Obama '08?

I don't see Obama as a failure. When he came into office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month, and the Reps were doing NOTHING. This past month, we lost 80,000 jobs. There is little doubt that there will be further improvement in the future -- job growth is the last thing in a recovery.

It is mindless to say that we do not need health-care reform. 45,000 per year are dying due to lack of coverage, and untold numbers have inadequate coverage. Over half the bankruptcies are due to incredible medical charges. (The charge for one day in an ER due to a kidney stone is $8,000.) The current system is inhibiting job growth. Etc.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15268930

I dont agree. Obama was sent to Washington to be a reformer, he was not considered part of the problem. That Obama is now aligned with traditional Washington is his own doing, his own mistake. Had he not made it America's increasing disgust with Government would have been to his favor. Likewise, had he chosen to take on the insurance companies and wall street he would have been backed by the citizens, he would have had political cover to do the right thing. He choose to go the other way, which is I think a non recoverable mistake.

I agree.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011502415.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Um ya....about that......failure to pick the right battles and to then win many of them is a critical flaw in a leader. Likewise, so is the inability to format a combat plan that is sustainable by the supply chain. Obama had good will and usable credit in the tank when he started, but he has spent most of both and getting more is going to be a huge problem.

Good post, hawkeye. I wish to point out however that a percentage of the black population has broken away from the mythology and they are doing quite well, thank you. You will find information about some of them on at http://www.nbra.info/ This is an organization that has members that do not believe in or belong to the Democratic Party's plantation. That plantation is where they are promised to be taken care of with special treatment and favors in return for working for socialist initiatives of the Democratic Party, including continuing to vote for Democrats at about the 90% rate. The voting block of 90% is crucial to the Democratic Party, and if they begin to lose a large percentage of that, their party would be in big trouble, big trouble that I would love to see and big trouble that they deserve for being the most corrupt party in modern American history, that being my opinion of course but it is backed by alot of evidence which I post here alot.

Blacks who have distanced themselves from the black sub culture have tended to do well, which proves the overall point. It has little to nothing to do with petty partisan politics though. It is a shame that you are so consumed by party games Okie, if you could move beyond it your posts would be much more valuable, as your gut instincts tend to be true.

The deficit of 1.3 trillion that Obama inherited was over 9.2 % of the GDP. When he leaves office, the deficit will be no more than 3 % of the GDP.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama wants to slash the ballooning deficit in half by 2013, U.S. officials said on Saturday, after massively increasing public spending to stem the worst economic crisis in decades.

Barack Obama | Economy

Obama will outline his ambitious goal when he hosts a summit at the White House on Monday on fiscal responsibility and later in the week when his administration presents a summary of its first budget, for the 2010 fiscal year.

With tens of thousands of Americans losing their jobs in the midst of a global economic meltdown, Obama has said fixing the U.S. economy is his top priority. He has acknowledged that his success or failure in that will define his presidency.

"We can't generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control," Obama said in his weekly radio address in which he also announced immediate implementation of tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans as part of the effort to stimulate the economy.

An administration official said Obama was proposing to cut the deficit, which private economists project will rise to $1.5 trillion this year, through a mixture of tax increases on wealthier Americans and spending cuts.

"The deficit this administration inherited was $1.3 trillion or 9.2 percent of GDP. By 2013, the end of the president's first term, the budget cuts the deficit to $533 billion or 3.0 percent of GDP," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"Most of the savings will come from winding down the war in Iraq, increased (tax) revenue from those making more than $250,000 a year, and savings from making government work more efficiently and eliminating programs that do not work," the official said.

The United States spent about $190 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. Obama has pledged to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months while ramping up the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.

Since being sworn into office on January 20, Obama has sought to reassure Americans that his government is tackling the economic crisis boldly and swiftly -- holding near-daily events to announce measures to stem mortgage foreclosures, prop up failing banks, rescue the ailing auto industry and drive his stimulus package through Democratic-led Congress.

The measures have received a mixed early reaction from gloomy financial markets uncertain whether they will succeed in arresting the downward economic spiral.

BUSH TAX CUTS

A second administration official confirmed a Washington Post story that said Obama would propose boosting tax collection from about 16 percent of the economy this year to 19 percent in 2013, while federal spending would drop from about 26 percent of the economy to 22 percent in the same period.

He said Obama would let tax cuts implemented by his predecessor George W. Bush for Americans earning more than $250,000 expire on schedule at the end of 2010, when the tax rate would rise from 35 percent to more than 39 percent.

Obama told Americans in his radio address it was vital to get "exploding deficits under control as our country begins to recover."

"On Thursday I'll release a budget that's sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't and restoring fiscal discipline," he said.

Obama has invited business and union leaders, academics and lawmakers to a summit on Monday to discuss ways of cutting the deficit. That will be followed by an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday in which he said he would outline "our urgent national priorities."

In early January, just a few weeks before Obama took office, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the budget deficit would soar to $1.2 trillion for the current 2009 fiscal year that ends September 30.

But that figure excluded the recently passed $787 billion stimulus package, a combination of tax cuts and spending on infrastructure projects over more than two years.

Private analysts expect the impact of the stimulus package and other spending to counter the economic downturn will push the deficit to $1.5 trillion or more this year. That would be more than triple the $455 billion deficit recorded in 2008.

"Over time, the budget deficit will make it harder for our economy to grow and create jobs. That's why the president's budget for FY (fiscal year) 2010 puts us on the path to cut the deficit he inherited on January 20, 2009, in half by the end of his first term," an administration official told Reuters.

Earlier on Saturday, Obama said the U.S. Treasury will implement tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans enacted as part of the $897 billion stimulus package, fulfilling a campaign pledge he hopes will help jolt the economy out of recession.

"I'm pleased to announce that this morning the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks, meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month," Obama said.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Jackie Frank)

Not only does the government have zero credibility in predicting numbers (they are usually so wrong that they have no value) , but that is not even the number that matters. You should be looking at the total federal government debt/GDP.

I am pretty sure that if you look into the government deficit numbers that are stated that you will find that they assume the the current teaser rates on the kids charge card (treasury debt auction prices) hold to near current levels. This is highly unlikely to be what happens.

GDP refers to the gross domestic product, not debt.

right, and the number that matters is the ratio of debt to the ability to pay on that debt, which is GDP. For the nation GDP is like income is to individuals. This does not even take into account the fact that we know that the GDP number has been manually inflated by counting so heavily the way that wall street shuffles money around. If we re calibrated GDP to more closely track production of goods and services that of are of value (as apposed to the mirage of wall street "wealth creation") the debt numbers would look even more scary than they already do.

hawk, You have a pretty good understanding on this subject, and I commend you. What is worse is the simple fact that the governments' interest payments continue to increase as a percentage of revenue - all this while they continue to increase the debt. It's a wonder inflation hasn't peeked its ugly head yet.

The nonproductive circulation of these increased funds only points to inflation.

To correct the mis-information here by Advocate, Obama inherited an economy that had a 2008 fiscal year deficit of 459 billion or 3.2% of gdp. Obama's 2009 deficit was 1.4 trillion, more than 3 times the amount in 2008 and equal to around 10% of gdp.

The government's fiscal year ends September 30 and begins a new one the first of October, so Bush was in office a little over 2 months of the beginning of fiscal year 2009, but some of Obama's economic ideas and policies were being enacted and signed by Bush as a lame duck president presiding over a Democratic Congress that was doing Obama's bidding, so anyone that claims the 2009 deficit was Bush's, I do not think that is honest at all. Bottom line, Obama was in office for the last 9 months plus of the 2009 fiscal year, and the economy is greatly influenced by consumer and business confidence in the government's fiscal policy, and there was very little confidence, not only in Obama after he started office, but before he even took office following his election. In fact, the trend downward in regard to investor and business confidence can be correlated with mid-2008 when it became apparent Obama was beating Hillary. It is entirely appropriate to consider the fiscal year 2009 as entirely Obama's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17deficit.html

We really do not know what 2010 and beyond will bring in regard to numbers, but projections of 1.5 trillion and more are not uncommon or unreasonable for 2010. Unless Obama can reverse this or do some fraudulant or biased numbers crunching behind the scenes to make gdp look better, I do not see how the deficit as a percentage of gdp can improve much at all.

To summarize, Obama's economy is really pathetic and not looking good for the future as Advocate would like to believe.

georgeob, It's much more than that! The biggest problem in Washington DC is the simple fact that the majority of congress members are beholding to their contributors to stay in politics. As the saying goes, follow the money.

Partisanship has very little meaning today.

Massive real estate deflation, wage deflation, and citizens changing from -.5% savers to 5% savers has mitigated inflation to this point I think. Once we get some recovery it should be off to the races on inflation.

Speaking of "massive real estate deflation," the banks are still holding bad paper, and are unwilling to write them down - while they give big bonuses to their employees. Greed's ugly head is alive and well.

Complete and total bullshit. This is a 100% lie. TARP itself was 350 billion dollars of money straight into the deficit, and that doesn't count 50 billion we lended AIG early in the year, how can you possibly believe your numbers are accurate?

Cycloptichorn

From Wiki:


You can rely on okie to get most things wrong.

Okie is wrong because the $1.3 trillion Obama inherited is made up of items passed during the Bush tenure. See:

2009 Deficit Would Have Been the Same Under Bush
By Stan Collender|Aug 10, 2009, 3:16 PM|Author's Website

********

But in spite of the fact that it’s the correct fiscal policy, even a $1.6 rather than the previously projected $1.8 trillion deficit will be an excuse by some to say ridiculous things about the current state of the federal budget. After all, $1.6 trillion would still be way above the previous record-high deficit of $455 billion set in 2008 during the last year of the Bush administration.

But that’s not the right comparison and those that choose to use it will clearly be doing so in an effort to mislead and demagogue. Here’s why.

1. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the baseline 2009 deficit the Bush administration bequeathed to the the country when it left office was about $1.2 trillion.

2. But the baseline deficit only takes into account laws that have already been enacted, and several tax and spending changes that have been adopted since Inauguration Day absolutely also would have happened under a continuing Bush administration (or, for that matter, a McCain administration). This includes another one-year patch for the alternative minium tax and a supplemental appropriation for activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two changes alone added about $200 billion to the 2009 baseline.

Therefore, without considering anything else, the difference between the deficit that would have happened with Bush in the White House and what’s happening with Obama is only about $200 billion.

(Before anyone says anything about the phrase “only about $200 billion,” I admit that it’s inappropriate to use words “only” and “$200 billion” together in the same sentence. You have to admit, however, that $200 billion is a whole lot less than the approximately $1.1 trillion difference between $1.6 trillion and $455 billion.)

3. But even $200 billion likely overstates the difference in the deficit that would have occurred had Bush been in office this year and that one that will occur under Obama. Given the state of the economy at the end of 2008 and the first two quarters of 2009, Bush almost certainly would have proposed a stimulus plan of his own. Remember, Bush was the president who in early 2008 proposed and pushed a $150 billion stimulus plan when the economy didn’t appear to be as bad as it eventually became. He’s also the president whose economic team successfully pushed for TARP as Wall Street did its own version of the China Syndrome and who did nothing to stop the Federal Reserve from borrowing for the AIG bailout.

No doubt a second Bush stimulus would have included different policies than the $700 billion billion stimulus adopted earlier this year (The total was actually higher but it included the AMT patch that I already counted in #2). But the bottom line would have been the same: the deficit would have increased by at least another $100 billion.

4. If you believe some commentators, a more tax-oriented stimulus package like the one they say would have been proposed under a Republican president would have had a bigger and faster economic impact than the spending increase and tax reduction plan enacted this year. If that’s true, the 2009 deficit under a Bush administration would have been perhaps another $100 billion higher this year as the federal government collected less revenues this year than would otherwise have been the case.

In other words, the deficit produced by a Bush administration this year would have been about equal to what is going to happen under the Obama administration.

--the wall street pit

Obama plans to eventually install a pay-go system that is basically the same one used by Clinton to generate the large surpluses. This was largely developed by Cong. John Spratt, who chairs Budget. Nothing is spent unless there is a concordant tax increase or program cut.