Category Archives: Barack Obama

CBO on Obama budget

Posted on by
Reply

Those who say the deficit is nothing to worry about are probably wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t worry today about squashing it today, when we are trying to climb out of a huge recession, but we should worry today about squashing it someday.

The Congressional Budget Office just released its analysis of President Obama’s 2011 budget, and its not totally reassuring.

The deficit would be $1.5 trillion this year and $1.3 trillion next year. There is a bit of good news — if one defines that term very, very loosely — buried in there. The deficit would be 10.3 percent of gross domestic product this year, but then tumble to 8.9% next year. The 2009 deficit was 9.9% of GDP.

Here’s the really scary thing: government debt would increase from 53 percent of GDP last year to 90 percent of GDP in 2020. Interest payments would increase dramatically.

The president also piles up some BS about the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimating them at $50 billion after next year. CBO instead keeps them at the current $130 billion.

The best news, though, is the president’s health care reform would reduce the deficit by $.2 trillion.

Let’s do it, for reasons related both to ethics and economics.

Obama’s budget, explained

Posted on by
Reply

A really nice, non-technical synopsis of President Obama’s budget proposal is available from the National Priorities Project, which also offers a Wisconsin perspective. Obama has proposed freezing discretionary funding, which translates into a $74.8 million, 0r 51%, cut in the state’s Community Development Block Grant allocation for FY11. Much of the reduction likely is due to the expiration of stimulus funding, but with the economy still on the brink and jobs still disappearing, this state and this community is in for a world of hurt unless something changes.

More pain: the state’s share of low-income heating assistance declines $60.5 million,or 47%,  in 2011.

Explain the health care bill before the final vote

Posted on by
Reply

Maybe it really is time for a third party.

Truly, truly showing that the Dems don’t get what’s going on, White House adviser David Axelrod went on ABC’s “This Week” and came up with this one about the health care bill:

As a political matter, the foolish thing to do would be for anybody else who supported this to walk away from it,” he said. He added, “The underlying elements of it are popular and important, and people will never know what’s in that bill until we pass it, the president signs it and they have a whole new range of protections they never had before.

Is it asking too much to be clued in before the bill is passed? Isn’t that how it is supposed to work?

The Obama jobs summit

Posted on by
Reply

What a disappointment President Barack Obama’s financial policies are. Wall Street reform hasn’t happened and while tens of millions of people are unemployed, Obama…has a meeting.

About 130 people were invited to yesterday’s gathering, which may mean that the meeting — a “jobs summit: — put a couple of caterers to work feeding the attendees lunch, but did nothing for anyone else. The summit, a very transparent attempt to disguise the abysmal job the administration is doing to help regular people damaged by the recession, is the deserved target of criticism and mockery. PoliticsDaily wrote about the giant photo-op in a column headlined “Obama Jobs Summit: I Care, I Really Do.”

The Washington Post made it pretty clear that Obama is willing to direct billions of dollars to bailing out ethically (and sometimes financially) banks and investment houses to a far, far, FAR greater extent than he is willing to invest in jobs for American workers.

Yes, the stimulus bill saved millions of jobs, no matter how you count them. When the bill is done and the country falls off the funding cliff in a year or two, is everyone supposed to get jobs installing insulation?

“Obama says he does not have the money for the plan many of his liberal supporters say packs the biggest employment punch — direct federal investment in job creation,” the Post reported. “Instead, he came close to embracing a to-do list for the private sector that sounded rather familiar: weatherization, small-business incentives, regulatory and other help for exporters, and tax credits for employers who hire new workers.”

Golly.

Getting the symbolism right

Posted on by
1

It’s easy to be really, really mad about the endless stream of bailouts and the treasury secretary who — oopsie! — forgot to pay his taxes. Actually, getting really, really mad probably is more than easy; it’s probably unavoidable. Who did these yahoos think they were and how come they keep saying they didn’t see it coming? Weren’t they reading Paul Krugman? Did they abandon common sense when they bought their first Lear jets?

At least on this White House redecoration thing the Obamas got the message right. The president has a few loose  millions lying around because he wrote a few best-sellers. He can pay for his own damned redecorating and he is going to do that. A small thing, for sure, but something to show that somebody doesn’t want to stick the American public with every bill incurred by the elites. Until Tim Geithner is pushed off the employment cliff, this will have to do.