What Warren said....Follow

Except the funding wouldn't exist if they "won" their vote. But since they lost the vote & the funding does exist, they no longer have to stick to their morals. Well, they have to stick to their morals publicly, but privately they can request a piece of that sweet, waistful, spending that they voted against.



Yup, coast is clear. Democrats are voting for the spending & requesting it for their constituents while some Pubbies are voting against the spending but also quietly requesting it for their constituents. Ones the definition of hypocrisy, the other isn't.



This is where Gbaji freely admitted to lying, for perhaps the first time ever, on teh internet. The Apocalypse is now imminent.



That graph came from the NYT, uses the CBO's own numbers, & tells you the costs of policy changes made under the two Presidents. That almost $800 million in 2008 stimulus & other changes is made up of Dubya's $152 billion 2008 economic stimulus package & "other" stuff (I don't know, nor could I find, what that other $500 billion actually is- but even without it the Legacy of Dubya's policy changes thus far remain more than Obama's (thus far) even without it).

Fact: Dubya's Policy changes under his term are costing us more than Obama's policy changes thus far.



Damn the CBO for the partisan hackery!



Agreed. Here's another chart, this time with numbers from those partisan douchebags @ the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities highlighting the cost to the Deficit of various Dubya Policies as well as Obama's stimulus (Recovery Measures on the chart)(Non-Partisan)



The chart clarifies that deficit problems would be on the path to self-correction, if the Bush cuts had lapsed as originally planned. (And what it doesn't show, is how heavily those tax cuts are skewed towards the "rich"!!!)

Take a look at where the deficit would be without the wars, tax cuts, recession, TARP, & economic recovery efforts (Answer: Almost 0).



But...I used a chart with the CBO's numbers on the costs of policy changes under two Presidents. Unfortunately, I can't use the CBO's historical data on Obama since all of his spending related to policy changes haven't happened yet, I can only use the CBO's projections.

But Dubya's policy change numbers come from that historical data, that you use.

Spending has increased under Obama & revenue remains down because of the extension of Dubya's tax cuts. I can blame Obama for extending them, no problem, but you're too much of a partisan hack to admit that those tax cuts are even a contributing factor to our looming debt.

Which is wrong, as it's a fact that it is.

A fact, which is inarguable. You can continue attempting to say Dubya's tax cuts aren't contributing to our debt, but everytime you do: you're wrong.




Charts level off before they can go down. I now know you're chart retarded.



No, my argument is & always has been that increasing taxes (revenue) while reducing spending would have been a better plan to reduce the deficit (& debt) than just cutting spending. The economy's recent "hiccup" is mostly attributed to the S&P downgrade of our countries credit rating & it is my belief that, since increasing revenue while cutting spending is a better solution than just doing one or the other, the S&P downgrade may not have happened if a compromise on the debt deal including both options was reached.



Here is where you started talking out of your *** some more. So, you think in 2-3 years revenue from increased taxes will reach the levels of revenue before the tax increase took effect: this implies we'll have 2-3 years of increased revenue due to raising taxes.

You do that & close some tax loopholes & those 2-3 years will increase some more, even though I believe you're wrong in your philosophy that increasing someone's taxes will make them want to earn less money.

Furthermore, your argument that if you tax people more they'll try & make less money is circular bullshit. If Dubya hadn't lowered taxes, even by your neo-conservative logic, the government would still be getting the revenue it was getting before taxes were lowered. There'd be no imaginary uber-rich guy thinking, "I should make less money this year so I pay less taxes" if taxes weren't lowered in the first place.

They were, the tax cuts/;ack of revenue contributed to the deficit, which in turn contributed to our debt. End of story.



You countered it for me, thanks!



You're right, Clinton didn't pay off the deficit. My bad.

Clinton eliminated the deficit & paid down some of our debt.


[quote=Gbaji]It was spending which clearly changed. We should change it back if we want to fix things. I'm not sure why this is so hard for some people to grasp. [/quote]

You're half right- it was increased spending coupled with lower tax revenues that actually changed. This is a fact.

[quote=Gbaji]We spent too much money. I just don't understand how it's possible not to accept this. I'm using direct CBO data. There's no fudging, or selective accounting. I'm looking at total spending and total revenue. I'm comparing relative level over time. it's not hard math. You have to work really really really hard to figure out a way to manipulate the numbers to make it show anything other than that we spent too damn much money. [/quote]

I agree. Dubya spent too much money & Obama is spending too much money. We've been running a deficit for 10 years & adding to our debt the whole time. We should totally cut spending & raise taxes in order to lessen our deficit & pay down our debt.

That could, ya know, actually solve this debt crisis.

Edited, Aug 30th 2011 6:35am by Omegavegeta

WTF? It's about exactly that



You don't understand the process. Congress passes a law which creates funding for state and local programs or organizations which match some criteria. Those state and local groups then apply for the grants. It's common for them to copy those applications to their respective representatives in the house and senate, and it's common for those representatives to attach basically a letter of recommendation to the grant request.

This does not increase the total amount of money in the federal program one dollar. And it's not the member of congress who's initiating this. Also, said grant may be awarded (or not) whether or not the member of congress writes such a letter anyway.




So you agree that we shouldn't have spent that money in the first place? Why then don't you support Republicans who oppose this? It's strange that you very clearly only have an issue with this process when it's a Republican doing it, but then pretend that it's me who's being inconsistent.



Lol! And yet you support more government spending. Strange, isn't it? You get this, you rail on about it, but when someone tries to do anything about it, you attack them for it.


"We've met the enemy and it is us"

Watching a persecution complex in action is always fun.

According to the NYT, of course! I'm sure they're being perfectly unbiased and whatnot.



So you can't find it. It's not present anywhere you can see in the CBO numbers, but you'll continue to blindly believe that their figures must be accurate... because... It's the New York Times! They wouldn't write something that might just misrepresent the facts a little, would they?



That's not a fact. Continuing to state that it is doesn't support your claim. How about you personally, on your own, go and look at actual changes in spending and come up with your own figures. The "fact" is that by far the largest spending increases during this economic crisis occurred after Obama took office. Not just a little bit, but a whole hell of a lot.



Are you kidding? It's a liberal think tank. It's primary purpose is to manipulate budget data to help Democrats win elections. It pretends to be non-partisan because it uses data from non-partisan sources. But it manipulates that data in very deliberate and very partisan ways.





Look at the 2011 values. Look at the parts represented by costs from the wars and the Bush tax cuts. The compare that to the costs for stimulus plus economic downturn. Which one of those two is larger? Ok. Now, let's look at what changed? The Bush tax cuts were already in effect when the recession started. Same with the ongoing costs for the wars. The changes are represented by the effect of the downturn itself *and* Obama's spending. Take away Obama's spending, and our deficit would be 1/3rd the size it is right now. And here's the tricky bit: If we had a smaller deficit, we wouldn't be going into debt so fast, there wouldn't be a crisis requiring immediate action, and there wouldn't be fears of tax increases, and the economy would be recovering.


Also, they're cherry picking past expenses. We could just as easily point to the cost of medicare, or domestic discretionary spending, or any of a whole list of other things. They've chosen to examine only the costs of two things. But those are two things that didn't change in the time period in question. So why pick them and not anything else affecting our economy?



Yes. That's deliberate btw. If they showed just the portion of the Bush tax cuts on "the rich", it would be a much much smaller amount. They want you to think that Bush's policies are having a huge effect on our current economic condition. But of course, the Dems don't want to actually say "we'll have to raise taxes on everyone to affect that cost savings", so they dance around it.

By all means, get the Democrats to argue that we need to eliminate the Bush tax cuts on everyone at all income levels. Let's see how that plays.



That's completely false, and it should be your first clue that their numbers are whacked. We only had a $160B deficit in 2007. That was with the Bush tax cuts and the costs of the wars. So now they're claiming that those things are somehow magically contributing around $500B in deficit?

What's happened is that costs in other areas have increased by that $500B, but they're presenting the costs of those things and saying that if we weren't spending on those, then we'd be able to afford the increased costs of those other things we left off the chart. Which is how you lie with statistics.

Pull your head out of your rear and look at what is missing from the chart.



You can use the CBO historical data. It's what I'm using. And we can look at the first two years of spending and conclude that it's too damn high.



The fact that you buy this shows just how far into the punch bowl you are. Seriously? The tax rates were at one level for the previous 10 years. They are still at that same level now. For most of that first 10 years, we didn't have a massive deficit and debt problem. Now we do. How the hell do you justify blaming the factor that didn't change on this?

What you should be saying, if you were being honest, is that if we'd let the Bush tax cuts expire we'd be better able to afford all the spending increases we did. Which is not remotely the same as the argument you're making.



It has nothing to do with partisanship (on my part). Those tax rates didn't change. The spending did change. The fact that you want to blame the factor that didn't change instead of the one that did for why we have such high deficits is the result of partisanship on your part. If we had kept the Bush tax rates exactly the same and *not* spent trillions of dollars on stimulus, we would not be in a debt crisis right now.



Repeating this over and over doesn't make it any less false this time than the last 10 times. You are wrong. Pure and simple. You are provably wrong.

Edited, Aug 30th 2011 4:53pm by gbaji

The Onion...

Freedom of the press means that news outlets can pretty much say whatever the hell they want, and have any form of bias. You really should have some sort of regulation over there, you know.

Freedom of the press is all well and good, until you get something like Fox News leeching from it.


I'm curious, what's the BBC news like in the USA?

Wikipedia, of course.

IMO, that's the wrong question to ask. Most news sources are going to be biased in terms of their opinion and "slant" on stories. Most news sources are going to be, maybe not unbiased, but at least when they write down a fact, it's an actual fact. Where we get into trouble is when so many people no longer seem to be able to tell the difference between those two.

We had a thread just a few weeks ago which highlighted this issue. To me, facts are things that are raw data of some kind, or events that provably happened. So, saying that spending increased from 19.6% of GDP in 2007 to 25% of GDP in 2009 is a statement of fact. A statement like "The reason our unemployment is still high is because of the excessive spending by the Obama administration" is an opinion (or a conclusion if you wish). Opinions/conclusions should require facts and logical argument to support them. But many people seem to treat opinions as though they are facts, believing that all they have to do is provide a source stating the opinion, and this proves that it's true.


That's not how opinions/conclusions should work. So it's not about biased and unbiased sources. It's really about whether you're trying to use someone else's statement of an opinion as proof that the opinion itself is true. That should be obviously circular, but it's shocking how often this happens.

I mostly watch/read the international coverage. I like it because most of the American news outlets have a American slant to them; i.e. tending to simplify the issues and make them relevant to an American audience (whether they have any relevance being mostly inconsequential). BBC is also nice in that you can see instances where American News outlets won't cover certain stories. I won't go as far as to say we listen to propaganda over here, but people do like to hear they are having a positive impact in the world, and we have a choice of news outlets.

I don't get that from the BBC so much. I suppose I'm not so much their target audience, so it's a different perspective at least. BBC tends to be a bit more dull and analytical, which is refreshing when one feels a little bombarded by dramatic headlines over here. They also tend to be better at linking to the full documents and studies they write articles about, which I like.

I've also been one to read English translations of other world newspapers/news outlets as well. It's interesting to see The People's Daily take on a US/China event for example. A little view into what others are hearing about the world if nothing else.

*shrugs*

I have this crazy idea if I view lots of different news outlets I'll be able to spot bias more easily. It works with mixed results I suppose.

Because the NYT is taking only part of the set of CBO numbers and pretending that they are the only factors. I didn't say that their source is inaccurate, but that they have manipulated the data. You did notice that the deficit chart only includes "costs" that contribute to the deficit, right? Where are the rest of the costs? The $1.5T deficit is only part of the $3.5T total spending.

That chart assumes that the deficit is made up exclusively of 5 things: Tarp, revenue loss due to recession, Obama's stimulus spending, Bush's tax cuts, and costs of the wars. Why? Why not look at the entirety of all the costs and revenue changes over say a decade and then look at what changed after 2007 to cause the deficit to grow so much? Wouldn't that give us a much more accurate idea of why we have such a high deficit and perhaps what we should change to undo it?

It's GIGO. They start out assuming that the Bush tax cuts and the costs of the wars are part of what's causing our deficit and thus they include those things in the list of things on their chart. If they'd decided that education was why we're in a deficit, there would be a colored band showing the cost of education. And if they'd decided that medicare was to blame, we'd see a band showing the costs of medicare.

It's BS because it only shows what the person writing the chart wants you to see. It has nothing to do with where the data originally came from. They aren't showing you *all* the data.



Nope. I believe in looking at the full set of data, and not a cherry picked subset.



Sigh. Over 8 years. And it doesn't matter. You're comparing apples to oranges. What matters here is deficit, which is a yearly calculation. Thus, we need to look at how much spending is compared to revenue in any given year. I'm not sure why you think adding up the total spending of some cherry picked thing over an arbitrary period of time provides us with any insight into this. Let's not loose sight of the fact that during most of the 8 years that Bush was president, and during the time period when most of that $3T was "spent", the deficits remained manageable, and debt as a percentage of GDP was kept in the mid 30% range. Why count money that didn't put us further in debt when it was spent? That's like blaming the cost of a car you finished paying off 5 years ago for your current debt problems. Sure, you can assume that if you hadn't spent that money on that car back then, maybe you'd have put it in the bank or invested it, or otherwise had it available to help offset your current spending, but odds are that you'd just have spent it on something else instead. And it ignores the fact that your current problems are happening because you are spending more than you are earning. No amount of savings in the past will fix that.



Here you are mixing up fact and opinion/conclusion. There's a difference between saying that manmade CO2 gas contributes to the greenhouse effect (which is true) and saying that the current greenhouse gas effect from that gas is out of control and will result in runaway temperature increases unless we take draconian steps to limit CO2 emissions. One is a fact. The other is an opinion. Get it?

Similarly, saying "Bush spent $x over y years" may be a fact. But saying that it's because he spent that money back then that we're in our current economic problems is not a fact. It's a ... wait for it... opinion.



There is very little of that deficit growth which can be blamed on Bush's actions though. Certainly, not on the tax cuts and costs of wars. Those were constant effects back when the deficits and debt were shrinking. They didn't change after that point, so they can't be the cause of our current problems. I just don't know how many times and in how many ways I have to explain this bit of logic for you to get it. I'm also still completely unsure where they get their figures for the 2008 stimulus. As far as I know the only stimulus passed that year was about $150B and was a one time spending. This had very little effect on the whole, and certainly cannot be blamed in any way for the increased deficits in 2009 and 2010.



It's not even a contributing factor though. Not unless you want to argue that everything we "didn't do" counts as a contributing factor. We didn't double tax rates either. Can we blame the fact that we didn't do that? We didn't eliminate the social security program. That would have saved us money. Do we blame that as well?

We should only blame a changed economic outcome on changed economic actions. We did not change the tax rates. We did not change the costs of the wars. What we did change was spending in the recovery act, and in numerous other programmatic areas within our budget. Those were done by Obama and the Dems. When a result changes, you look for what you changed which might have caused that result. It just seems bizarre to me that you'd choose to blame things that were constants all along. Again, why not blame our deficit on medicare or social security? Afterall, if we weren't paying for those things, we wouldn't have a deficit either.

As I said earlier, we could arbitrarily blame our deficit on any of the $3.5T we're spending. Why arbitrarily pick a specific $1.5T and decide that's what we should blame it on? IMO, we should look at what changed to increase our spending by nearly a trillion dollars a year and focus on that. That would be the reasonable way of doing it.



So is every other dollar we spend and every dollar we aren't currently taxing though. That's an irrelevant "fact". The far more relevant direction to look with regards to determining what actually caused our change in deficit is the changes we made along the way. And the big changes are the spending that the Dem did. We're looking for a cause, not just rattling off facts. At some point you have to look at your facts, apply some reason to them, and then come to a conclusion.

And the reasoning I'm using is that the tax rates didn't change, and the cost of the wars didn't change. Thus, their impact on a change in deficit is negligible. We should look at what changed in our spending and revenue to determine why the difference between then increased. I guess I just don't understand why you insist on looking elsewhere. You'd never do this in your own life, would you? You'd never notice that your car is getting worse gas mileage than it used to and assume that it's because the spare tire you've always carried around in the trunk must be weighing it down. You'd never assume that you slipped on the pavement you walk on safely every day because your shoes are broken and not because it's raining.

Yet, in this one case, you've decided to blame a changed result on factors that didn't change, instead of factors that did. I just find that an amazing example of partisan illogic.

Edited, Aug 31st 2011 4:13pm by gbaji

Legalise and enforce regulation on prostitution while you're at it. I don't see Holland having to borrow trillions of Euros from China, do you?