increases to cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education and Transportation. Good lookin' out Johnny boy! You'll find that the Senate budget proposal will definitely fall in line with the feelings of the American people reflected in that poll that you want everybody to take the time to read.
Also, it turns out that even though Paul Ryan's new budget assumes the repeal of the ACA it also uses the ACA's cuts to Medicare AND the Fiscal Cliff deal's revenue increases to balance the budget. Apparently Ryan hates the Democrats' ideas so much he used them in his own budget.
Budget week is pretty fun this year!

Telling a person to shutup and pay is hardly a form of govt. But it does fit into your your understanding of govt functions and economics; ignorance.

A basic understanding of how our government functions is now known as "socialist fascism".
You'll have to pardon me. I haven't yet received my updated copy of the Reactionary Dictionary.

"Otherwise shut up and pay the bill"
-
More socialist fascism...

The House budget will assume the repeal of the ACA. Now there's a way to drum up bipartisan support and get a budget passed. Idiots. Best part about this was Paul Ryan going on the Chris Wallace (Fox News) show and having Wallace scoff at the notion that the ACA would ever be repealed. Priceless.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-r...

When Congress passes programs they get paid for. That's how things have been run for decades and decades. Remember how you told me that tax revenue would never be used to pay national debt because it hasn't been done in 60 years? Well, then this argument should resonate with you. Congress passes the program. It gets paid for whether we like it or not. We, as a nation, do not hold programs already passed by Congress hostage simply because suddenly Congress can't get anything done. You want to cut a program? Get that cut through Congress. Otherwise shut up and pay the bill. Congress isn't getting anywhere? Win more seats. With the direction their headed, the GOP will need lots of luck in that regard. That's why you see all these attacks on voting; voter ID, early voting, etc. That's also why they're trying to change the electoral college to apportion the electoral college votes by Congressional district. They know the only chamber of Congress they can win is the House because of their recent turn at the gerrymandering wheel. They want that small measure of control to dictate the outcome of the Presidential election because they can't win anything else on their own merits or ideas. Trying to buy elections hasn't exactly worked out as they'd hoped so they have to try new underhanded tactics.

Gee, I wonder how we got to that debt to GDP ratio. Back then they hadn't quite spent us into that ratio with Cold War b.s. and WMD lies. Pinning the debt to GDP ratio on the Obama administration is probably pretty easy for the GOP as I'm sure they witness their plutocrat masters spill wine all the time only to blame their butlers and maids for spilling it.

When comparing Feb 2013 to Feb 2012 Fox News isn't doing so hot. The primetime shows overall are down 7% in total viewership and down 29% among the key age 25-54 demo. O'Reilly, Hannity and Van Susteren are all down in total viewers and down 26%, 35% and 32% respectively among the ages 25-54. To be fair, nearly all cable news outlets saw a drop in viewers, but other drops weren't near as steep. Over at MSNBC, the drop in the 25-54 demo for Schultz, Maddow and O'Donnell was only 10%, 5% and 12% respectively.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cate...

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cate...

Politicians love to spend taxpayer money on programs that are not in my copy of the constitution.

"It's only become an issue, just like deficits and debt, because they don't like the who the people elected President."
-
My my wally. Selectively finding a few people who were silent when the debt to GDP ratio was below 50% and trying to compare that to today's debt to GDP ration of close to 100% doesn't really tell the full story now does it. But keep wading in the weeds over acord and ratings while you ignore information.

Walter utters more false information, "the limit has to be raised to be raised to approve the paying of debt that has ALREADY been incurred."

You truly have no idea how finances work. Not raising the limit has nothing to do with paying the debt. Paying the debt can still be done with current collections of taxes. The problem is SPENDING more than collected...like it has been for over 6 decades. Uncanny how socialists don't understand that.

Cute debt limit video, RAF. It, like most failed attempt to explain the debt limit completely ignores the fact that the limit has to be raised to be raised to approve the paying of debt that has ALREADY been incurred. NOT doing so would hurt the credit rating of the US. In fact, just threatening not to do so hurts the credit rating of the US. That actually happened once when the Republicans were threatening to not pass another increase to it. What's amazing to me is that during the Reagan, Bush and W Bush years, government spending was completely out of control and the debt limit was raised over and over and over. Republicans never said peep about it. This whole thing is disingenuous. It's only become an issue, just like deficits and debt, because they don't like the who the people elected President.

Exposing admin sequester lies...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...

walter here is more rating info for you to ignore.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cabl...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...

Realistic view walter? The liberal bent PPP and an atlanticwire story about it, you really have a warped sense of reality...explains many of you other twisted socialist stances.

As far as you wading into the weeds over none issues, I see you can't let go of acorn or the silly topic of ratings as some sort of meaning to fit your meme. I suspect you also ignored how the "non-existent" organization has been disappeared and parts/people created other named groups. I suspect you also ignored reality on ratings, since you think it is important what others watch http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/03...

But back to the topic of budgets...oh never mind you never really wanted to understand how one is needed or how much debt this admin is placing on our society....just spend spend spend.

Aww RAF, I'm not wading into the weeds. I'm giving you a realistic view of the political landscape and how out of touch Republicans are with it. With all the fire and brimstone prophesying over the economy, jobs and debt Democrats still retained the White House and gained seats not only in the Senate but even in the House. Even after all the Republican friendly gerrymandering that went on after the 2010 "shellacking" the Republicans retained control but lost seats. This goes to show how quickly the GOP has lost touch with the voters. Their inclusion in their budget of the defunding of a non-existent organization just goes to show how they've lost touch with reality. Either way, there aren't too many people taking them seriously anymore. Just look at the hit Fox News is taking in their ratings. O'Reilly's even starting to crack under the pressure and foam and spit and yell and curse on air at guests. It's getting ugly out there for the Repubs. Jeb Bush is trotting out immigration reform plans that have already been denounced by both the up and comers and the leadership of the party. I guess my point is why take a budget proposal seriously from a party that can't even keep itself organized? I know, I know. Different people with differing ideals and ideas, right? Isn't that a nice canned response as to why a budget hasn't been passed at all then? I'll tell you this. The reasonable thinking voter now realizes that getting a budget passed isn't going to happen. We've move on RAF. You want to keep harping on it? More power to you, but that horse isn't getting any deader. Meanwhile all the "socialists" with their "blinders" (full of women) just keep winning elections. Do you feel like the America you once knew is fading away, RAF? Well, you're right. It is. And thank God for that.

walter, maybe he should pay back the taxpayers the $3 million that it cost to play golf with Tiger Woods. No way does that amount to gov't business. Maybe then the kids could still have White House Tours on Spring break.

Walter your deflection from needing a budget, with the silly remark as others declaring it a measure of success, shows you have no clear understanding at all of fiscal management. Wading off into the weeds about acron also has nothing to do with success nor has it anything to do with the topic at all; imagine that more deflection. Interesting though how you want to compare something that hasn’t happened for more than sixty years in our nations fiscal arena with voting rights...just more obfuscation from socialists who don’t understand the problem and can’t address the issues.

Remember how he was going to lure all those jobs away from IL with all the corporate welfare he was able to get passed? That sure worked, didn't it? Our special little boy Scottie is all grown up. Now he's sacrificing the ecosystems of the north woods for jobs that will be filled, in large part, by people from other states. When he finally realized that his influence on the legislative writing process was a net negative he decided it was time to just let the corporations write the laws. Having the votes doesn't hurt either. Good thing there's no filibuster in the WI state senate. Am I right, Republicans?

And in other news;
http://host.madison.com/data/interactive...

Everybody's money was somebody else's money to begin with. What's your point?

pharm, Since we pay his salary, Obama's money really is taxpayer money to begin with.

RAF,
Tax revenues not being used to lower the national debt in the past doesn't mean that it can't be done at all. That's ridiculous. By your logic, women and minorities should not be voting now simply because they weren't allowed to for a very long time.
If passing a budget is your measure of success, you've set the bar pretty low. In the most recent Republican budget that was proposed there was a provision that defunded the group ACORN. ACORN was defunded and ceased to exist 3 years ago. Keep proposing those budget, Republicans. Your attention to detail is stunning.
I've never advocated more spending than we have now. It should be decreased carefully as I've always said.
And thank you for continually referring to me as a Socialist. Any pub is good pub for the movement. In fact, when Conservative blowhards like yourself acknowledge Socialism it's even more beneficial.
Also, speaking of ACORN and blowhards, did you know that half of Republicans believe ACORN, which doesn't exist, stole the 2012 election for President Obama. Keep waving that flag, RAF. GOP all the way.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/...

So all they ate was food that was eligible under food stamp coverage? I guess they did not have a drink with alcohol then....Kool aid for everyone..the generic kind.

I see..

"After the meal, which ran about two hours and twenty minutes, the White House let it be known that Obama "paid for the dinner out of his own pocket," according to a pool report from Susan Crabtree of the Washington Times."

Where is mouse and all her alias? For months we endured her cattlewalling on Paul Ryan and his $300.00 bottle of wine.

Not only did Obama have $300.00 bottles of wine with McCain this week but he didn't pay for it out of pocket as Ryan had. This during a 20 car motor caid reaching 1/2 mile long. Yet White House tours were cancelled.

Such hyprocrisy is almost laughable. Only it's just pathetic and sad.

walter your argument on stimulus is faulty, because the money has not stopped. We have not had a budget for over 1400 days, the baseline has increased each year based on that spending...out of control spending.

If as you claim, raising taxes is the answer, show in our nations last 6 decades where this has worked to lower the national debt...you can't...but I would still like for you to look up the information so you can learn on your own.

Clearly history has shown no matter the tax rates, to include over 90%, spending more than collected has ALWAYS been the problem. Pretending that just a little more spending will change what we already know to be true is socialist ignorance.

RAF,
The Obama administration's claims have nothing to do with Midnight's. Nothing. Your attempt to link them is funny, RAF. Stimulus money is not meant to be sustained. That's why it's called stimulus. It's meant to an looming immediate crisis. That is exactly what it did. Did it, because of the combined effects of two previous out of control spending Republican Presidents, contribute to a long term debt crisis? You bet it did. The problem is that taxes were, and remain really, at near historic lows. The money was in the hands of the private sector and consumption based on real demand wasn't happening. The Obama administration made a choice, and it was a good choice. It would have been a great choice and more stimulative if it had been a bigger spending package, but spilled milk and all that blah blah blah. Now we're out of options. Consumption based on real demand is building but it needs to be a more rapid increase. Spending cuts are necessary but not to any programs that are currently assisting our nation's most vulnerable. Heavy defense spending cuts are a good place to start. If we have unnecessary bloat anywhere it's there. If you want any other ideas look at all the spending cuts proposed by the Obama administration that Bill O'Reilly thinks don't exist. We're going to need to raise revenues. Raising taxes on the richest of the rich is fine, but that rate should be higher. We should also be raising taxes on people further down the income scale as well. If we're going to fix this thing we all need to be in on it. The very poor don't pay any taxes save for a huge chunk of what income they do have that goes to regressive sales taxes. They're always have been and always will be doing their part that way.

wanting others to cite jobs lost when the admin you support never backed up claims of jobs saved is funny walter.

To your inept remarks on spending you still ignore money the govt spends is money removed from the private sector. The more debt now is just more money removed from the private sector in the future. Your declaration that someone "needs" to spend is a simplistic view. Reality is the economy needs consumption based on real demand to survive. Faux stimulus spending does nothing to build sustained economic impact and only serves to create more debt. Leaving this same money in the hands of the consumer to spend, instead of printing/borrowing/taxing would have a vastly better impact to the economy.....but that doesn't fit the socialist blinder approach.

So sour grapes over the ACA is why the GOP blocked the Veterans' Jobs bill and the Bringing Jobs Back Home bill? The Conservative Supreme Court declared the ACA to be Constitutional. It's the law of the land. Spending money to keep people healthy who would otherwise be more likely to be unhealthy leads to a healthier work force. OH NO! Not that! Republicans pretty much gave up the "Repeal Obamacare" talking point when they realized that it just keeps getting more popular as more people are being helped by it. I personally despise the ACA. It's just a big "how's your father" to the insurance industry in the long run. Single payer should be the only way to make sure that access to adequate healthcare is treated like the human right that it is.
One question: Could you specifically cite the sectors where jobs have been lost due to the ACA? Please bear in mind that jobs not being created is much different than jobs actually being eliminated. That said, if you still have something to cite please also provide your sources. I'm always looking for good info against the ACA.

Well then Walter, tell Obama and his administration to get out of the way. Obamacare alone has cost hundreds of thousands and jobs as well as the NLRB sanctions that are now illegal under Imperial recess appointments and don't even get started on energy. Failure after failure of Obama's crony capitalism is on full display yet he alone is stopping self reliance and energy indepence with oil and shall.
Tax and spend. Say it again, tax and spend does not create anything but poverty.

I never said government spending was better than private spending, but when private spending isn't happening and Republicans are blocking jobs bills from getting passed so that maybe people and then businesses will start spending again, the government has to step in. Does that mean taking on debt? Yes. When our nation was facing the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression did that mean taking on a lot of debt? You better believe it. Unfortunately, the Reagan and Bush administrations had previously been on an all out spending spree, so when the collapse happened the effects were that much worse. When it comes down to it, our economy is only sustained by spending and lots of it. If the private sector isn't spending money, somebody sure has to or the whole thing goes belly up. We're not in a position right now between the high unemployment and some in our government more concerned with debt (or abortion) than jobs to tackle the debt without hurting those that are already hurting. Once we get the jobs situation back on track, private spending will be a welcome replacement for government spending.

walter your small minded view fits your ideology not reality. The reason the debt is so HIGH is because of this small minded view. Declaring a position that now is not the time to be responsible is what got our nation to this point. This administration just passed increased taxes on the evil rich and let payroll taxes go back up. If the administration thinks it is fine for everyday folks to spend less than the govt can live by the same standard.

The faux view that govt spending, money taken from society, borrowed, or printed, is better than private spending is insane...culminating in ~17 trillion in debt and over ~75 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

"All subsidized for gangs in Chicago who voted for Obama.."
Would you try to negotiate with you? And we wonder why nothing gets done.

"When revenues rise, however that might be, we can start to pay down the debt."

Yeah..ever try to put out a fire while 10 others feed the flame with nice dry wood?

How can the debt go down when you have ObamaScare and food stamp use go up? All subsidized for gangs in Chicago who voted for Obama..

RAF,
When revenues rise, however that might be, we can start to pay down the debt. The debt is a long term problem that absolutely must be addressed, but there are too many people hurting to start slashing spending in a way that might amplify that hurt. Jobs are a problem right now. Nobody wants generations down the road to be saddled with debt, but it's never going to get fixed if people don't get back to work. What's nice is that China is sitting on a gigantice residential housing construction bubble that will burst in the near future. I see lots of debt soon to be wiped from the books.

"An increase from 10 to 15 is 150% increase."
?

Typo 50% not 150%

Bolshovik Barry has borrowed 6 times more all year then these few sequester cuts. He has also received all time revenue and the rich have paid their highest percent of the taxes in 30 years.

Dude, the man has problems with the US founding and it's capitalism. He's a marxist as per his own admission from his book.

Liberal blindness doesn't excuse stupidity those of you who still support this reckless behavior.

LOL, deficit to GDP ratio is "low". Yep, ignoring how the national debt has now reached a record high, near 1:1, ratio with GDP is the lefts way of acting like ostriches ; head in sand once again.

I was to busy shedding a tear because Hugo Chavez passed away.

whzbng,
Debt and deficit are two different things. The federal budget deficit is down by half a trillion since FY 2009. As a percentage of GDP (which actually puts the deficit into a relevant context) the federal budget deficit is lower than it has been in generations.

Nobody but you is talking about an increase in the deficit. Catch up with the conversation.

pharm an increase from the deficeit when Bush left office of a little over $9T to the current deficeit of almost $17T is not 30%. Try again.

"An increase from 10 to 15 is 150% increase."
?

Even figuring in the stimulus still gets a lower dollar figure than Bush.

"You libs must really think conservatives are stupid."
If you check the math, Obama`s 30% increase will be less in dollars also, by almost $500billion.

Using RAF`s chart, spending will increase less than 30% under Obama for 8 years, after increasing 80% in the 8 Bush years.

An increase from 1 to 2 is 100% increase.

An increase from 10 to 15 is 150% increase.

A smaller % increase, but 5 is a lot more than 1.

You libs must really think conservatives are stupid.

If the tanked economy was Bush's fault, as many claim, and if more government spending is the answer now, as many claim, the Bush economy should have been fantastic by that "logic".

Who said it was tiny? Always adding content to others words. But, compared to Bush`s increases they could be called extremely less.

$200 billion stimulus in 2009, which worked even though it was too small, does not change the numbers. Be honest for a change.

fun with numbers as the leftist push the stimuflub spending off obama's numbers and then try to say his spending is tiny....lol.

Obama has had a budget every year, one to come this year. His four years of increased spending, some of it stimulus, a lot mandatory, is less than half of the increase under the first four Bush years. What an outrage! Using RAF`s chart, spending will increase less than 30% under Obama for 8 years, after increasing 80% in the 8 Bush years.
"He could have told them that we need large deficits to fill the hole in demand that was created by the collapse in private sector spending. He could have shown them colorful graphs that beat them over the head with the point that there was very little room for investment to expand even under the best of circumstances.

He could have also explained that consumers would not go back to their bubble levels of consumption since the wealth that had supported this consumption had disappeared with the collapse of the bubble. The public would likely understand this point since most homeowners had themselves lost large amounts of equity and understood that they were much poorer as a result of the collapse of the bubble.

"In this context the only choice in the near term is between larger budget deficits and higher unemployment. The people who clamored for cuts in government spending and lower deficits are in fact clamoring to throw people out of work and slow growth.

We will never know if President Obama could have garnered support for more stimulus and larger deficits if he had used his office to pound home basic principles of economics to the public and the media. But we do know the route he chose failed.

He apparently thought the best route to get more stimulus was to convince the deficit hawks that he was one of them. He proudly announced the need to pivot to deficit reduction after the passage of the stimulus and then appointed two deficit hawks, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, to head a deficit commission.

This set the ball rolling for the obsession with deficit reduction that has dominated the nation's politics for the last three years. Instead of talking about the 9 million jobs deficit the economy faces, we have the leadership of both parties in Congress arguing over the debt-to-GDP ratios that we will face in 2023.

This would be comical if lives were not being ruined by the charade. The unemployed workers and their families did not do anything wrong, the people running the economy did.

Now the sequester comes along, throwing more people out of work, worsening the quality of a wide range of government services and denying hundreds of thousands of people benefits they need. Yes, this is really stupid policy and the Republicans deserve a huge amount of blame in this picture.

But it was President Obama who decided to play deficit reduction games rather than being truthful about the state of the economy. There was no reason to expect better from the Republicans in Congress, we had reason to hope that President Obama would act responsibly"
Dean Baker

Obama took the biggest spending year Budget ever and INCREASED the spending!!! Yeah, that right there was a brilliant move....NOT. Are you sorry for for voting mistake yet? If not, you will be. This guy is putting this country into the poor house and you guys are happy? I hate to think how far in debt you are.

So Bush had 8 budgets in 8 years he was in office. How many has Obama had?

If the dow reaches it's all time high from Oct 2007 of 14,164, the best you can say is the market has then had 0% returns for the investor in the last 5 yrs since then. However the real working person has higher food, medical, gas prices while their income has come down. Economic growth cannot be expanded by gov't programs but by growth in the private sector economy. Name one program that will receive $1 less in spending this year than it got last year. Maybe this sequester will help the economy.

Then you should be smart enough to understand he had 8 budgets, the last ending on September 1, 2009. Unless you are just trying to be obtuse again. The deficit was projected for 2009 at $1.2 trillion before Obama was elected.

pharm I think increased debt at anytime is wrong. I also am smart enough to understand that Bush left office on 20 Jan 09.

01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08

Third Eye, I see, you have no point.
RAF, from your own posts , under Bush budgets, debt went from $5.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion. Were you as equally incensed over debt then, and if you were why defend that administration on your posts?

"Make the cuts as painful as possible"

Proving once again, Benghazi Barry isn't interested in leading the country to be calm and cut unnecessary robotic squirrel type waste, but to dictate as a one party rule through fear and propaganda.

Well done my newly named Bolshevik Barry, well done

LOL, poor fearfulrhetoric. Has a problem with the numbers from the administration she voted for.

In his little fishbowl RAF doesn't understand what " as a share of GDP " means. Low information? I love anyone who uses projections to fail and make points.

Once again RAF you FAIL.

Pharm. Yes the Motley Fool point (#14) is true.
HOWEVER in October 2007 the dow was at $14,000 than fell into the $7000's in 2008. So the increase you tout is only investors getting back to where they were 6 YEARS AGO.
Walter Ruether. Disagreeing with you is not low information or a lack of knowledge. Or do you feel you have the corner on information?

More information for the low information left...

Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 2000 - 2012
Date Dollar Amount
03/01/2013 16,640,135,316,625.33 -- Today
09/30/2012 16,066,241,407,385.89
09/30/2011 14,790,340,328,557.15
09/30/2010 13,561,623,030,891.79
09/30/2009 11,909,829,003,511.75
09/30/2008 10,024,724,896,912.49
09/30/2007 9,007,653,372,262.48
09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogi...
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/repor...

Interesting how the low information left voters are swindled by claims of reduced spending...when spending has increased every single year, except one in the past 13 years. They are easily confused over the idea of a reduced increase is somehow considered a reduction in spending, when the fact is spending went way up in 2009 and has yet to return to pre-faux stimulus levels. Good thing these folks aren't in charge of everyone's money.

Year Spending in Millions
2000 1,788,950
2001 1,862,846
2002 2,010,894
2003 2,159,899
2004 2,292,841
2005 2,471,957
2006 2,655,050
2007 2,728,686
2008 2,982,544
2009 3,517,677
2010 3,456,213
2011 3,603,061
2012 estimate 3,795,547
2013 estimate 3,803,364
2014 estimate 3,883,095
2015 estimate 4,059,866
2016 estimate 4,328,840
2017 estimate 4,531,723

Data source, the current white house administration OMB. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/His... table 1.1

Don't be afraid of cuts nothing to see here:
http://www.jsonline.com/business/automat...

"GAO report stated that, “The primary deficit declined 1.5 percentage points as a share of GDP over the 75-year period in this (GAO’s Baseline Extended) simulation.” But somehow those words didn’t make it into Sessions’s disclosure. He disclosed only the alternative simulation. And he made certain to disclose it several hours before the GAO made the report available to the press and the rest of the world."
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/03/0...

Save your energy, pharm. Do you think they got to be low information voters by being super into reading?

Third Eye, can you cite something that says the post by The Motley Fool is not true? If not, what is your point?

"In his response to the State of the Union, Sen. Marco Rubio said: “This idea – that our problems were caused by a government that was too small – it’s just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reprised a very bad argument that just won’t go away. (J. Scott Applewhite – AP)

For obvious reasons, this argument is very popular on the right, but there’s precious little to back it up. The core claim can be a bit slippery, but it tends to go something like this: the existence and affordability goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) were a major reason we had a subprime-driven housing bubble and then a crash. The only problem? Pretty much all the evidence on the housing crisis shows that that’s not true."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...
I am posting some of these things for the "low information" voters out there.

pharm Mar 4, 2013 @ 9:43 a.m. I noticed you only posted Motley Fools list numbers 9,14, and 69.
Regarding number 14, the response by whz_bng, Mar 4, 2013 @ 2 p.m. is similar to responses given on this issue by myself and others in the past.
But then, never mind the facts.
(I know, you didn't see them.)

"As Steven Brill shows in his cover story in this week’s Time magazine, nonprofit hospitals, even more than for-profit ones, chase 12 percent profit margins with eye-popping markups on everything from cardio stress tests to gauze pads.

The U.S. spends more per capita on health care, almost $9,000 a year, than any other country, yet it stands in the lowest quartile for life expectancy of developed countries. There is no doubt the U.S. health-care system is plagued by warped incentives, overtreatment, poor quality of care and administrative waste. Part of the value of Brill’s report is that it exposes a problem easier to understand, if not easier to solve: plain old overcharging. "
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-24...

"In 10 of the past 12 quarters, total government spending and investment has fallen, dragging down the Obama economy. That’s in large part because state and local cutbacks have been so severe, but it’s also because federal spending and investment has, on the whole, been falling since 2010.

This isn’t an unusual analysis. You can see the numbers for yourself if you head to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s GDP data and scroll through column 21 of table 1.1.2. It’s simply a fact that real government spending fell in three of President Obama’s first four years."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...

" If Obama had campaigned on some version of Simpson-Bowles rather than on poll-tested tax hikes alone, he could now claim a mandate from voters to do something big and bold. Most important, he would have some leverage with members of his own base who don’t want to touch Medicare even to save it.

As Greg Sargent points out, this is all quite ridiculous. Obama's February budget "contained hundreds of billions in spending cuts -- including cuts to Medicare." The president asserted his desire to use Simpson-Bowles as a framework for a Grand Bargain in his speech at the Democratic National Convention. That sequestration offset proposal contains spending cuts and entitlement reforms in the form of Medicare cuts and chained CPI. Pushback, like the sort Sargent offers, is important to bringing the debate back into the real world.

There are stirrings that a return to reality might be possible. Over the weekend, Ezra Klein wondered if maybe the congressional GOP just doesn’t know what Obama is offering, pointing to an unnamed Republican legislator who said he’d take the White House more seriously if they offered chained CPI (CCPI) as part of the deal. As Klein knows, that's specifically on offer. But Jonathan Chait warned that even if Obama could "get hold of Klein's mystery legislator and inform him of his budget offer, it almost certainly wouldn’t make a difference.”

"He would come up with something -- the cuts aren’t real, or the taxes are awful, or they can’t trust Obama to carry them out, or something," Chait wrote."

." According to economist Stephen Bronars, the new 39.6% federal tax bracket will only affect 0.7% of taxpayers but will hit 9.5% of aggregate personal income, as top earners earn a disproportionate share of the national income."
The Motley Fool

92."" Federal nondefense discretionary spending — all spending minus defense and entitlements — is on track to hit its lowest level as a share of GDP in more than 50 years, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.
The Motley Fool
Mandatory spending is causing most of the deficit.

My retirement IRAs and 401K (both invested in the stock market) are back to about what they were from the beginning of 2009, which was what they had recovered to from the dot-com crash and 9-11 kicker. I've got almost 2 years worth of retirement saved, not counting the generous Social Security checks I'll be getting after having paid into the fund since 1971.

(ok, now that everyone's done laughing...)


I'd take all my money out and put it in my mattress except I'm confident that one of Obama/Congressional "fixes" for the coming currency collapse will be hyper-inflation caused by inflating the money supply by printing as much as they want to cover the shortfall in tax revenues.

pharm, if you had money in the stock market on March 2009 your money lost roughly 50% of it's value from the prior year. The gain was just a comeback for most people during that time frame until recently.

14." Including dividends, the S&P 500 gained 135% from March 2009 through January 2013, during what people remember as the "Great Recession." It gained the exact same amount from 1996 to 2000, during what people remember as the "greatest bull market in history."
The Motley Fool

69." The share of an average U.S. household budget going toward gas in 2012 was nearly 4%, tying for the highest level in almost three decades, according to Energy Information Administration figures cited by The Guardian."
The Motley Fool
What happened to "drill, baby, drill"?

9. "U.S. oil production grew more in 2012 than in any year in the history of the domestic industry, which began in 1859," writes Tom Fowler of The Wall Street Journal."
The Motley Fool

The analogy from New York magazine that Spurling referenced says it all. A mugger comes up to you and says give me your wallet. You say I don't have my wallet but take my watch instead. Technically, giving your watch was your idea, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Spurling (and the writer he referenced) hit the nail on the head about the origin of the sequester.

Why don't we require furlough days or sequester a percentage of the paychecks of White House and Congressional staffers to see if that motivates some bipartisanship in Washington?

Let's shut down the Senate barbershop to save money. http://news.barbinc.com/2013/02/us-senat... Perhaps if they have to waddle out to a local Costcutters, they will get some real-world exposure to taxpayers who have to live within their means.

Maybe the First Couple could stick to vacationing at Camp David instead of Hawaii or Europe for a couple of years to save the taxpayers a few bucks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...

More of walter's rhetoric...."Those donations are most often used for campaigns and overwhelmingly go to overtly Republican groups."

Pharm: sequestration as written exempts SS,Medicare,tax credits,food stamps,Chidrens health programs,supplemental nutrition for needy families, SSI, Disability, military pay,CONGRESSIONAL PENSIONS,CONGRESSIONAL INSURANCE and PRESIDENTIAL COMPENSATION. As the article states there is over $100B in duplication of gov't services that should be cut. Far more could be cut than this sequestration.

"Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the former Republican vice presidential nominee, is preparing a budget blueprint that aims to balance revenue and spending in 10 years. But his effort has run afoul of the GOP vow not to change Medicare — the federal healthcare program for seniors and the disabled — for those now 55 or older.

Medicare eligibility currently begins at age 65. Ryan's approach would transform the benefits program into one that would provide a fixed amount of money in a voucher that future seniors could apply to the cost of buying private health insurance or to buying coverage through traditional Medicare.

Throughout last year's presidential campaign, the GOP promised not to change Medicare for today's seniors — only the next generation. But Republicans familiar with the number-crunching in Ryan's budget committee say balancing the budget may not be possible unless the changes start for those who are now 56 and younger.

Critics say Ryan's plan would shift healthcare costs from the government and onto seniors. Democrats who sharply criticized Ryan's proposal during the 2012 campaign say voters rejected his arguments when they reelected Obama.

Even some Republicans who support Ryan's proposal are wary.

"Is it going to be difficult? It's the third rail. Sparks are coming off before you even touch it," said Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) as he showed a photo of his grandchildren on his smartphone last week. "I want them to say: Grandpa tried."

Ryan's budget proposal is expected to lock in $1.2 trillion in sequestration-linked cuts over the next decade, while also reducing growth in the costs of Medicare and Medicaid — the health program for the poor, disabled and seniors in nursing homes. Other safety net programs, including food stamps and school lunches, also would be targeted"
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-gop-...

Yeah maybe need isn't the right word for these tax credits. But it helps people working there butts off to get by. I am independent and more often than not think both sides are completely off their rockers. Any rational person knows that neither party is for the middle class. Liberals want more welfare. Conservatives want to pad the pockets of their big business and oil buddies. Point is the conservatives feel it is ok to take away credits from the people spending their paychecks in this crap economy Yet they refuse to take subsidies away from big profit companies such as oil companies. Can you tell me why they think this is ok?

I love how the word NEED has become the new liberal battle cry. Why do you NEED this tax cut? Why do you NEED that type of gun, Why do you NEED to drive a SUV? Why do you need to drink a 20oz soda? How about this question Why do Liberals NEED me to justify every purchase, action or thought that I make? I never knew my freedom had a justification prerequisite.

you hit it on the head with Ryan onedayatatime. When republicans say closing tax loopholes they don't mean taking away tax breaks from people who don't need them. Those who are showing billions in profits like oil companies. Or like companies like apple who profit billions and still only pay 17 percent tax rate. They mean taking away mortgage deductions and child credits from people who need them. It would make most people sick to their stomachs if they new how much of our tax dollars go to companies who show billions in profit every year.

Funny how Republicans are blaming this sequester on the Obama administration claiming that it was their idea. So now all of the sudden Congress is obligated to pass all of the White House's ideas? Really? When did that become a rule? Secondly, and I can't claim this analogy as my own, if an armed mugger demanded their victim's wallet but the victim didn't have their wallet so they offered their watch instead, technically giving their watch was the victim's idea, but did they really have a choice?

Why is it that during the campaign when one of the platforms Paul Ryan was running on was "comprehensive tax reform", needed to close tax loop holes so that everyone would pay their fair share. Now that President Obama is calling for the same exact thing it has been spun to mean Obama wants to raise taxes? You can't have it both ways.
Austerity measures have not worked in other countries, in fact their economies have further declined. "The result is that austerity is uniquely destructive right now. Indeed, because of the harsh effect of budget cutting on growth, debt-to-G.D.P. ratios in Europe have continued to rise." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/busine...
This is what was meant by "we can't just cut our way to prosperity".

The automatic cuts were supposed to take effect in January, but the president and Congress agreed to delay them until March 1 to give themselves more time to work out a deal. Now, as the new deadline for sequestration draws closer, many Republicans blame the president. And though it’s true that the idea of sequestration originated in the White House, there would be no possibility of automatic cuts had members of Congress — both Democrats and Republicans — not gone along with the idea.

The Budget Control Act passed in the House with 269 votes in favor — 174 from Republicans and 95 from Democrats. And the bill cleared the Senate with 74 “yea” votes, of which 28 were cast by Republicans. In fact, one of those voting in favor, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Feb. 17 that “Republicans deserve blame; I’ll take some blame for it.”

And Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican from Michigan who voted against the bill, has said that “it’s totally disingenuous” for Republicans who voted in favor of the bill to now blame the president for it. Amash told Buzzfeed: “The debt ceiling deal in 2011 was agreed to by Republicans and Democrats, and regardless of who came up with the sequester, they all voted for it. So, you can’t vote for something and, with a straight face, go blame the other guy for its existence in law.”
factcheck.org

On NBC's Meet The Press, Boehner criticized the cuts, calling them "silly" and "random."

"I am concerned about its impact on our economy and its impact on our military. Listen, we've known about his problem for 16 months. We've known the sequester was coming," he said. "I’ve watched leaders from both parties kick this can down the road. We’re out of road to kick the can down."

Boehner said he believed cuts were needed, but that "there are smarter ways to cut spending than this silly sequester that the president demanded... we need to address the long-term spending problem. But we can't cut our way to prosperity.”
Hmmm....

"In other words, it’s highly unlikely that Ryan and House Republicans will have actual working numbers in their budget resolution. To fit the pledges that Murray correctly notes have boxed them in, they’ll use phony numbers — improbable economic growth estimates, bizarre tax effects, vague spending assertions. There’s not too much that’s predictable in this year’s budget wars, but this is one very safe bet"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post...

"Technically, Obama did move first on spending. Over the course of 2011, Obama signed into law a set of bills that cut about $1.8 trillion from discretionary spending, and that included no tax increases at all. One of those bills, the Budget Control Act, also gave us the sequester, so you could argue they included closer to $3 trillion in spending cuts — all, again, without a single tax increase"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/b...

You accuse me of offering nothing but rhetoric yet your own claim that most political donations go to Democrats and your one website offered as proof completely ignore undisclosed political donations to political parties and political action committees. Those donations are most often used for campaigns and overwhelmingly go to overtly Republican groups. As for ignoring the 2001 redistricting, feel free to provide an example of a state which had a Democratic led legislature that was sued in federal court for attempting to decrease the voting influence of minorities.

Walter here is a little more reality for you...

"With Washington gridlocked again over whether to raise their taxes, it turns out wealthy families already are paying some of their biggest federal tax bills in decades even as the rest of the population continues to pay at historically low rates."

http://www.boston.com/business/personal-...

pharm you are ignoring the reality that tax increases have happened, something the president and dems wanted, as of yet there have been no spending cuts...

What was that about compromise?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...

Has the House passed a budget this session? I don`t think so.

" the president completely ignored his own fiscal commission."
The one that didn`t get enough votes to pass, and recommended a balanced approach to the problem? Even higher revenue than the President wanted. I suppose only the Democrats are passing the CR`s, no Republicans involved. Too much partisanship on both sides. I would go for a chained CPI on SS, as would Obama, but only if it covered all the budget, Defense included. When one side says you have got all the revenue increases you are going to, should the other side say you have gotten all the spending cuts you are going to? Compromise works both ways.
"IF" harry let the senate vote on his(?) plan both versions would go to a joint committee for common ground to be found."
You are supposing that a plan that could pass is available.

Still nothing but rhetoric...not to mention the silence from you about the gerrymandered districts before the latest required redistricting; lacks consistency yet again.

Oh yes, RAF, because donations directly to the candidate are the only source of funding for any political campaign. I'd say you had your head in the sand if I didn't know that you were just clumsily trying to deflect. And yes the gerrymandering of districts that took place in 2011 was something new because it was the most recent redistricting. Also, look at the new way the GOP here in WI tried to hide their efforts. That case is still in federal court. Oh, and by the way that federal court just gave lawyers for those suing the state full access to 3 computers that were used by the state legislature to create the Republican friendly district maps. Things are a little different today then when good old Elbridge started us off.

The federal deficit as a share of GDP is actually down about 50% just since W Bush's FY 2009 deficit, but few people actually know that. It seems all Congress wants to debate is how to cut spending so we end up back in recession. Why don't we work on getting people back to work which will grow the GDP and keep the deficit falling and then we can finally tackle the real problem of our national debt. Oh that's right passing jobs bills would require Republicans to go along with something that President Obama endorses and we can't have that. If President Obama likes Americans going back to work, it must be un-American. So I guess paying down the national debt is un-American, too.

"gerrymandered"
-
Yeah that is something new....ehhh.

Nothing in that law changed the requirements for reporting donations, directly to a candidate, did it walter? So I still would like to see something besides your rhetoric to back your claims.

When the Republicans realize that the very best they'll be able to do for the foreseeable future is win the House because of the severely gerrymandered districts they have created throughout the country and then negotiate accordingly, our elected officials might actually get somewhere for us on the budget. In the meantime, all the GOP chooses to do is use stalling tactics based on their one position of leverage, weak as it is, in the House and the corruption of previously time honored procedure like holds and filibusters in the Senate to give the minority the ability to bring any and all progress to a grinding halt.

Citizens United which just gave legal permission to what was already going on through organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. Oh, yeah, and the acknowledged existence of corporate lobbying by...oh yeah, corporations. Do you have evidence that these things have not happened or are not happening. That would be much more interesting than me providing evidence for things that are common knowledge among those that are actually informed.

Walter do you have something besides rhetoric to back your socialist claims.....

pharm yet only half of congress has even passed a budget bill, every year as required, for the past +1400 days. Declaring it is because they are to far apart, when only one side is willing to put their plan in bill form, ignores how the process works. "IF" harry let the senate vote on his(?) plan both versions would go to a joint committee for common ground to be found.

The very reason this mess over sequester happened was because our nation is operating under a fiscal miss-management leadership approach; the president completely ignored his own fiscal commission.

Most donors that are trying to make themselves filthy rich at the expense of others don't want to put their names to their actions and, unfortunately, don't have to.

Awww, that's cute. RAF thinks that the source of all political donations are disclosed and that corporate lobbying of Congress doesn't exist. Who is clueless now?

RAF, you know the reason. The parties are so far divided that a "moderate" budget cannot pass, only an extreme, one way or the other, one can. Case in point, the House budgets.

Walter is once again ignoring reality in his continual socialist propaganda campaign of class warfare. The reality is 19 of the top 20 donors in politics since 1989 have given the most money to the dem side of the isle, including 12 unions.

19 of the top 20 to dems.
25 of the top 30 to dems.
33 of the top 40 to dems.
39 of the top 50 to dems.
47 of the top 60 to dems.
54 of the top 70 to dems.
60 of the top 80 to dems.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php...

Keep pretending one side of the isle is bought while you keep your head buried in the socialist propaganda without looking at real information.

BookBurnerHarry,
You talk as though someone with a family to feed can just go back to school with no worries following being laid off from a job through no fault of their own after many years only to find that jobs don't pay what they used to. The ultra wealthy class along with their corporate goons have gamed the system to move the wealth upward by buying off the political system to, among other things, virtually eliminate the power of unions to maintain livable wages for their members. The plutocrats and their toadies have also used their money and political influence to warp the tax code to their advantage so that many millionaires and billionaires pay a lower effective rate than most of what's left of the middle class. With the Republicans being a wholly owned subsidiary of the ultra wealthy, is it really any wonder that the Democrats have stepped up to try to find ways to protect all the others that have been left to fight over whatever scraps are left behind? Anyways, back to my example, say a widower with three kids loses his job of 17 years at some type of assembly factory. He has no specialized skills to speak of. If he can find a schooling program that the state will pay for (I'm sure you would call that freeloading), he'd better hope that it can be completed before his unemployment benefits run out. I'm sure you think he should find a way to go to school to gain new skills on his own dime without mooching any unemployment benefits or other assistance from the government. How do you propose someone do that without going hungry themselves let alone allowing their kids to do the same? Your other suggestion was to move to where the jobs are. How do you suggest moving a family of four or more, especially as a single parent, with nothing more than a hope of finding work? You call everything excuses, but they're not excuses. They're real world obstacle, something you've obviously never had to encounter. You can count yourself lucky in that regard, but you also should count yourself ignorant just the same.

National Public Debt, the day Obama took office and today
02/28/2013 16,687,289,180,215.37 (16 trillion)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 (10 trillion)

Grown by 6,060,412,131,302.29 (6 trillion)

The amount of cuts required under sequestration this year; 83,000,000,000.00 (83 billion)

Put in more numbers people can understand; think of a business.
Debt 1.6 million, total.
Increased 600 thousand since he took office.
Cuts required 8,300 dollars.

White House has some flexibility in choosing $85B spending cuts

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/bu...

pharm still waiting for a good reason not to have a national budget for over 1400 days...

"VAST MAJORITY of people that get assistance WORK , many of them 2 and 3 jobs."

Get new training, find a new career, move where the jobs are, get student loans, etc....excuses excuses excuses....you fear are an example of what drives the weak....

Whats the purpose of the education system which swallows billions in instructional funds only to produce graduates that keep chasing the rest of the world? Fear the Excuse king should be your name...excuses excuses.....blame others...boy were you taught to pass the buck on others...I hope your children don't look up to you...

Walter- Dont forget to mention to the food stam haters crowd that the VAST MAJORITY of people that get assistance WORK , many of them 2 and 3 jobs. Of course when you have to choose in a country that has depressed wages to favor the fortunate and dramatically inflated the price of health care, we are left with enormous parts of society that , through no fault of their own have been forced out of decent paying middle class jobs into low paying jobs where they must make decisions between food and health care costs.
These holier than thou people that keep degrading people because the need assistance to eat and get medical care , are just FAT, old angry white people that think the solutions to all of the country's problems exist in their little simplistic thought processes. America is no longer what it once was, and its not because of the liberal , black, socialist president. Its because of the greedy people near the top of the food chain screwing millions to fill their own pockets. Look at the statistics, CORPORATE PROFITS-record levels, while wages are continually on the downfall.
I find it amazing that so many people are so amazingly stupid.

Always blaming others for people problems as though people cannot find strength to get out of their misery. Unless you cannot physically or mentally seek or have employment why are you on food stamps? Even immigrants who cannot speak English well have succeeded in chasing and achieving the American Dream. I see the mighty dependent Obama Illinois influence just mesmerizes the masses with welfare. It's just too easy to blame others for their demise That's exactly where the Democrats want you..at the bottom...why else would they be in office?

You would suggest what then, HandBook? Force them to be resourceful so they don't starve? Encourage them to steal or dig through their neighbor's trash for sustenance? I'm sure we'd all be so ready and willing to hire someone who showed up for their interview emaciated from malnourishment. Clearly, they would be the best candidate for the job especially if it were a job that required a significant amount of physical labor. I guess there's no need to make sure that those among us who need work stay fed while they look for a job. Also, what's the point of feeding their children? Those freeloaders can't even get a job to contribute to society. Oh yes, that program is such a failure. It's interesting how the people that block proposed policies that could add jobs to reduce the food stamp rolls are the same people that attack the food stamp program as wasteful big government. Don't let them work AND don't let them eat. Sounds like a solid plan, doesn't it?

"In other words, the policy recommended by the Republican Party’s economists, and which has actually been tried especially in Europe, has failed miserably"

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-admit...
Interesting.

Walter

We know your ideas. A belief in social justice programs to cure irresponsibility and feeble minded folks who look up to "intellectual systems" to survive in life.

46.6 million on food stamps....a testament government intervention to cure its ills is not economically futile.

Well, NeverReadaBookHarry, I'd say the reason for that would be obstructionist GOP tactics leading to far less than optimal effectiveness of recovery policies resulting in slower than expected job growth and more people relying on public assistance. Remember how the GOP blocked both the Veterans' Jobs bill AND the Bringing Jobs Home bill? Ultimately, the goal was to keep the unemployment rate high enough to make sure that President Obama didn't get a second term. I'm sure you remember Senate minority leader McConnell saying that priority #1 was just that. Nothing about jobs or deficits. Nope. It was all about political games and revenge. So, I guess if you want to look for a reason why so many people have ended up and/or remained on food stamps, I've given you a pretty good blueprint.

I'd say the reason for that is different people having differing ideas and ideals, RAF. Sound about right to you?

Best article I've read in a long time.

"Fox News just published the results of their polling wherein they asked respondents whether they would prefer a budget deal that reduced the deficit with spending cuts or with tax increases. The question itself was grossly biased in that it implies that there are proposals to avert sequestration by raising taxes. However, neither party is proposing any tax increases in the current negotiations, only the closing of loopholes to which both sides had previously agreed. Setting that aside, Fox posted its account of the poll results with a headline reading “Voters Say Cuts Are ‘Only Way’ to Control Deficit.”

Fox News Poll

That’s an interesting (i.e. thoroughly dishonest) interpretation of the poll’s actual results which found that respondents preferred deficit reduction by focusing…

Only on cutting government spending: 33%
Mostly on cutting spending, and a small number of tax increases: 19%
On an equal mix of spending cuts and tax increases: 36%
Only on adding further tax increases 7%

It doesn’t take a master statistician to recognize that the choice of most respondents was the “equal mix.” How Fox concluded that they preferred cutting spending as the “only way” is mysterious and unexplained. Furthermore, if you total all the choices that included at least some tax increases there is a clear majority (67%) in favor of adding revenue rather than spending cuts alone. In other words, it’s the exact opposite of what Fox is reporting. If Fox doesn’t like what their own poll says, maybe they shouldn’t publish the results. Apparently, flagrantly lying in order to misrepresent the truth is more their style"
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=9209
Not really surprising.

http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/re...

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/23/food...

Walter

How do you explain more people on food stamps if more spending is the answer? Nice cartoon RAF....a picture saids a thousand words.

So the reason for no federal budget for +1400 days is what?

Spending increases is what kept this country from falling into a depression. The stimulus wasn't big enough. Deficits are not to be worried about during economic crisis. Getting the economy moving again is. President Obama has had to compromise his way through this recovery dealing with intense Republican obstruction since 2011. The slow pace of the recovery is evidence of that. Had the Democrats maintained a majority in both Houses of Congress everyone would still be complaining about Socialism, but unemployment would be under 5%. The facts are the facts. The economy has thrived during periods of high government spending (not including putting the 2 junior Bush wars on a credit card for a decade). Look at what Reagan was able to accomplish after he realized that his tax cuts went to far, raised them back up and then presided over some of the largest government spending in the history of this nation.

Walter you can't see the forest through the tree. The very reason we have a sequester is because the dem controlled senate has refused to pass a national budget for over 1400 days. The president disregard his own debt commission's recommendations; ignoring all of them. Instead the dem leadership, to include the president, have resorted to inflating the baseline which included the stimulus spending to increase deficits to record numbers for the past 4 years. The idea that you want to deflect away from irrational spending increases and failed leadership from this administration on spending issues is something only you can answer for.

Eric Cantor has admitted that it is a "fair assessment" and "accurate conclusion" to say that he and Paul Ryan talked John Boehner out of accepting the so called Grand Bargain which Boehner favored. The scuttling of the Grand Bargain led to the Sequester that has now befallen us. The Republican leadership refused to let any compromise but the Sequester get through Congress. The White House proposed other plans. This is not on the Obama administration. They did their due diligence. Ultimately they proposed a Reagan era idea, and of course the Republicans jumped at. Now look where we are. If the sequester goes on for too long, Wisconsin unemployment claimants will see a significant reduction to their weekly benefit rates. You heard it here first. And that's just one side effect that will be felt by those who can least afford it.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gXHHHmoVA5o/US...

Badger....you have a reading comprehension problem.....My point is Obama is the one running all over the country giving the dire warnings about the sequester, isn't he? And his bill to solve the issue is ADDING MORE SPENDING. Those are my points. As far as who is to blame for the situation, the whole darn congress is. We are all sheep. This country is going to end up like Detroit. There has to be some drastic measures and our politicians don't have the fortitude to solve the problems.

The Obama administration's operatic warnings of catastrophe for Meals on Wheels for the elderly, Head Start, meat inspections, air traffic controllers, and police, fire, and 911 operators if the government reduces the rate of increase of federal spending by 2 percent, okay so we can all agree on that figure now, right?
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Since this two percent obviously covers all essential government spending, let's cut the other 98 percent!
All the doom and gloom the President has been talking about now for the past few weeks that he claimed would kick in as of today, why hasn't the other 98 percent of the Governments spending been looked at for ways to save money, and to save the 2 percent of programs he claims are endangered by our Governments irresponsible spending ways??
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By the way it's worth mentioning that police and fire are covered by local taxes, and shouldn't be affected in any way whatsoever by the sky is falling claims our President is making.
He loses more credibility each time he goes on tv and makes these types of claims, at least with those who are actually checking his claims and not just taking him for his word.....

MrData: That was my point...that both sides share in this fiasco. donnaw can only see one side...her's.

I'm guessing that the President can hold his breath longer than Congress can. Anyone? Anyone?

Badgerlvr .. let's keep it accurate. You can't change the facts .. remember, every bill made into US law requires a SPONSOR, and then approval by both the USA Senate, the US HoR, and then it has to be signed by the EXECUTIVE branch - our PREZ!

In 2011 Jack Lew .. then the Prez's chief of staff (now our Treasury Sec.) came up with this brilliant idea called the SEQUESTER. He sent it to Congress... where both the GOP led HoR and the Democrat led US Senate passed the Sequester bill. They then sent the bill to Obama who signed it into law.

Comparative Negligence has occurred on the part of both political parties ... 33% (GOP led HoR) and 66% (Dem led US Senate and the Prez.)

Now the Dems and liberal news media all ONLY blame the GOP for this horrible law.

We have at best imbeciles in the Oval Office and our Congress destroying our nation in front of the whole wide world.

donnaw: All money bills begin in the LEGISLATIVE branch of the government. Though you like to put the entire blame on Obama (Executive branch), certainly you'll have to admit that the H.O.R. has to shoulder SOME of the blame. Or are you too narrow minded?

And the democrats answer to the sequester is MORE SPENDING on biofuel education, organic gardening, and biomass whatever.....their pet programs. Bring on more sequester as this one will cause a whisper of a difference in our daily lives.

I'm glad the sequester is happening. I think the president has called wolf and there is none. Lets do this again next month.