# Obama will slash the budget deficit **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892 "2009-02-21T22:04:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/61 "2009-02-27T03:19:44Z")
Yesterday we weren’t riding a greased rail down into the worst recession in 70 years. If that doesn’t make any difference in your economic model, it’s a good thing no one takes your financial crackpottery seriously. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/62 "2009-02-27T16:01:21Z")
The government got the Swiss bankers to release names of people who have been hiding money from the taxman. They are going after evaders. How much is there I do not know, but can the Caimans be far behind? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/63 "2009-02-27T16:04:30Z")
[Archives Top and Latest News - mint](http://www.livemint.com/2009/02/23232923/Swiss-banking-and-beyond.html?h=B) Here’s the article. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/64 "2009-02-27T17:31:50Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > They’ve had their chance, and look where it got us. It turns out, fiscal conservatism strangles the economy. Tax cuts don’t create jobs, and deregulation encourages the private sector to rape the consumer. We won’t make that mistake again, at least until this generation is replaced by one who can’t remember the depths of our current economic spiral. First of all I said fiscal conservatives. I’m sure you realize we have not had many of those in Washington for some time. Also, do you have any real idea what caused this economic spiral? I’m guessing from your comments that you do not. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/65 "2009-02-27T17:54:26Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > T > I agree ten-year projections like that don’t amount to much, other than as a first draft of a road map to where he wants to take us. The nice thing about 10 year projections, is the numbers get big enough to register. We are about worn out hearing about trillion dollar stimulus bills, deficits, etc. If he came out and said he was going to save $200 billion a year, we’d just roll our eyes. Hell, we cut that amount out of the last stimulus bill alone! ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/66 "2009-02-28T06:35:38Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Yesterday we weren’t riding a greased rail down into the worst recession in 70 years. If that doesn’t make any difference in your economic model, it’s a good thing no one takes your financial crackpottery seriously. Crackpottery? Really? What, is the world now divided into true believers and ‘crackpots’? It’s not ‘crackpottery’ to think that when a recession is caused by too much debt, and answer probably doesn’t lie is thinking that there just wasn’t quite _enough_ debt. After all, Bush ran 400 billion dollar deficits, yet that didn’t seem to give the economy the old Keynesian kick in the pants, did it? It’s not crackpottery to think that Obama’s budget it full of fiscal legerdemain and outright distortions of the truth. It’s not financial crackpottery to believe that you cannot pay for a stimulus with a carbon tax. You’re then taking out as much as you put in, and all you’re doing is pushing money around and distorting the economy. It’s not crackpottery to note that You can’t do things like A) assume that current spending levels in Iraq wouldn’t have changed over 10 years without his intervention, then B) arbitrarily declaring that, since in fact the spending will be coming down, that this is a feature of the budget and not just a fact of reality. And then he completely glosses over the dramatically increasing cost of the war in Afghanistan and his promise to hire more soldiers and increase their pay and benefits as well. It’s not crackpottery to note the contradiction in claiming that the U.S. was in such dire need of an immediate stimulus passed with the normal congressional checks and balances, and then saying that the recession will end quickly enough that they can afford a major increase in taxes only two years from now. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892/67 "2009-03-02T04:21:00Z")
Repubs from Reagan to Bush kept saying deficits don’t matter. Now they do? Repubs got nothing to say after their fiscal mess. If Obama didn’t have to fix Bushs mess, he would have directly cut back the deficit. But since the world economy is teetering because of the mess he inherited, he has to try to fix that first. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-will-slash-the-budget-deficit/486892.md?page=3)