Rep. Weiner takes the time to congratulate the House GOP for finally finding a budget target we can all agree on:
Rep. Weiner takes the time to congratulate the House GOP for finally finding a budget target we can all agree on:
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Ann Cavazos Chen
I love Car Talk. In fact, all it took for me to finally write a check to support NPR is the Republican morons coming out against them. I bet I’m not the only one.
Andy
Considering this idiot voted for the porkulous bill that spent millions on testing the cocaine habits of monkeys and studying the micro-economics of prostitutes in Europe, he doesn’t really much standing to castigate the Republicans for any budget trimming regardless of how small or targeted.
MB
Well, LFS, if you’re going to stretch things that far, then certainly you’re going to invite anyone who’s voted for a Republican in the last decade to STFU, on the grounds that the historic record completely undermines standing on the matter of deficits and pointless spending.
(That’s okay, I know you’ve missed me. Just gotta get your thinking cap adjusted.)
Andy
You’ll find no disagreement with me on historical Republican stupidity on spending. However, what the Democrats have done with their considerably shorter time in control dwarfs by several orders of magnitude the stupidity of the Republicans. And there is a movement in the GOP called the Tea Party to finally make them focus like they should on fiscal matters. But you and other progressives like to discount their activities by calling them racists. So point and wag your finger, but you are part of the problem.
BTW, your comment box is narrow. Have you thought about widening it?
MB
Really? Intellectual honesty isn’t *that* hard, you know. Try it.
Right, the same halfwits that didn’t think twice about launching expensive wars, blowing up a surplus into enormous deficit, etc. The only genuine claim they make is that they’re angry. So long as they’re not honest about what they’re angry about, I can’t really be bothered to take them seriously.
Speaking of – I see you’ve still got that problem with your imagination and being called a racist, I see. Still can’t help you with that, either.
I wanted to make you comfortable.
(Actually, I have tried and failed to widen it. A couple of times. You can actually drag the box wide when you’re writing something, but it doesn’t stick.)
Andy
You seem to have your own close personal relationship with delusion if you think the Democrats have not ballooned the debt far in excess of the mismanagement of the Republicans. Perhaps you can point to some actual evidence.
And it is nice to know that you don’t think the Tea Party is racist. But let’s hear from you what you believe them to be angry about, since you assert they are not being honest.
(I knew I was opening myself up to that narrow mindedness insult… it was just a question about high mindedness on your part.)
warren
Let’s look at some numbers, shall we? The Democrats controlled the House (which passes the budget first) from 1955 to 1994. So Democrats wrote the budgets for FY56 to FY95. During that time, the deficit averaged 2.17% of GDP. In the 12 years of Republican control, FY94 to FY07, the average was 0.81%.
If you want comparable time frames, the last 12 deficits before Republican take-over averaged 3.79% of GDP — FOUR TIMES the relative size of the following twelve Republican budgets.
Since the Democrats retook Congress, the budget deficits went from 1.14% in the last Republican budget, to 3.18% in the first Democrat budget, then to 9.91% of GDP!
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html
MB
Ah, yes. I’ll be responding to both of these comments, shortly. I don’t suppose either of you want to study up about being on and off budget in advance, do you?
(Andy, they’re angry because they’re stupid. The world’s a pretty tough place when you don’t understand what’s going on. Surely you can relate.)
Andy
So they are stupid for demanding fiscal responsibility? If only their betters in Washington were more stupid then. Your theory doesn’t hold, but that’s because it is a simplistic insult rather than an honest counter argument.
MB
Seriously, Andy, are you going to just continue this with your intentional ignorance? These halfwits don’t actually value “fiscal responsibility.” If they did, they’d have been bouncing up and down about Bush for all 8 years. Except, huh, they were nowhere to be found. Funny, that.
Andy
MB, see Warren’s comment about the relative size of the deficits. They may not have been happy about it, but the levels were not considered excessive. And consider too that many people simply weren’t paying attention until their taxes started to go up, their house prices plummeted, and they lost their jobs. Nobody is saying that deficit spending under Bush was ok. Its that Obama has managed to incur so much more debt which is having a very negative impact on an already down economy.
Also, if you are gonna level that charge of stupidity at the Tea Party, which didn’t exist as a movement at the time, then the Democrats are even more guilty. They spoke against deficits and increasing the debt ceiling, though they eventually went along with it. Now they call the Republicans “extremists” for doing the same.
BTW, please excuse any typing errors. Something on your site isn’t resolving well in my browser and causing it to stutter as I type.
MB
Except that’s utter bullshit. Their taxes went down under Obama. Stimulus went up. But where’s the birth certificate?!
I’m not buying the relative size of the deficits figure, either. Two primary issues with that. First, if you shove everything off-budget (say, W Excellent Iraq Adventure), well, sure, you can’t move that number down pretty well. Second, you can hold any figures down for politically convenient bit, assuming that the guy that comes after you will have to fix it. See, e.g., how GOP and Dem admins have followed each other for years.
You’ve rarely seen much defense here about Democrats during the Bush years, and you’re not going to get too much of it now. But the idea that Republicans are somehow left with the slightest bit of integrity over fiscal matters is nothing short of ridiculous.
~
If that’s my site causing the problems, I’m sorry. It’s a pretty old design, but hasn’t generated any consistent complaints. If you can ID the problem, I can try to sort a fix.
Andy
MB, I think the stutter had something to do with the flash player from YouTube. The very next post came up with no problem.
—-
I think I understand what you mean by off-budget. But federal debt includes all spending, both in budget and in “off-budget” spending requests. And the federal debt has certainly gone up quite tremendously under Obama. You are right that budget deficits can be hard to compare if certain spending is off-budget. But in the end it is the national debt that matters. And mounting national debt impacts financial lending, contributes to inflation, and increases future federal budgets as debt must be payed back with interest.