# US Budget Deficit **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 2, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316 "2010-02-02T01:43:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/101 "2010-02-04T17:04:05Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > What is so hard for you to understand here? _Describing the economy_ is not the same as _advocating the President’s policies_. In fact, I opposed most things Bush did domestically. I certainly opposed his big spending, I opposed his first ‘stimulus’, I opposed his prescription drug entitlement, which was one of the signature pieces of legislation of his presidency. > > I also opposed Sarbanes-Oxley and most other regulatory proposals put forward by Bush. > > You guys are just blinded by partisanship. You can’t even correctly read what I wrote without imbuing it with all sorts of hidden motivations and assumptions of agreement with Bush that aren’t there. > > I wouldn’t have had much good to say about Bush’s economic policies at all if I weren’t routinely confronted by people making insane comments like how the economy of 2004 was a ‘disaster’ or that the 2001 recession was the worst since the Great Depression. These are just factually untrue statements, and need to be corrected when made. That doesn’t make me a Bush cheerleader - it just means I tried to fight ignorance when it presented itself. Like a whole bunch of other people, you were cheerleading – and starting threads trumpeting how well the Bush economy was doing puts you squarely in the “cheerleader” camp no matter how you try and spin it now – the biggest financial bubble in history. _Of course_ you’re going to get good economic numbers during a bubble. Look how much house prices went up by! But after the air comes out of the bubble things look rather different. The bottom line is that whether you thought there was a bubble or not, you were cheerleading a bunch of economic statistics that were entirely bubble-driven. And after having witnessed the spectacular failure of your deregulationist free market ideology, something you admit you’d have liked to have seen even more of, you’re now making hilarious claims that defending the actual numbers at the time, numbers which were entiely dependent on the pro-growth policies that you supported and which led to economic meltdown, somehow absolves you from having been spectacularly wrong. You were the one who was ignorant and the people claiming that the whole thing was bubble driven were right. Now you can answer the question : The things that made the economy from roughly 2004 to 2007 “good.” The artificially low interest rates, the reckless and unsustainable extension of credit, the tax cuts etc. Would you say now, with the benefit of hindsight and everything, that these were sensible economic policies? Something worth praising? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/102 "2010-02-04T18:28:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The fact is, the things that caused the recession were a matter of major debate, and your side wasn’t always on the right side of it. Paul Krugman heartily approved of the housing bubble, as did the Democrats in Congress. But that’s not even the debate here. The stuff you posted was generally my response to someone coming in and saying, “Aghh!!! This is the worst economy ever!” And I would patiently try to explain what a really bad economy actually looks like. The cites I found saying that he was for a housing bubble in fact quote him as saying in 2001 and 2002 that the Fed should lower interest rates to help jumpstart the economy, including the jumpstarting of the housing market. No doubt about that. But telling your kid to eat a ham sandwich does not mean you are telling him to swallow the entire pig. He did know what a disaster it was going to cause. [From 2005](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html) [And from Dec. 2007.](http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/71243/) If only Greenspan had listened instead of denying the problem. BTW, mind giving some cites showing there was a widespread claim the 2001 recession was the worst since the Great Depression? That the recovery was the slowest is something else entirely. I heard the 17% underemployment number just yesterday, in fact. It is no big secret. However, blaming it on Obama is a bit much, isn’t it? Bush pushed us off this cliff. Well, that is harsh. Bush did nothing while the deregulated mortgage companies and investment banks pushed us off the cliff. The best economic decision Bush made in 8 years was to not even pretend to give advice about the crisis at the end of his term. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/103 "2010-02-04T20:56:11Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Why do we even use these 10 year projections anyways? They are meaningless. In 1999, we were talking about retiring the entire public portion of the national debt by 2010. > > In 2004, Bush was talking about “cutting the deficit in half” by the time he left office. > > In 1993, Clinton’s budgets showed “deficits as far as the eye could see” and the budget was balanced 5 years later. > > In 1995, the GOP and the Dems wrangled over whether to have a 7 year plan to balance the budget or a 10 year plan. It ended up taking 3 years because of a blistering economy. > > I don’t know the answer, but it sure isn’t Obama. Right after talking about tightening spending, he gives social security recipients a $250 check because they didn’t get a cost of living increase this year. Well, they didn’t get a COL because the cost of living didn’t increase. > > Sure, he inherited a lot of the deficit, but he keeps adding to it. The only long-term answer is for the feds to go back to their constitutional role of a limited government. But nobody who won’t bring home the bacon can get elected, so it will never happen. The cost of living didn’t go up? Sure it did. But the indicators they used did not reflect that. Do you shop for groceries? Medicare supplementals merely doubled. Cost of living went up plenty. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/104 "2010-02-04T22:40:50Z")
By the way, as a post-script, I thought I should add that the four Democratic presidents who were not opposed in the house or senate were Carter, LBJ, Kennedy and FDR. As a result, the deficit figures included the Great Depression. While it is only fair to include all data, it is worth noting that if you exclude FDR, the average annual change in deficit for unopposed Democratic presidents was 911 million (compared again to the average change in all other circumstances, excluding FDR, of 8.0 billion). So, excluding FDR and the Great Depression, the annual increase in the deficit when Democrats control government is $7.1 billion lower. ---
**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 5, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/105 "2010-02-05T00:25:15Z")
This game of selectively quoting me from the past to show that I was a ‘cheerleader’ for Bush is getting a little surreal. But I decided what the hell, I’ll go back and see what kinds of negative things i said about him. We can start with [This Post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8368073&postcount=79): > [@Sam Stone](#): > > You want to get a conservative to dislike Bush? Show him that Bush isn’t much of a conservative. Dad’s probably not going to be receptive to arguments about the war, but he might be receptive to things like this: > > - Bush never vetoed a single bill until the stem cell bill. Despite Congress spending like drunken sailors and cranking out earmarks on an unprecedented scale. > > - Reagan wanted to kill the Department of Education. Bush increased its budget by 30% in his first four years. > > - Bush screwed the pooch on steel tariffs. > > - Bush is a TERRIBLE communicator. One of the reasons his opposition has run amok is because he’s done absolutely nothing to counter their ideas. Communicating ideas is an important part of the presidency. Bush is the worst communicator since Jimmy Carter. > > - The size of government overall has mushroomed since Bush took office. > > - Conservatives at the very least should be good, clear-headed administrators and managers. The Bush administration is populated with political hacks and friends who were owed favors, and are generally incompetent. > > - Harriet Miers. When a chance to help share the supreme court first came along, Bush’s instinct was to put a crony with an unknown record and no history of clear judicial thinking on the bench. It took a revolt of conservatives to get him to back down. > > - The war on terror has been run incompetently. If you supported the Iraq war, you probably did so with the belief that it would be a beachhead in the region. Bush invaded Iraq, then did his typical Bush thing and vanished from sight which it was mismanaged dreadfully until it became a full-bore crisis. Now he’s lost so much political capital and respect in the region that the U.S. has almost no bargaining power left. A total screw-up. > > - When deciding how to fight the war on terror at home, Bush immediately abandoned any semblence of conservative principle and created a gigantic new bureaucracy which has accomplished very little but spent huge dollars feathering its own nest and and ensuring that the U.S. will be saddled with a much bigger civil service for decades to come. > > - Immigration. I have no opinion on this, but most conservatives hate Bush’s stance on immigration. > > - On Bush’s watch, the Republicans went from being the party of Ronald Reagan, where their core beliefs remained small government, low taxes, strong defense, and economic freedom, and turned it into the party of the freaking 700 club. > > Unless your Dad is an evangelical, this stuff should bug him. I also notice that Hentor took part in that thread, of whcih my bush-bashing message was a fairly large part. I also notice that he saw fit not to include it as a counter-example, even though that thread comes up in the search he recommended. Pretty dishonest, Hentor. Then there’s [this post]([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6621740&postcount=21\](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6621740&postcount=21%5C)), where I make my opinion pretty clear: > [@Sam Stone](#): > > As for Bush ‘worship’, I pretty much agree with John Corrado. I detest a lot of Bush’s policies. His position on stem cells, his domestic spending, his infusion of religion where it doesn’t belong, and his cronyism. Don’t like it one bit. But if I were American and he could run for a third term, I’d probably vote for him again. Because for all his faults, the Democrats are worse. As long as the Democratic party keeps allying itself with organizations like MoveOn, ANSWER, and other fringe left groups, I can’t support them. And since there are already dozens of people on this board willing to declare Bush the personification of evil for the way he brushes his teeth, I feel no compulsion to join the chorus even when I think he’s really wrong. > > It’s too bad, really. If the Democrats would step up and present a credible alternative, they could gain a lot. Instead, they keep marginalizing themselves, which is what allows people like Bush to maintain control of the country. Far from being a ‘cheerleader’, I was a reluctant supporter of the lesser of two evils. Note that I said I ‘detest’ many of his policies. Not exactly sugar-coating it, am I? And gee, I notice that Hentor participated in that thread as well, and responded to that very message. Then there’s [This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10921094&postcount=52), in which I said: > [@Sam Stone](#): > > I couldn’t care less about Republicans. Don’t like most of them. I’m closer to libertarianism than I am to Republicanism. I can’t stand the social conservatives most of all, and there’s also the eastern Ivy-League Republicans of the Thad and Muffy stripe that give me heartburn. Nonetheless, I wind up having to defend them on this board because like it or not, they are pretty much the only people of any real political clout taking even remotely free market positions these days. I repeated in that same thread: “I’m no fan of Bush’s, but I wind up being the guy who has to defend him because of the constant distortions and historical revisionism that goes on around here.” Hentor was also a participant in that thread, and in fact responded to these messages. Funny he couldn’t remember them when choosing quotes of mine to ‘prove’ that I’m an unwavering Bush-lover. [Another post:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11307668&postcount=12) > [@Sam Stone](#): > > I don’t know what rock you guys live under, but conservatives had been attacking Bush throughout his presidency. There were howls of outrage at his steel tariffs, at his prescription drug benefit, the Harriet Miers nomination… He took a lot of heat from conservative Republicans throughout his presidency. The main reason they wound up sticking by him during the elections was simply because they found the Democrats to be wholly unpalatable. > > Had the Democrats put up a conservative, mainstream candidate like Sam Nunn in the 2004 election, he would have beaten Bush. Instead, they picked John Kerry, who was a lightning-rod of near-Palinseque proportions for conservatives, and shot themselves in the foot. More recently, we have [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11699766&postcount=17): > [@Sam Stone](#): > > The fact is, the Republican ‘brand’ is extremely damaged - so much so that even with Democrat’s approval ratings dropping like flies, the Republicans aren’t picking up any new support. Congress as a whole has an approval rating down in the 20’s. There’s a widely held belief that both parties are corrupt, beholden to special interests, and ruled by idiots. Then there’s [this post:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4810477&postcount=13) > [@Sam Stone](#): > > Of the things I don’t like about [Bush], by far the #1 would be his inability to control government spending on discretionary items. His decision on steel tariffs was abysmal. The farm subsidy bill. The highway bill is an outrage. He has yet to veto a spending bill. > > I don’t like his religious tendencies and how they affect science. His waffling on stem cells, and apparent ease with teaching creationism in school both bother me. There I go sugar coating my opinion on Bush again. I could go on. There are many similar examples. And what do you know, selective quoting now shows that I’m a rabid Bush hater! Now, do me a favor. **Hentor** , this isn’t the first time you’ve completely derailed a thread by changing the subject to a personal attack on me. I understand you have a major hard-on for me for some reason, but we’re not doing the other posters any favors by writing pages of personal attacks and rebuttals. So from now on, how about you just start a pit thread and link to it. I promise I’ll come along and play if you do. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/106 "2010-02-05T00:31:26Z")
Seems like you’re trying to counter “cheerleader for the Bush economy” with “sometimes I was critical of Bush on some subjects.” Not the first time you’ve ever moved a goal post, but probably one of the most desperate. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/107 "2010-02-05T00:50:44Z")
Not to agree with **Sam** or anything, but what interest this thread has for me doesn’t include discussing his personal failings, imaginary or otherwise. There’s a whole 'nother forum where that could be taking place. ---
**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 5, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/108 "2010-02-05T01:05:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The cites I found saying that he was for a housing bubble in fact quote him as saying in 2001 and 2002 that the Fed should lower interest rates to help jumpstart the economy, including the jumpstarting of the housing market. No doubt about that. But telling your kid to eat a ham sandwich does not mean you are telling him to swallow the entire pig. He said more than that. He said that his analysis of bubbles suggested that the reason popped bubbles lead to recessions is because governments are not fast enough to cut interest rates. He feeling was that a rapid cut in interest rates (beyond what Greenspan had done) would either re-inflate the bubble or cause another one to form, thus keeping the economy rolling along. He apparently wasn’t concerned about a prospect of a liquidity trap at all. > [@](#): > > BTW, mind giving some cites showing there was a widespread claim the 2001 recession was the worst since the Great Depression? That the recovery was the slowest is something else entirely. [The Great Depression of 2003](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=178252) In 2004, John Kerry said that the economy was the worst since Herbert Hoover, leading to [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=392996). Granted, most participants distanced themselves from that extreme characterization but then came up with lots of reason why the economy was still very bad. But now I have to issue a mea culpa on this one. My memory of what went on is probably too punctuated by the occasional rants of the more extreme members, because I just took the time to read through a number of those economics threads, and by and large the debates were pretty good, with plenty of valid points being made by the left, and plenty of people on both sides who were quite reasonable about their description of the economy. So I think I’ll retract this one. > [@](#): > > I heard the 17% underemployment number just yesterday, in fact. It is no big secret. However, blaming it on Obama is a bit much, isn’t it? Bush pushed us off this cliff. Well, that is harsh. Bush did nothing while the deregulated mortgage companies and investment banks pushed us off the cliff. The best economic decision Bush made in 8 years was to not even pretend to give advice about the crisis at the end of his term. Certainly Obama doesn’t deserve much blame for the crap sandwich he was handed - only that which resulted from his voting record as Senator. But in my opinion, almost every decision he’s made since being president has had a negative effect on the economy. But that’s another debate. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/109 "2010-02-05T05:31:28Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Actually, the only thing that has really worked is to put Republicans in the Legislative Branch and Democrats in the White House. Divided government, with the purse strings controlled by Republicans who oppose Democrat policies, is the only thing that’s ever caused the growth of government to slow down. Recent history has taught us that whenever either party gains control of all branches of government, the stops come out and the spending goes wild. > … > > There is an exception: Canada. We got our budget under control. We’ve been running surpluses for quite a long time, until the latest recession hit. So, did we solve our problem with major tax increases? Nope. We held the size of government to just slightly below the level of GDP growth, and slowly shrank it. Revenues stayed the same, so our deficits withered and became surpluses. We used the extra money to shore up our Social Security system, which is now actuarily sound. We then paid down our structural debt rather than spending the money on new programs. [QUOTE=Sam Stone] You guys like to use Canada as an example when it comes to health care - how about using us as an example for how to get your fiscal house in order? [/QUOTE] Gieven the structural differences between a parliamentary system and a congressional system, I doubt very much that the Canadian example would work in the U.S. Divided government, where one party controls the Congress and the other the Presidency, may work in some cases, but not where the two parties agree to pass each other’s spending proposals. In the U.S. there simply isn’t the equivalent to strict party discipline, coupled with exectutive control over spending proposals, which is a feature of the Canadian and other Westminster systems. I would argue that it is those structural differences which allowed the Canadian governments to cut spending, once there was the political will to do so (both at the level of the party in power, and at the voters’ level). ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/110 "2010-02-05T05:36:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You guys like to use Canada as an example when it comes to health care - how about using us as an example for how to get your fiscal house in order? I wouldn’t mind adopting Canada’s financial industry regulatory approach, since I believe that’s largely responsible for Canada not having to spend tons of money bailing out its financial system. ---
**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 5, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/111 "2010-02-05T06:50:07Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Gieven the structural differences between a parliamentary system and a congressional system, I doubt very much that the Canadian example would work in the U.S. Divided government, where one party controls the Congress and the other the Presidency, may work in some cases, but not where the two parties agree to pass each other’s spending proposals. > > In the U.S. there simply isn’t the equivalent to strict party discipline, coupled with exectutive control over spending proposals, which is a feature of the Canadian and other Westminster systems. I would argue that it is those structural differences which allowed the Canadian governments to cut spending, once there was the political will to do so (both at the level of the party in power, and at the voters’ level). All very valid points. I said much the same in another thread a while back, saying that we could do public health care because our governmental system allowed it to happen, whereas in the U.S. each attempt to implement large complex programs like this turns into a pork-laden, incoherent mess. It’s just the nature of the system. Too many free votes means too much bartering and too many opportunities for corruption. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/112 "2010-02-05T10:39:17Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > You spent the entirety of the 2000’s selling us on the Bush economy, which by any realistic account was the longest, flattest recovery ever, which created no jobs, and which turned out in the end to be a big shit sandwich. There was no Great Bush Economy. We know now that it was the equivalent of the man falling off a building, flapping his arms and believing he was flying. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/113 "2010-02-05T12:38:53Z")
Since all the hue and cry erupted over the projected deficit of $1.3 trillion for 2010, including from the OP, and since much of this is cast in the light of Obama being some kind of socialist running up deficit spending, I wanted to put some numbers on things. However, despite all the attention, I found it kind of hard to find a clear statement as to what the deficit was in 2009. Since 2009 is really the last year to be attributed to Bush, an evaluation of Obama in regards to the deficit depends on the relative change from 2009 to 2010. Anyone have a good figure for 2009? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/114 "2010-02-05T14:18:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Certainly Obama doesn’t deserve much blame for the crap sandwich he was handed - only that which resulted from his voting record as Senator. But in my opinion, almost every decision he’s made since being president has had a negative effect on the economy. But that’s another debate. Most economists agree that the stimulus was too small. I guess that is what you are referring to. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/115 "2010-02-05T15:01:00Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Most economists agree that the stimulus was too small. I question this. Here’s a [prominent economist](http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/01/bailouts-and-stimulus-plans.html) who disagrees. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/116 "2010-02-05T16:09:39Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > I question this. Here’s a [prominent economist](http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/01/bailouts-and-stimulus-plans.html) who disagrees. What part of “most” don’t you understand? I’m sure I could find a reasonable Republican, but that don’t make most Republicans reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/117 "2010-02-05T18:27:14Z")
So what’s your evidence that most economists agree with you? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/118 "2010-02-05T18:43:53Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > So what’s your evidence that most economists agree with you? From [here](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_01/022074.php): > [@](#): > > Among economists, however, we seem awfully close to complete unanimity that the Democrats’ recovery effort rescued the economy from collapse, created jobs, and generated economic growth that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Among the experts, this isn’t even worth debating anymore – it’s simply an obvious truth that the stimulus was effective. > > USA Today published an item today after surveying a panel of economists. > > President Obama’s stimulus package saved jobs – but the government still needs to do more to breathe life into the economy, according to USA TODAY’s quarterly survey of 50 economists. > > Unemployment would have hit 10.8% – higher than December’s 10% rate – without Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists’ median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs. > > Not surprisingly, the economists believe there should be more stimulus, not less, including increased spending on infrastructure. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/119 "2010-02-05T19:30:19Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He said more than that. He said that his analysis of bubbles suggested that the reason popped bubbles lead to recessions is because governments are not fast enough to cut interest rates. He feeling was that a rapid cut in interest rates (beyond what Greenspan had done) would either re-inflate the bubble or cause another one to form, thus keeping the economy rolling along. He apparently wasn’t concerned about a prospect of a liquidity trap at all. Got a cite? Not that I doubt you, but I’m curious about when he said it. Recently he has said that the Fed’s recent lowering of interest rates was the right thing to do, but then went beyond it to propose a stimulus when lowering the rate to near zero wasn’t good enough (just like in Japan.) Lowering interest rates to combat a recession is not exactly a radical proposal. Between then and now, he wrote many times of the need to slowly take the air out of the housing bubble, advice which was clearly not followed. > [@](#): > > [The Great Depression of 2003](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=178252) > > In 2004, John Kerry said that the economy was the worst since Herbert Hoover, leading to [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=392996). Granted, most participants distanced themselves from that extreme characterization but then came up with lots of reason why the economy was still very bad. > > But now I have to issue a mea culpa on this one. My memory of what went on is probably too punctuated by the occasional rants of the more extreme members, because I just took the time to read through a number of those economics threads, and by and large the debates were pretty good, with plenty of valid points being made by the left, and plenty of people on both sides who were quite reasonable about their description of the economy. So I think I’ll retract this one. Okay, we mostly didn’t say it. I’m clearly not going to be too worried about Kerry’s political statement mapping to reality. IIRC, job gains finally picked up in 2004, if compensation didn’t, so that the economy was bad (for the average person, not for CEOs and the market) is at least arguable. But thanks for the retraction. I don’t think getting into the health of the 2004 economy is too useful for anyone at this point. > [@](#): > > Certainly Obama doesn’t deserve much blame for the crap sandwich he was handed - only that which resulted from his voting record as Senator. But in my opinion, almost every decision he’s made since being president has had a negative effect on the economy. But that’s another debate. Most economists disagree, and we’d have to discuss whether the course he could have taken in the absence of Republican (and blue dog Dems, to be fair) would have been better. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316/120 "2010-02-05T19:38:11Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > I question this. Here’s a [prominent economist](http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/01/bailouts-and-stimulus-plans.html) who disagrees. Fama was interviewed in the recent New Yorker article on how U of C economists have reacted to the crisis, and he was clearly in deep denial. He came across as the economist version of Fred Hoyle. It happens, scientists are human too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-budget-deficit/527316.md?page=5)