Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday 2/3/10


My "newsbites" from today's readings can be found in the Comments Section of this thread.

Explore and enjoy...!
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19 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2010/01/can-obama-reenergize-climate.php#1409234

[The following comments are from Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute]. The President’s remarks on energy were a muddle. On the one hand, he called for “tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.” On the other hand, he called for a cap-and-trade bill. Cap-and-trade could boost demand for gas in the short run (at the expense of coal), but would immediately suppress demand for oil and eventually make natural gas uncompetitive too. This one-foot-on-the-brakes, one-foot-on-the-accelerator proposal is not centrist; it is incoherent. President Obama says he supports “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” But few if any new nuclear power plants will be built until policymakers agree on a place to store the waste. Taxpayers have already spent billions of dollars on the proposed storage site at Yucca Mountain, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and President Obama are opposed. The President gave no hint that he’s changed his tune on Yucca or figured out an alternative, so his remark on nuclear power looks like a rhetorical sop to Republicans. The President said “the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.” Based on what evidence? Spain leads Europe in taxpayer-subsidized investments in wind and solar power, yet a study by Spanish economist Dr. Gabriel Calzada found that the subsidies destroy 2.2 jobs for every 1 job created. If subsidizing “clean energy” is such a potent economic stimulus, then why, asks Dr. David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation, is Spain’s unemployment rate 19.4%? [O]ne reason China is the world’s leading manufacturer of solar panels is that it does not put a price on carbon. This assures Chinese manufacturers’ access to low-cost electric generation fueled mainly by coal! The experience of the 1970s and 1980s taught us that if a technology is commercially viable, then government support is not needed and if a technology is not commercially viable, no amount of government support will make it so.

February 3, 2010 at 9:46 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://rsc.tomprice.house.gov/UploadedFiles/The_Incredible_Expanding_Natl_Debt_II.pdf

President Obama and Congressional Democrats talk about “refus[ing] to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay.” Yet they have already set us on a course over the past three years to do just that. It’s the Incredible, Expanding National Debt. Since taking the reigns on spending, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have already expanded our national debt limit by 38%! September 29, 2007 – The first increase in the national debt limit, H.J. Res. 43, on their watch became law, increasing the national debt to $9.815 trillion; 214 House Democrats (92%) voted to add $850 billion to the national debt; Senator Obama did not show up to vote. July 30, 2008 – The Democrats’ first housing bailout, H.R. 3221 became law, increasing the national debt to $10.615 trillion; 227 House Democrats (96%) voted to add $800 billion to the national debt; Senator Obama expressed support but did not show up to vote. Oct. 3, 2008 – The Wall Street bailout, H.R. 1424 became law, increasing the national debt to $11.315 trillion; 172 House Democrats (73%) and Senator Obama voted to add $700 billion to the national debt. Feb. 17, 2009 – The non-stimulus bill, H.R. 1, became law, increasing the national debt to $12.104 trillion; 246 House Democrats (96%) voted to add $789 billion to the national debt with President Obama’s full support. Dec. 28, 2009 – A blatant debt boost, H.R. 4314, became law, increasing the national debt to $12.394 trillion; 218 House Democrats (84%) voted to add $290 billion to the national debt with President Obama’s full support, once again. The Senate just passed another debt limit increase, raising the nation’s credit card limit by $1.9 trillion. Will House Democrats simply just go along again? Rather than address spending, President Obama and Congressional Democrats are on a course to raise the national debt limit by 59% in just over three years!

February 3, 2010 at 10:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=100201_3638,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml

[By Congressman Ron Paul - from his weekly newsletter]. If the administration really understood and cared about our spending problems they would not freeze spending a year from now, but cut spending immediately and significantly. [H]uge areas of the budget that are shielded from this freeze. The entire State Department budget is exempt, as are all entitlements, all military industrial spending and almost all foreign aid. Fully 7/8 of federal spending is excluded from this freeze, and some areas to be frozen were actually set to decrease, which means a freeze actually guarantees a higher level of spending. I do not necessarily want a cut in spending in this country - I just want to change who does the spending. The spending should be done by the people who earn the money, if they choose, and on what they choose, without any government interference.

February 3, 2010 at 10:45 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/02/02/ST2010020201834.html?sid=ST2010020201834

The Pentagon's top leaders declared Tuesday for the first time that -- after decades of opposition and equivocation from the armed forces -- they support an end to the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military. "Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. His words were echoed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who said the Pentagon is preparing for a repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" law. A House bill that would overturn "don't ask, don't tell" has 187 co-sponsors, but Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), a powerful committee chairman, opposes it and has not let it come up for a vote. Adm. Mullen, 63, told senators that he had knowingly served with gays since 1968, when he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and that he thought it was wrong that they were forced to hide their sexual orientation. "No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," he testified. Three years ago, [Senator John] McCain said he would support ending the ban once the military's top brass agreed to do so. But on Tuesday, he said he was "disappointed" with the testimony from Mullen and Gates. "I don't think it is going to make that big a difference," said one company commander who had just returned from leading a brigade in eastern Afghanistan. "You expect people to do their jobs and be competent. We've talked about it in my company of late. But the consensus is that it isn't a big deal." "I think we have all expected this would come in time. My sense is that it isn't a big deal among the other majors I am serving with, and even less so among junior soldiers," said Maj. Niel Smith, an Iraq war veteran who is a student at the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "We have become accustomed to the idea that gays have served honorably alongside us for some time."

February 3, 2010 at 10:46 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review

Scientists sometimes like to portray what they do as divorced from the everyday jealousies, rivalries and tribalism of human relationships. What makes science special is that data and results that can be replicated are what matters and the scientific truth will out in the end. But a close reading of the emails hacked from the University of East Anglia in November exposes the real process of everyday science in lurid detail. Many of the emails reveal strenuous efforts by the mainstream climate scientists to do what outside observers would regard as censoring their critics. And the correspondence raises awkward questions about the effectiveness of peer review – the supposed gold standard of scientific merit – and the operation of the UN's top climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

February 3, 2010 at 11:30 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/climate-change-pachauri-un-glaciers

The embattled chief of the UN's climate change body has hit out at his critics and refused to resign or apologise for a ­damaging mistake in a landmark 2007 report on global warming. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said it would be hypocritical to apologise for the false claim that ­Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035... In his Guardian interview, Pachauri defended the IPCC's use of so-called "grey literature" – sources outside peer-reviewed academic journals, such as reports from campaign groups, companies and student theses. The false Himalayan glacier claim came from a report by the green group WWF.

February 3, 2010 at 11:30 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/03/budget-strapped-states-avoid-t-word/?feat=home_headlines

The National Conference of State Legislatures found that 35 states and Puerto Rico are facing deficits for fiscal 2011, despite the Obama administration's $787 billion recovery package, which pumped tens of billions of dollars into state coffers last year.

February 3, 2010 at 11:30 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100202/D9DK7V400.html

Unemployment rose in most cities and counties in December...The unemployment rate rose in 306 of 372 metro areas...That's worse than November. Joblessness topped 10 percent in 138 metro areas, up from 125 in November. Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 10 percent in December, unchanged from the previous month, as employers shed 85,000 jobs. [E]conomists expect...a slight increase in the [national] unemployment rate to 10.1 percent.

February 3, 2010 at 11:31 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=519905

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, in an hourlong television documentary titled "Global Warming: The Other Side," presents evidence that our National Climatic Data Center has been manipulating weather data in the same way as the now-disgraced and under-investigation University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. The NCDC is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Its manipulated climate data are used by the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, a division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. During the 1960s and into the 1980s, the number of stations used for calculating global surface temperatures was about 6,000. By 1990, the number of stations dropped rapidly to about 1,500. Most of the stations lost were in the colder regions of the Earth. Not adjusting for their loss made temperatures appear to be higher than was in fact the case. According to the Science & Environmental Policy Project, Russia reported that CRU was ignoring data from colder regions of Russia, even though these stations were still reporting data. That means data loss was not simply the result of station closings, but of deliberate decisions by CRU to ignore them in order to hype its global warming claims. NCDC engaged in similar deceptive activity where they have dropped stations, particularly in colder climates, higher elevations or closer to the polar regions. Temperatures are now simply projected for these colder stations from other stations, usually in warmer climates.

February 3, 2010 at 2:00 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020110/content/01125112.guest.html

[Lech Walesa 1/29]. "The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope."

February 3, 2010 at 2:01 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704022804575041253835415076.html

Deep in the president's budget released Monday—in Table S-8 on page 161—appear a set of proposals headed "Reform U.S. International Tax System." If these proposals are enacted, U.S.-based multinational firms will face $122.2 billion in tax increases over the next decade. The fundamental assumption behind these proposals is that U.S. multinationals expand abroad only to "export" jobs out of the country. Thus, taxing their foreign operations more would boost tax revenues here and create desperately needed U.S. jobs. This is simply wrong. These tax increases would not create American jobs, they would destroy them. Academic research, including most recently by Harvard's Mihir Desai and Fritz Foley and University of Michigan's James Hines, has consistently found that expansion abroad by U.S. multinationals tends to support jobs based in the U.S. More investment and employment abroad is strongly associated with more investment and employment in American parent companies. When parent firms based in the U.S. hire workers in their foreign affiliates, the skills and occupations of these workers are often complementary; they aren't substitutes. More hiring abroad stimulates more U.S. hiring. For example, as Wal-Mart has opened stores abroad, it has created hundreds of U.S. jobs for workers to coordinate the distribution of goods world-wide. Procter & Gamble calculates that one in five of its U.S. jobs—and two in five in Ohio—depend directly on its global business. Compared to the rest of the world, U.S. corporate tax rates are sky-high and our system of corporate taxation is highly complex. The current U.S. federal statutory corporate tax rate of 35% is the highest among all 30 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, far above the OECD average of about 23%. Raise the international tax burden on U.S. multinationals by limiting foreign-tax credits, for example, and you will further reduce their ability to compete abroad. This, in turn, will reduce employment and investment in U.S parent companies.

February 3, 2010 at 2:01 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013424060649464.html

It's now official: In 2009 the number of unionized workers who work for the government surpassed those in the private economy for the first time. 7.91 million workers, were employed by the government in 2009. [G]overnment unions offer what is close to lifetime job security and benefits, subject only to gross dereliction of duty. Once a city or state's workers are organized by a union, the jobs almost never go away. [G]overnment is the main playing field of modern unionism, which explains why the AFL-CIO and SEIU have become advocates for higher taxes and government expansion in cities, states and Washington. Unions once saw their main task as negotiating a bigger share of an individual firm's profits. Now the movement's main goal is securing a larger share of the overall private economy's wealth, which means pitting government employees against middle-class taxpayers. And as union membership has grown in government, so has union clout in pushing politicians (especially but not solely Democrats) for higher wages and benefits. This is why labor chiefs Andy Stern (SEIU) and Rich Trumka (AFL-CIO) could order Democrats to exempt unions from ObamaCare's tax increase on high-cost health insurance plans. The problem for democracy is that this creates a self-reinforcing cycle of higher spending and taxes. The unions help elect politicians, who repay the unions with more pay and benefits and dues-paying members, who in turn help to re-elect those politicians. The political scientists Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo recently wrote in the Weekly Standard about the 2006 example of former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine shouting to a rally of 10,000 public workers that "We will fight for a fair contract." Mr. Corzine was supposed to be on the other side of the bargaining table representing taxpayers, not labor. [M]ost Democrats once opposed public-sector unionism. Such 20th-century liberal heroes as New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia and Franklin Roosevelt believed fervently in industrial unions. But they believed public employees had a special social obligation and could too easily exploit their monopoly position. How right they were. As we can see from the desperate economic and fiscal woes of California, New Jersey, New York and other states with dominant public unions, this has become a major problem for the U.S. economy and small-d democratic governance. It may be the single biggest problem. The agenda for American political reform needs to include the breaking of public unionism's power to capture an ever-larger share of private income.

February 3, 2010 at 2:02 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/02/025515.php

These are policies that President Obama has advocated in the past, so we shouldn't be surprised to see them in his 2011 budget. Still, it's hard not to be a little shocked. The budget says, at page 40:

*** Reduce the Itemized Deduction Write-off for Families with Incomes over $250,000. ***

QUOTING PRESIDENT OBAMA --

Currently, if a middle-class family donates a dollar to its favorite charity or spends a dollar on mortgage interest, it gets a 15-cent tax deduction, but a millionaire who does the same enjoys a deduction that is more than twice as generous.

AHH... BUT HERE'S WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA DOESN'T EXPLAIN...

QUOTING JOHN H. HINDERAKER, A FELLOW AT THE CLAREMONT INSTITUTE --

That's because the "millionaire" pays income taxes that are more than twice as high. It isn't "generous" for the government to refrain from taking all of your money.

HMMM... MAKES SENSE, HUH?!

BUT OBAMA CONTINUES --

By reducing this disparity and returning the high-income deduction to the same rates that were in place at the end of the Reagan Administration, we will raise $291 billion over the next decade.

HINDERACKER RESPONDS --

This is, of course, Orwellian. The "disparity" is in fact a disparity in tax rates--higher income people pay much more. And the reference to the Reagan administration must have been intended as a cruel joke on taxpayers. The "high-income deduction" will be the same as during the Reagan administration, but the high-income marginal tax rate won't be, so now the deduction will apply to only half the contribution.

It's easy to understand the Obama administration's purpose with regard to churches and private charities, which it regards as competitors of the government. It wants to damage or destroy them by making contributions more expensive. But what about the mortgage interest deduction? The administration purports to be concerned about the decline in home prices that triggered the economic crisis of 2008-2009. But severely reducing the mortgage interest deduction will inevitably depress home prices. And not just the prices of expensive homes, either; as those prices fall, the values of less-expensive houses will decline as well. Is this really what the administration wants? It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Obama administration simply doesn't care about America's economy.

February 3, 2010 at 3:27 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/03/big_governments_cronies_100143.html

Many window-making companies struggle because of the recession's effect on home building. But one little window company, Serious Materials, is "booming," says Fortune. "On a roll," according to Inc. magazine, which put Serious' CEO on its cover, with a story titled: "How to Build a Great Company". [T]his same little window company also gets serious attention from the most visible people in America. Vice President Joe Biden appeared at the opening of one of its plants. CEO Kevin Surace thanked him for his "unwavering support." "Without you and the recovery ("stimulus") act, this would not have been possible," Surace said. [O]ther window-makers say their windows are just as energy efficient, but the vice president didn't visit them. Serious doesn't just have the vice president in his corner. It's got President Obama himself. Company board member Paul Holland had the rare of honor of introducing Obama at a "green energy" event. Obama then said: "Serious Materials just reopened ... a manufacturing plant outside of Pittsburgh. These workers will now have a new mission: producing some of the most energy-efficient windows in the world." How many companies get endorsed by the president of the United States? When the CEO said that opening his factory wouldn't have been possible without the Obama administration, he may have known something we didn't. Last month, Obama announced a new set of tax credits for so-called green companies. One window company was on the list: Serious Materials. This must be one very special company. But wait, it gets even more interesting. On my Fox Business Network show on "crony capitalism", I displayed a picture of administration officials and so-called "energy leaders" taken at the U.S. Department of Energy. Standing front and center was Cathy Zoi, who oversees $16.8 billion in stimulus funds, much of it for weatherization programs that benefit Serious. The interesting twist is that Zoi happens to be the wife of Robin Roy, who happens to be vice president of "policy" at Serious Windows. Of all the window companies in America, maybe it's a coincidence that the one which gets presidential and vice presidential attention and a special tax credit is one whose company executives give thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign and where the policy officer spends nights at home with the Energy Department's weatherization boss. On its website, Serious Materials says it did not get a taxpayer subsidy. But that's just playing with terms. What it got was a tax credit, an opportunity that its competitors did not get: to keep money it would have paid in taxes. Let's not be misled. Government is as manipulative with selective tax credits as it is with cash subsidies. It would be more efficient to cut taxes across the board. Why should there be favoritism? Because politicians like it. Big, complicated government gives them opportunities to do favors for their friends.

February 3, 2010 at 3:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/onthenews/?q=OGRlNDNiZGI0YjJlZjQwNWRiZGVlOTU1YjAyNGE5MGI=

The decision by Canadian provincial premier Danny Williams to travel to the United States for heart surgery has provided conservative critics of Obamacare with a concrete illustration of a long-held talking point: as socialized medicine stagnates, America's dynamic free-market health-care system is the envy of the world. "Think about the absurdity about Canadians spending their income on medical treatment outside the country because it's not provided here at home," Brett Skinner, president of the free-market Fraser Institute, told the Vancouver Sun. Skinner said that Williams, who opted for surgery in the U.S. on the recommendation of his Canadian doctors, was among an estimated 41,000 Canadians who sought health care in the states in 2009 due to long waiting lists and poor access at home. Patients [in Canada] can wait as long as 26 weeks for bypass surgery, and even the highest-priority cases can wait as long as two weeks for treatment. While extrinsic factors make the incidence of heart disease and coronary heart disease higher in the United States than Canada, Americans are more likely to receive treatment for their problems, according to a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. More than half of those Canadians with "unmet" health-care needs cited wait times as the main reason for not receiving care. Canadians also report much longer waits for specialist consultations and non-emergency procedures. Americans, by contrast, cited costs first among reasons for not receiving care. But research finds that personal income is actually more closely tied to health-care outcomes in the Canadian single-payer system than the American multi-payer system.

February 3, 2010 at 3:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/house-republicans-assail-white-house-briefing-on-christmas-day-bomber.html

Senior [Obama] administration officials told reporters that Abdulmuttalab began sharing intelligence with authorities last Thursday, after some of his family members were dispatched by the FBI from Nigeria to get him to start cooperating. In a hearing with Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence questioned the timing of the disclosure and accused the White House of “political cover.” “I do find it an interesting strategy that we hastily call a briefing to let America and our friends and our enemies in the Middle East know that he’s now singing like a canary,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “I can’t think of a reason why that would happen other than political cover,” charged Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas. Blair said he would not comment on the “internal processes” for this investigation and does not want to “go into the political side of it..."

February 3, 2010 at 3:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a4ri_.MXxMHs

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Meet the new mantra, same as the old mantra. No longer will President Barack Obama be content to cite specious numbers about “jobs saved or created” as a result of last year’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus. Now he’s proposing $100 billion of new spending to “jumpstart job creation,” according to White House Budget Director Peter Orszag. It’s part of a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011, unveiled Monday, that projects a $1.3 trillion deficit next year, following a $1.6 trillion deficit this year. Spend money to save money. Spending dressed up as a jump- starter is still spending by another name. The budget’s job-creation initiatives include...and an extension in unemployment benefits, which is a disincentive for job seekers. [A] tax cut for new hires, which is popular with both parties, is problematic and hard to implement, according to Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard University and former economic adviser to President George W. Bush. How do you differentiate between employment churning -- firing Peter to hire Paul -- and a new hire? How do you treat new firms? In an October blog post, Mankiw proposed a cut in the payroll tax, something simple and universal rather than complex and targeted. Any attempt to apply more favorable tax treatment to marginal jobs than existing ones “creates a range of unintended consequences,” he said, not to mention an incentive to game the system.

February 3, 2010 at 4:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10673379/1/fannie-freddie-hold-plenty-off-the-books.html?kval=dontmiss

A look at what's lying off the books at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provides some clues as to why the mortgage-finance giants recently received a "blank check" from the Treasury Department for future capital needs, and why the Obama administration has delayed announcing restructuring plans. Here are some startling statistics from Fannie and Freddie's third-quarter reports, as the market awaits word of the timing of year-end results: As of Sept. 30, Fannie Mae had $164 billion worth of nonperforming loans held off the books, vs. $33.5 billion in recognized NPAs. Freddie Mac had $74.3 billion off balance sheet, and $17.3 billion on the books. (Freddie's figures may be lower because it counts just 90 plus days past due, whereas Fannie counts 30 plus days past due.) Fannie has $3.58 trillion worth of off-balance sheet assets, vs. just $890 billion in assets on the books. The firm estimated a $2.4 trillion maximum exposure to loss for off-balance sheet assets. Since it's a worst-case scenario, maximum exposure isn't considered a realistic representation of what firms would actually lose. Nonetheless, Fannie had reserved just $56.9 billion for those losses at Sept. 30. Freddie Mac identified $1.5 trillion in potential off-balance sheet credit losses, and said it had reserved $28.6 billion against such guarantees. The Treasury Department announced on Christmas Eve that Fannie and Freddie would receive unlimited capital support over the next few years. The Obama administration was expected to announce a long-awaited restructuring proposal for the two firms in its budget proposal this month. Fannie and Freddie have been overseen and managed by the federal government in a conservatorship status since September 2008, but still maintain publicly traded stock.

February 3, 2010 at 4:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://newsmax.com/Morris/Morris-Obama-Bush-deficit/2010/02/02/id/348771

[By Dick Morris]. President Obama is being disingenuous when he says that the budget deficit he faced "when I walked in the door" of the White House was $1.3 trillion. He went on to say that he only increased it to $1.4 trillion in 2009 and was raising it to $1.6 trillion in 2010. Here are the facts: In 2008, Bush ran a deficit of $485 billion. By the time the fiscal year started on Oct. 1, 2008, it had gone up by another $100 billion due to increased recession-related spending and depressed revenues. So it was about $600 billion at the start of the fiscal crisis. That was the real Bush deficit. when the fiscal crisis hit, Bush [with bipartisan support, including the support of then-Senator Obama chose] to pass TARP in the final months of [Bush's] presidency. [TARP] cost $700 billion. Under the federal budget rules, a loan and a grant are treated the same. So the $700 billion pushed the deficit — officially — up to $1.3 trillion. But not really. The $700 billion was a short term loan and [according to the Obama administration] $500 billion of it has already been repaid. So what was the real deficit Obama inherited? The $600 billion deficit Bush was running plus the $200 billion of TARP money that probably won't be repaid (mainly AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). That totals $800 billion. That was the real deficit Obama inherited.

February 3, 2010 at 7:28 PM

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