Help! The US is drowning in debt.

You wouldn't be suggesting the president uses fuzzy math would you?

It isn't just fuzzy math (which he used profusely in his campaign), it's deceitful math. The stock market just dropped like a stone -- even the news of a proposed tax cut isn't injecting any confidence into the investor. Company inventories and services are being pared back which can only end up as more unemployment. My financial advisor who was high up in running a large corporation (retired) believes unemployment will reach 8% by the end of this year. Tax cuts won't mean much to those people and they won't be running out to buy a new car.

A report I heard of on radio yesterday states that world unemployment is at a record high. More negative impact.
Given the kind of information you have provided, I fail to see a way for the administration to stabilize anything.

Seems like every step that man takes topples the market a bit farther. He's walking on a slippery slope.

Medicare Officials Order End to Instructive Services

By ROBERT PEAR

[]ASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — Running short of money, Medicare officials have ordered immediate cuts in a wide range of services that provide information, advice and assistance to Medicare beneficiaries.
In a bulletin to Medicare contractors, the government told them to halt outreach and education activities intended to inform millions of beneficiaries of their rights under the federal health insurance program.
Contractors said the cuts would make it more difficult for elderly people to obtain information and assistance, just as President Bush announces proposals for huge changes in Medicare.

An example of Dr. Bush's magic elixir.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/national/25MEDI.html?todaysheadlines

littlek

.

He and his friends are not walking on a slippery slope they are financially secure. He is walking the nation off a cliff.

Stop Spending!
We need to get rid of the deficit, tax the rich and stop to drains like corporate welfare and starting unprovoked wars just because 'they tried to kill my dad'. We need to kick out "anybody" not here legally, and stop the border crossings. We need to conserve resources with alternative sources and recycling as the priorities.
Bill Clinton's administration showed us how to succeed after republicans failed for twelve years. So what did the idiot non-voters do , they sat back on their arses while this imbecile was placed in office by the unSupreme court and we see, again what the republican programs can do for the economy.
WAKE UP AMERICA , before it's too late!!!

Another piece of good financial news?
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures the
pensions of 44 million Americans, is expected to disclose a
deficit of $1 billion to $2 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/business/25PENS.html?todaysheadlines

"It is nuts, stone-cold nuts. And they're not nuts, and they're not stupid. They're smart people, and they know what we know, that the deficit will explode when federal expenditures peak. And that's when I had this revelation: the only rationale for what they're doing is that they plan to fundamentally gut Social Security and Medicare."
-- Kent Conrad, ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, reacting to President Bush's budget

Ruining the country is not only intended to enrich the higher ranked businessmen, but is also creating a psychological mass effect: the poor or troubled are less likely to protest foreign politics. An obedient home crowd is of the first importance for the new (unjust) world order.

Statement to be published in N.Y. Times ad

Monday, February 10, 2003 Posted: 4:12 PM EST (2112 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Economists led by 10 Nobel laureates Monday attacked President Bush's roughly $674 billion tax-cut proposal, arguing that the cuts fail to address the problems facing the U.S. economy and will add to long-term budget deficits.
Their signed statement, to run this week as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, comes as Congress prepares to examine the details of the Bush proposal.
Economic growth that is not sufficient to generate jobs, corporate scandals, business overcapacity and uncertainty continue to weigh on the U.S. economy, the statement said.


http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/10/bush.budget.reut/index.html

It appears that even Greenspan has finally awaken from his slumber

Greenspan cautions Congress on deficits

Posted: Tuesday, February 11, 5:10pm EST

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday that he wasn't totally convinced that a new round of tax cuts is necessary to bolster the economy and said Congress must make sure future budget deficits remain under control.
Greenspan's comments dealt a blow to President Bush's drive to enact a new round of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts, which Democrats have complained will lead to exploding budget deficits in future years.

"We have to be very careful not to let deficits get out of hand," Greenspan said in response to questions about whether new tax cuts are needed.

In his appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, the Fed chairman urged Congress to renew budgetary rules that would place caps on spending increases and require that any future tax cuts not result in runaway budget deficits.

Greenspan said all of these restraints are critical in light of the fact that the Baby Boom generation will begin retiring early in the next decade, putting huge demands on Social Security and Medicare.

I'm glad you posted those news items Au, I read about the first in the B Globe and heard about the second on NPR.....

Suppose you had a friend who was grossly overweight for years but lately had been looking very trim. Suddenly, though, he puts on 30 or 40 pounds and is waddling around like his old porcine self. He explains that he's found a marvelous new diet: "You eat like a pig and stop exercising until you get so fat that you just have to lose weight." Would you say that your friend is kidding himself?

And if your friend went on to complain that he was getting fat because other people were eating too much, and that this diet was the only way to stop these other people from putting those unsightly pounds on him, would you think his self-delusion was becoming clinical? Or would you start to suspect that the joke is on you?

Yet this is essentially the logic adopted by the Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership to rationalize turning the federal budget surplus back into huge deficits. They say that deficits are actually a good thing -- despite what you may have heard from Ronald Reagan and almost every Republican before and since -- because deficits create pressure for smaller government. "Conservatives Now See Deficits as a Tool to Fight Spending" was the headline on a recent New York Times article quoting a slew of them -- including the chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, Glenn Hubbard.

Washington Post

They're working on (as well as many Democrats) the theory of deficit spending, specifically on the war machine to create commerce and jobs (it worked for Reagan but not for Bush Sr. -- even when Clinton took over it didn't have much of an effect on the economy so it had to be other factors). The space race would post only one sector of the economy but it could work eventually. The companies selling NASA won't just need scientists and technicians, they'll need adminstration and even the lower echelon jobs would have to be filled. However, the conservative mentality does exist that government should stop spending money. Talk about schizophrenia in government.