If you establish a new baseline, and hold spending at that level (or close to it) you will eventually come out ahead of (that is, below) the old pre-baseline growth of 5%/year (or whatever the real number is). Has anyone done that analysis; what would the budget be if we’d just followed pre-2009 trends, and when would that line cross over the trend we’re on now?
As we know, GOP leaders met on January 20, 2009 and agreed to block Obama at each and every turn. Sabotaging the economy is just part of that. They could not possibly care less about any suffering caused.
It’s scarier to me if they do care. That would mean they really believe all their own rhetoric about Obama being evil (and even worse, a Socialist) and all the rest. The callous and the unfeeling can only cause so much harm before they run out of steam. It’s the zealots you have to watch out for.
I’m reluctant to use “treason” to describe opposing the President’s policies. The Republicans used it LIBERALLY when Bush was President, and it was obnoxious.
I totally agree that the current Republican Party is completely lacking in any moral principles. That they would deliberately harm the economy seems OBVIOUS to me after last years’ debt ceiling debacle. They HAVE deliberately harmed the economy. The term “stop at nothing” comes to mind. I will save treason for things like coups and military takeovers. Though I would argue that Republican attempts to cage votes and suppress votes borders on treason, as it is a deliberate attempt to subvert the democratic process. They just don’t happen to be using guns.
I’m still confused. The proposed budget for 2009 was a huge jump from 2008, right? But it didn’t include the stimulus, it was just increased spending for whatever reason. So this higher budget baseline really doesn’t have anything to do with the stimulus, it was something Bush’s budget started for FY 2009 and has continued since. So Obama, relatively speaking, hasn’t really added any spending to the baseline budget, but has continued the trend.
Or are you saying ignore the submitted budget and look at the actual spending? Are you saying that the baseline spending is x% above the budget and has been since Obama has been in charge and this is different from the previous president?
No, the 2009 budget was not a huge increase (relatively speaking). The 2009 budget was 3.1 trillion…an increase of 200 billion from 2008. This is about the same increase from 2007 to 2008. 3.5 trillion was actually spent. This included the Bush stimulus and bailouts and, as I understand it, the Obama stimulus. So, the Bush stimulus, TARP, Obama stimulus, etc. are all appropriations and should have been one-time spending to save the economy. 3.1 trillion is the 2009 budget minus all the one-time expenditures.
The problem is that we have been spending at the same level since then. All the one-time spending has not been removed from the budget baseline and we have continued spending as though all those one-time expenditures are just part of the yearly budget. So, yes, growth has slowed since 2009 but it should have actually decreased because we are not funding a stimulus, TARP, etc.
If the numbers you’re using reflect actual spending, not just the regular budget process, then we need to know whether the entire 2009 stimulus was spent in a single year. I can’t find any cites online, but I don’t think it was. You seem to be claiming that the stimulus is reflected in the 2009 numbers only, and that the regular budget climbed to match that from 2010 onward, representing a spending increase concealed (so to speak) by the new baseline of 2009.
Prove to me that that’s the case. The stimuli and bailouts were one-time events, but your argument is missing the data about how much was spent because of it in each succeeding year.
When the money is spent is meaningless. The entire stimulus was appropriated in FY2009 so, even if the money is not spent, the entire thing shows up as FY2009 spending. You can find this on page 2 of the act here (warning large PDF)
Here is the relevant point:
And it goes on to name each and every department that received funds.
According to a new Daily Kos/SEIU poll, nearly half of voters believe that Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jump start the economy to ensure that President Barack Obama is not re-elected.
49 percent of respondents to the poll say that Republicans are intentionally stalling the economy, compared to 40 percent who say they are not. 11 percent replied “not sure.” Among independents, 50 percent said that Republicans are stalling the recovery compared to 40 percent who said they are not, and 61 percent of self-described moderates said they are compared to just 40 percent who said they are not.
Although 41 percent of voters believe that last week’s jobs report was bad news for the president (compared to 40 percent who said that it will have no effect on him, and 14 percent who said it was good news,) they seem to be primarily blaming the Republican party for the mess. In addition to the numbers above, only 34 percent have a favorable opinion of the GOP, compared to 55 percent who view the party unfavorably. In comparison, 44 percent view the Democratic party favorably while 45 percent have an unfavorable opinion.
I posted this in the OP but in response to the previous post, I think it bears repeating:
I had the following exchange with someone who was dissatisfied with Obama:
Him: So if a car salesman talked me in to buying something that FAILED, what rationale would I have to buy something from him again?
Me: To make your analogy work, you have a car that failed because the guys who made the engine refused to listen to the car manufactuer and gave the car a crappy engine that always broke down.
You seem to think that it would be a much better outcome to have the people who made the engine now put in charge of the whole damn car.
If you were faced by the fact of an Antichrist, of Satan himself sitting in the oval office, then the rational choice would be to do anything and everything to eliminate him. The Achilles heel of any president is the economy, so you’d exploit that by any means necessary.
Current Republican rhetoric states that the Obama presidency and the Democratic party are unmitigated evil, a generational crisis, and an existential threat. Facing such a horror, would any sane person NOT torpedo the economy?
So, the only conclusions remaining are that they’re sabotaging the economy, or they’re vastly overstating how badly they think of Obama. Since they have systematically engaged in a pattern of action that most economists say is tantamount to fiscal suicide, and the hysterical hatred of Obama is an evident fact, I think they must be strategically trying to delay the economic recovery. Nothing else makes sense.
Harry Reid back in 2003. “The filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It’s part of the fabric of this institution we call the Senate.”
Purposeful Obstruction, whether it be for judicial appointment as when the above comment was made, or for political positioning has been a part of politics since… well since politics. Just because someone doesnt verbalize it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. This sort of rebuttal shows a glaring purposeful denial of reality.
Political wrangling of this sort is politics as usual.
Are you saying that congress has essentially passed a stimulus bill every year since 2009 that is not part of the budget? I don’t see where you are going from a stimulus in 2009 to it being a part of the baseline budget in 2010. Are you saying congress increased the discretional spending budgets budgets by an amount equal to the 2009 off-budget spending? How does that work?
There has not been a budget since 2009. The stimulus increased spending in a lot of government departments. The continuing resolutions we have had since then mainly just continue spending at the same rate.
This was just published today and I found it relevant to this thread:
Yes, the author doesn’t specifically state that the Republicans in Congress are sabotaging the economy to help avoid Obama winning a second term… Instead he says they’ve been sabotaging things all along, as well as other Republicans not in Congress. So there’s that…