…about Obama’s gigantic budget, can we please remember that this is a rise of 16%? The budget that Bush submitted for 2009 was 3.1 trillion, which was a 55% increase from when he took office. For 2006, Bush increased the budget by 12.5%.
I’m not saying that its fine and dandy that Obama is increasing the budget, all I’m saying is that it seems that people are making it out to be some unheard of thing to raise the budget, even by that amount, when the last time that didn’t happen was in the Clinton era.
Further, its not like its a surprise. I’m surprised the rise is that little. Let’s see next year if it gets reigned in or goes even higher. We can place bets if you like. I’m going with little (< inflation) or no increase. How about you?
It would help if the news media could just be accurate for once. Is it 3.6 or 3.4 trillion? The rise would only be 9% if the latter. I think the right answer is 3.6, from the source. But according to that, this is a reduction in outlays from 2009. So, looks like a little more digging is required, to understand what happened between Bush’s 2009 budget and actual outlays in 2009.
Its quotes like this that are so misleading:
"With Democrats in Congress adding to the national debt at the rate of more than $100 billion every month already this year, and with a budget that triples the already unsustainable public debt over the next decade, it is clear that there is not much more that we can do to protect our children and grandchildren from the unprecedented trillions in additional debt proposed by this administration," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said on the Senate floor
Yeah, that is bad, you know like when his party was in power. It’s got nothing to do with who’s in congress and everything to do with the assumptions like GDP growth and costs of programs and simple lack of will and discipline required to get out of deficit spending. On assumptions, you can only do the best you can with available data, but on costs of programs, I can only hope we have good people in charge who will actually limit budgets to the numbers that are allotted.
Plus i’d like to know how he came up with “tripling” the debt. Its currently over 11 trillion dollars, Bush inherited something closer to 6 trillion. Obama’s projections add another 6 trillion. Sorry adding 60% is not tripling. So McConnell's party almost doubles the debt, and now they are claiming Obama is going to triple it on top of that? Seems like a flat out lie.
I am saddened to see such a poor showing of spending over the next 8 years. Its deficit spending the whole time.
I was, and still am, under the impression that fixing health care (nationalizing it) will make it more efficient, and less expensive. But I think that calculation will have to take into account how much more we are going to pay in taxes versus how much less we, and businesses, pay in insurance and medical fees.
I want the strongest military on the planet, but does it have to be over 100% stronger than anyone else? How about 50%?
I want to spend money on energy development and infrastructure, but perhaps the gains form those activities wont be realized until long after Obama is gone. It could even be a whole generation away.
Can’t we get rid of non-essential programs like NCCAM, faith based anything, and any program that has already failed to demonstrably provide claimed benefits? I am hardpressed to believe that there are not many many more places where we can take Obama’s metaphorical scalpel.
