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2011
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June
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- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 30, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 29, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 28, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, June 27, 2011
- Random Thoughts... the back end of June, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 25 & 26, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 24, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 23, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 22, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 21, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, June 20, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 18 &19, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 17, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 16, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 15, 2011
- A Midshipman at Annapolis Speaks Out
- RINOs on Parade
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 14, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, June 13, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 11 & 12, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 10, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, June 9, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, June 8, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, June 7, 2011
- Charleston Barkcation 2011
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June
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
11 comments:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44337
"Is our children learning?" as George W. Bush so famously asked.
Well, no, they is not learning, especially the history of their country, the school subject at which America's young perform at their worst.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... IGNORANT VOTERS ARE THIS NATION'S NUMBER ONE PROBLEM.
On history tests given to 31,000 pupils by the National Assessment of Education Progress, the "Nation's Report Card," most fourth-graders could not identify a picture of Abraham Lincoln or a reason why he was important.
* THIS AIN'T FUNNY. IT'S SAD. IT'S PATHETIC. IT'S DANGEROUS.
Most eighth-graders could not identify an advantage American forces had in the Revolutionary War.
Twelfth-graders did not know why America entered World War II or that China was North Korea's ally in the Korean War.
Only 20% of fourth-graders attained even a "proficient" score in the test. By eighth grade, only 17% were judged proficient. By 12th grade, 12%.
* THANK A TEACHER...?
"We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate," historian David McCullough told The Wall Street Journal.
* YEP... (*SIGH*)
* FOLKS... READ THE FULL PIECE.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304186404576388061782561014.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Under the budget proposed by President Obama for 2012, the debt would rise to $15.7 trillion in 2021.
President Obama's proposed budget was so excessive and fiscally irresponsible that it was voted down in the Senate 97-0.
* LET ME ASK YOU FOLKS SOMETHING... IS THIS THE FIRST YOU'RE READING OF THE 97-0 VOTE? IF SO... WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT THE MEDIA? (*SHRUG*)
The U.S. debt is now above its current limit of $14.3 trillion, a figure so large that it is nearly impossible for the average American to comprehend.
* ACTUALLY, IT'S MANY TIMES THAT WHEN YOU FIGURE IN UNFUNDED LIABILITIES... (*SIGH*)
In spite of these facts, President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress still want to increase the national debt limit without making meaningful spending cuts or reforms. This plan, a so-called "clean" increase in the debt limit, recently failed a House vote of 318-97. Every Republican and 82 Democrats voted against.
* DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT, FOLKS - THE FACT THAT EVEN THOUGH SUCH INSANITY FAILED TO PASS THE HOUSE, MORE DEMS VOTED FOR IT THAN AGAINST IT! NINETY-SEVEN DEMS VOTED TO SIMPLY KEEP BORROWING... NO CUTS... NO REFORMS...
(NOW TELL ME THE COUNTRY WOULDN'T BE BETTER OFF IF ALL 97 OF THOSE SCUMBAGS WEREN'T STOOD UP AGAINST A WALL AND SHOT. TELL ME!)
* FOLKS... IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... THERE ARE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE - MANY OF THEM - WHO SIMPLY DON'T KNOW OR DON'T CARE THAT WE'RE COMMITTING NATIONAL ECONOMIC SUICIDE.
Throughout American history, Congress has never once failed to increase the debt limit. This makes having a debt limit functionally useless.
(*SHRUG*) KINDA HARD TO ARGUE...
Our organizations - Let Freedom Ring, the Club for Growth, and Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment - have joined with other conservative organizations and the Republican Study Committee to demand a pledge from every current member of Congress and candidate for federal office. The plan is simple: cut, cap, balance.
First, we must demand that spending is cut. We should make discretionary and mandatory spending reductions that would cut the deficit in half next year. Last year's deficit was $1.6 trillion, the largest in history. We must cut our deficits now, not over 10 years.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Second, we must demand enforceable statutory caps to return federal spending to 18% of gross domestic product, where it has been for most of the past 60 years.
* AND FRANKLY, I LOOK UPON 18% AS SIMPLY THE OPENING BID; I'D LIKE TO SEE FEDERAL SPENDING GO DOWN BELOW THAT!
If the spending cap is breached, it must trigger automatic spending reductions. Republicans in the Bush years and Democrats in the Obama years have proven that we cannot trust them when it comes to spending.
* DEMPUBLICANS AND REPUBLICRATS!
Third, we must insist on passage of a balanced budget amendment before that debt-limit vote occurs. The amendment drafted by Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) is a good example to follow. It requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress to increase taxes and a three-fifths vote in both houses to raise the debt limit, and it requires the president to submit a balanced budget to Congress each fiscal year.
* SOUNDS PRETTY DAMNED REASONABLE TO ME!
The states have annual or biennial balanced budget requirements and the federal government must too.
(*NOD*)
The current Congress has a chance to do right by the next generation.
The cut provision makes an immediate impact in next year's deficit. The cap provision sets a new spending limit that Congress cannot violate without triggering automatic cuts. The balance provision will set us on a course to balance our budget every year in the future once it is ratified.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-21/too-much-fda-intervention-equals-too-few-drugs-ramesh-ponnuru.html
The Food and Drug Administration reports that the U.S. has shortages of 246 drugs - a record number.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
Oncologists and anesthesiologists are increasingly concerned, with more than 90% of the latter saying they have experienced shortages.
* NAH... NO "AMERICAN DECLINE" HERE... (*SMIRK*)
In a September 2010 survey, by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, one in four respondents reported that shortages had caused medical errors during the previous year. More alarmingly, one in five reported adverse patient outcomes.
* HEY... JUST DON'T GET SICK! NO ILLNESS... NO PROBLEM!
Doctors have had to respond to shortages by substituting drugs that are not as effective, and by making wrenching decisions about which patients get access to which drugs. The consequences can be dire. Cytarabine is a drug that is effective in the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma - but it has to be administered quickly, and it’s one of the drugs in short supply.
One middle-aged woman reportedly fell into a persistent vegetative state because anesthesiologists ran out of epinephrine.
What’s behind this shortage?
Organizations for anesthesiologists, oncologists and pharmacists, together with the ISMP, issued a report in November that gently points a finger at the FDA.
Several drug shortages, [according to the report,] “have been precipitated by actual or anticipated action by the FDA as part of the Unapproved Drugs Initiative,” a plan that largely goes after medicines that were on the market before the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 gave the agency its modern powers.“Some participants noted that the cost and complexity of completing a New Drug Application (NDA) for those unapproved drugs is a disincentive for entering or maintaining a market presence.”
The report also cited the “lengthy and unpredictable” process of getting the FDA to approve changes in the way medicines are manufactured.
Libertarians such as John Goodman, the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, say these policies deserve a large share of the blame for the shortages. He lays out the indictment on his blog: “A drug manufacturer must get approval for how much of a drug it plans to produce, as well as the timeframe. If a shortage develops (because, say, the FDA shuts down a competitor’s plant), a drug manufacturer cannot increase its output of that drug without another round of approvals. Nor can it alter its timetable production (producing a shortage drug earlier than planned) without FDA approval.”
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110621/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_health_overhaul_glitch
President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.
(*SMIRK*)
he change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid...
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*
Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night. "This is a situation that got no attention at all," added Foster. "And even now, as I raise the issue with various policymakers, people are not rushing to say ... we need to do something about this."
* UNFRIGG'NBELIEVEABLE, HUH?!
"I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make sense," Foster said during a question-and-answer session at a recent professional society meeting.
* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA, MR. FOSTER!
The actuary's office said the 3 million early retirees who would become eligible for Medicaid are on top of an estimated 16 million to 20 million people that Obama's law would already bring into the program, by opening it to childless adults with incomes "near" the poverty level.
(*SMIRK*)
Federal taxpayers will cover all of the initial cost of the expansion.
* MEANING AFTER THIS "INITIAL" PERIOD STATE TAXPAYERS WILL HAVE TO FUND THIS FEDERAL MANDATE. WHAT A DEAL, HUH?!
(*SNICKER*)
Former Utah governor Mike Leavitt (who served as Health and Human Services secretary under President George H.W. Bush) said adding early retirees will "just add fuel to the fire... The fact that this is being discovered now tells you, what else is baked into this law?" said Leavitt.
[Leavitt concluded,] "It clearly begins to reveal that the nature of the law was to put more and more people under eligibility for government insurance."
(*NOD*)
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/blogs?blogID=greg-hinz&plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&uid=1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35c&plckPostId=Blog%3a1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost%3a73061b12-c71d-45b0-aad9-130e57727e64&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
The average Chicago household now owes a staggering $63,525 to cover local government debt, according to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
Suburbanites are deeply in the red, too, with the average household owing $32,901, according to the treasurer.
(*SNORT*)
Among the biggest reasons: $25 billion in unfunded pension liability.
In comments after an appearance Tuesday before the Civic Federation, a watchdog group that has released somewhat similar numbers in recent years, Ms. Pappas said she was "stunned" to learn that county taxpayers on the whole owe more than $108 billion toward local debt.
* THE TREASURER... STUNNED... (*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)
* SOUNDS LIKE A CERTAIN SCENE FROM CASABLANCA, NO? (*STILL CHUCKLING*)
The figures were derived from a recently passed debt disclosure law. Ms. Pappas said the numbers have never before been compiled in this fashion.
* OH... (*GIGGLING*)... WHAT A SHOCK... (*STILL GIGGLING*)
Overall, she said, municipalities have $61 billion in debt. And educational districts, $20 billion. Cook County owes $18 billion, and various sanitary districts collectively owe $4.4 billion.
* OTHER THAN MS. PAPPAS, IS ANYONE ELSE SURPRISED?
In some ways the problem is actually worse than it appears. Ms. Pappas' report does not include totals from 55 of the county's 553 local units of government, which failed to report their debt figures to her.
(*GUFFAW*)
* FOLKS... THESE ARE OBAMA'S PEOPLE... THIS IS WHERE OBAMA COMES FROM... THIS IS THE CHICAGO WAY - THE ILLINOIS WAY - OF DOING BUSINESS!
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2011/06/20/why-the-jobs-situation-is-worse-than-it-looks
In the face of the most stimulative fiscal and monetary policies in our history, we have experienced the loss of over 7 million jobs, wiping out every job gained since the year 2000.
From the moment the Obama administration came into office, there have been no net increases in full-time jobs, only in part-time jobs. This is contrary to all previous recessions.
The real job losses are greater than the estimate of 7.5 million. They are closer to 10.5 million, as 3 million people have stopped looking for work.
Equally troublesome is the lower labor participation rate; total payrolls today amount to 131 million, but this figure is lower than it was at the beginning of the year 2000, even though our population has grown by nearly 30 million.
Half of the new jobs created are in temporary help agencies, as firms resist hiring full-time workers.
(*SIGH*)
Today, over 14 million people are unemployed. We now have more idle men and women than at any time since the Great Depression. Nearly seven people in the labor pool compete for every job opening.
One fifth of all men of prime working age are not getting up and going to work. Equally disturbing is that the number of people unemployed for six months or longer grew 361,000 to 6.2 million, increasing their share of the unemployed to 45.1%.
We face the specter that long-term unemployment is becoming structural and not just cyclical, raising the risk that the jobless will lose their skills and become permanently unemployable.
(*SIGH*)
Hiring is now 17% lower than the lowest level in the 2001-02 downturn.
* IN OTHER WORDS, UNLIKE OBAMA'S SO-CALLED "STIMULUS" (i.e. DEBT), BUSH'S TAX CUT STIMULUS ACTUALLY CREATED JOBS!
Don't pay too much attention to the headline unemployment rate of 9.1%. It is scary enough, but it is a gloss on the reality. These numbers do not include the millions who have stopped looking for a job or who are working part time but would work full time if a position were available. And they count only those people who have actively applied for a job within the last four weeks.
* OH... AND SPEAKING OF BUSH vs. OBAMA...
Ten years ago, 5 million people were collecting federal disability payments; now 8 million are on the rolls, at a cost to taxpayers of approximately $120 billion a year. The states today owe the federal insurance fund an astonishing $90 billion to cover unemployment benefits.
(*SHRUG*)
* FOLKS... READ THE FULL PIECE. IT'S VERY INFORMATIVE.
http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/School-Daze-School-Daze-Good-Old-Golden-Rule-Days.aspx
* FOLKS... ON THIS ONE... MY ADVICE IS TO SIMPLY STOP READING RIGHT NOW AND CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK. WE'RE TALKING A TRULY BRILLIANT - DEAD ON - ANALYSIS! (EVEN BARKERIZATION CAN'T DO IT JUSTICE!)
A mind is a precious thing to waste, so why are millions of America’s students wasting theirs by going to college?
College was great as long as the jobs were there. Now, however, a growing number of skeptics wonder whether it’s worth the time or the cost.
* AS MY REGULAR READERS KNOW, I'VE LONG BEEN IN THE SKEPTICS' CAMP.
College...is stultifying and outdated - overpriced and mismanaged - with very little value created despite the bump in earnings power that universities use as their raison d’être in our modern world of money.
College tuition has increased at a rate 6% higher than the general rate of inflation for the past 25 years, making it four times as expensive relative to other goods and services as it was in 1985. (Subjective explanation: University administrators have a talent for increasing top line revenues via tuition, but lack the spine necessary to upgrade academic productivity. Professorial tenure and outdated curricula focusing on liberal arts instead of a more practical global agenda focusing on math and science are primary culprits.)
The average college graduate now leaves school with $24,000 of debt and total student loans now exceed this nation’s credit card debt... (Subjective explanation: Universities are run for the benefit of the adult establishment, both politically and financially, not students. To radically change the system and to question the sanctity of a college education would be to jeopardize trillions of misdirected investment dollars and financial obligations.)
* HERE'S THE REAL RUB, THOUGH, FOLKS:
Student...can no longer assume that a four year degree will be the golden ticket to a good job in a global economy that cares little for their social networking skills and more about what their labor is worth on the global marketplace.
http://blogs.forbes.com/briandomitrovic/2011/06/21/stagflation-we-can-cure-that/
Stagflation there’s an ugly word. It’s a “portmanteau” term, where two things that you might not expect to be together fuse into a unity. In pop culture, think of Brangelina and Tomcat.
In the old canons of economics, stagflation is supposed to be impossible. Stagnation means a standstill in economic growth, and inflation comes from too many dollars chasing too few goods, the argument runs. How can you have all that chasing of goods without jobs and production moving up in turn? See, stagflation can’t happen.
Except that six Nobel Prizes have been given for work saying stagflation is all too possible.
Then there are the facts. In the 1970s, we saw the unemployment rate go from 4% to 9% and inflation hike from 1% to 11%. This reality was so palpable that people started using this weird, inelegant, impossible term.
And…it’s back. In May, Stanford economist Ronald McKinnon said that we might as well stop resisting speaking its name. Stagflation is what we’re going through right now. McKinnon wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “April’s producer price index for finished goods…rose 6.8% [and] intermediate goods prices for April were rising at a 9.4% annual clip. Meanwhile the official nationwide unemployment rate is mired close to 9%….So stagflation it is.”
And now there’s new data. Unemployment is more than close to 9%; it’s over it, at 9.1%. And last week’s consumer price index report showed that “core inflation,” the measure that excludes things that tend to zoom up in price like food and energy, itself outpaced the increases in the excluded items and is running around 4% per year. As for GDP growth in this third “recovery summer,” it can be seen with a microscope at 1.8%.
* FOLKS... IF ANYTHING THE ARTICLE UNDERSTATES THE REALITY. IF INFLATION WERE STILL MEASURED USING THE SAME RUBRIC AS WAS USED DURING THE BAD OLD DAYS OF THE NIXON/FORD/CARTER YEARS, WE'D BE READING HEADLINES OF INFLATION BEING OVER 10%.
* AS FOR UNEMPLOYMENT... (*SIGH*)... WHILE IT'S TRUE THAT U-3 IS "ONLY" 9.1%, U-6 - WHICH INCLUDES TOTAL UNEMPLOYED, PLUS ALL PERSONS MARGINALLY ATTACHED TO THE LABOR FOR, PLUS TOTAL EMPLOYED PART TIME FOR ECONOMIC REASONS - STANDS AT 15.8%. (AND EVEN THAT NUMBER DOESN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THOSE WHO HAVE SIMPLY "DROPPED OUT" - GIVEN UP - ON EVER GETTING A JOB AGAIN.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-navarro-trade-china-20110621,0,1648754.story
The American economy has been in trouble for more than a decade, and no amount of right-wing tax cuts or left-wing fiscal stimuli will solve the primary structural problem underpinning our slow growth and high unemployment. That problem is a massive, persistent trade deficit - most of it with China - that cuts the number of jobs created by nearly the number we need to keep America fully employed.
To understand why huge U.S. trade deficits represent the taproot of the nation's economic woes, it's crucial to understand that four factors drive our gross domestic product: consumption, business investment, government spending and net exports. This discussion focuses on net exports.
[I]f we want to get America back to work, we need to sharply reduce our trade deficit. As a statistical matter, that means sharply reducing our trade deficit with China.
Every business day, American consumers buy $1 billion more in Chinese exports than American manufacturers sell to China, and China alone accounts for about 70% of America's trade deficit in goods, excluding oil imports.
* OH, YEAH, FOLKS... DON'T FORGET OIL IMPORTS!
This "Chinese import dependence" has led a democratic America to owe the largest communist nation in the world more than $1 trillion, while China holds more than $3 trillion in foreign reserves, most of them in U.S. dollars.
* DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A GOOD THING... A POSITIVE STAT... TO ANYONE...?
To put these dollar reserves in perspective, that's more than enough money for China to buy a controlling interest in every major company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, including Alcoa, Caterpillar, Exxon Mobil and Wal-Mart, and still leave billions to spare.
(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
So how can we eliminate, or at least drastically reduce, our trade deficit with China?
For starters, we must puncture the myth that China's main manufacturing edge is solely its cheap labor. Indeed, while low labor costs are a factor, when you carefully research the biggest source of China's manufacturing advantage, it is actually a complex array of unfair trade practices, all of which are illegal under free-trade rules.
* HEAR! HEAR!
The most potent of China's "weapons of job destruction" are an elaborate web of export subsidies; the blatant piracy of America's technologies and trade secrets; the counterfeiting of valuable brand names like Nike and Chevy; a cleverly manipulated and grossly undervalued currency; and the forced transfer of the technology of any American company wishing to operate on Chinese soil or sell into the Chinese market.
* FOLKS... YOU DO UNDERSTAND I HOPE THAT AS I TYPE THIS BOEING... LOCKHEED MARTIN... NORTHROP GRUMMAN... AND EQUALLY ICONIC CUTTING EDGE AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPERS AND MANUFACTURERS ARE BEING FORCED TO TEACH CHINA HOW TO DO... WELL... HOW TO DO WHAT WE DO?
In addition, there is the Chinese Communist Party's incredibly shortsighted willingness to trade tremendous environmental damage and a surfeit of workplace deaths and injuries for a few more pennies of production cost advantage, all because of ultra-lax regulatory standards.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
Make no mistake. All of these real economic weapons have led to the shutdown of thousands of American factories and turned millions of American workers into collateral damage, all under the false flag of so-called free trade.
(*NOD*)
The second myth we must expose if we are to ever reverse the job-killing trade deficits we now run with China is the idea that free trade always benefits both countries. That doesn't hold true if one country cheats on the other. Instead, when a mercantilist China uses unfair trade practices to wage war on our manufacturing base, the American economy is the big loser.
(*NOD*)
Given America's structural problem with China and absent constructive trade reform, our economic prospects can only dim further. ... We need someone who can lead this country to a trade relationship with China founded on the American ideals of free and fair trade rather than a set of mercantilist and socialist trade policies that employ the Chinese masses at the expense of American workers.
* HEAR! HEAR!
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27364.html
Urban legends are things that we have all heard and thought to be true, but end up being false. For instance, we've all heard stories of poisoned Halloween candy, yet there have never been any documented cases of children poisoned by tampered candy.
The biggest urban legend in Washington is that the Bush-era tax cuts are the cause of our current $1.4 trillion deficit.
Indeed, we've all heard that the tax cuts were responsible for turning $5.6 trillion in projected surpluses into a sea of red ink.
But like the story of tampered Halloween candy, this story turns out to be false too.
Congress' official scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, recently released a review of the budget estimate they issued in January 2001 and the factors that turned their $5.6 trillion surplus projection into $6.2 trillion in cummulative deficits by 2011.
Higher spending turns out to be the largest factor erasing those surplus projections, comprising 44% of the ten-year swing.
Over the past ten years, spending was $5.2 trillion higher than what CBO projected it would be in 2001.
* AND, FOLKS... OF THOSE PAST TEN YEARS... DEMS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS FROM 2007-2010 WHEN THE SPENDING REALLY WENT THROUGH THE ROOF. (*SHRUG*) THAT IS A FACT.
Contributing roughly equally to the $11.8 trillion swing were economic and technical corrections (i.e. forecasting errors) and tax cuts, each accounting for 28% of the change.
* HOWEVER... REMEMBER WE'RE DEALING WITH STATIC ANALYSIS HERE - NOT DYNAMIC ANALYSIS. IN OTHER WORDS, THE RAW NUMBERS DON'T TAKE ACCOUNT OF THE STIMULATIVE EFFECT OF THE BUSH TAX CUTS WHICH LITERALLY SAVED THE ECONOMY AFTER 9/11.
The Bush-era tax cuts (2001, 2003, and 2004) comprise just 16%, or $1.8 trillion, of the overall swing from surpluses to deficits [including interest costs].
The other tax cuts, such as the 2008 and 2010 stimulus bills, contributed about 12% to the deficit swing.
* SO IN ENGLISH... OVER THE COURSE OF FOUR YEARS (2001, 2002, 2003, AND 2004) BUSH AND THE RINOs MUST BEAR RESPONSIBILITY FOR 16% OF THE 10 YEAR DEFICIT FIGURE, YET... OVER JUST THREE YEARS (2008, 2009, AND 2010) THE TAX POLICIES OF THE DEMS (FIRST CONTROLLING JUST CONGRESS, THEN CONTROLLING BOTH CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE) ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR 12%. (DO THE MATH, FOLKS; DEMS "GAVE AWAY" MORE TAX REVENUE PER YEAR THAN RINOs!)
* IN ANY CASE... (READ ON...)
If we look at how these factors have changed over the past ten years, it becomes obvious that the Bush-era tax cuts have been declining as a contributing factor to the swing to deficits. Indeed, the area chart below shows that in 2011, the Bush-era tax cuts account for only 6% of the current swing to deficits.
By contrast, higher spending accounts for 42% of the change, while economic and technical factors account for 28% of the change.
Urban myths are difficult to put to rest, but perhaps these CBO figures can help dispel the myth that the Bush-era tax cuts [caused] Washington's current fiscal mess.
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