Losing the most recent one is a better predictor of the next one, isn’t it? Oh no, wait, it’s you …
You have it right from **adaher **himself, folks. 
Stop confusing the poor guy with the facts, willya? 
Three of the last four, actually.
Although soon it will be two wins in the last five. But the sweet thing about our system is that you don’t have to win if your goal is just to stop the federal government from growing.
Unless you want intelligent stewardship of the most powerful country in the world. Screaming “no” isn’t exactly inspired policy.
Yet strangely, our system was built with tons of veto points. The founders envisioned “no” as the default position unless there was broad consensus that something needed to be changed.
That’s because when the government says “yes”, it usually means you’re losing some of your liberty.
The President has delayed so much of the law that the CBO can’t even score it anymore:
In April, the agency quietly signaled that it can no longer make that projection; that the law had been changed and delayed so much that there is no longer a credible way to estimate the long-term effects on the deficit of all elements of the program taken together.
In a little noticed footnote to a report updating estimates of the effects of the insurance coverage provisions of the law, the agency headed by Douglas Elmendorf acknowledged that neither CBO nor the Joint Committee on Taxation could determine precisely how scores of provisions other than the insurance coverage would impact long term government spending.
Well,now, aren’t you in an awkward spot, bitching about delaying something you oppose in the first place. Kinda like Woody Allen’s joke about two elderly Jewish ladies complaining about a Catskills resort hotel, one complains that the food isn’t good, the other complains that the portions are too small as well.
Nonsense. Yet another promise falling by the wayside. A lot of us predicted that the funding mechanisms would not come through due to lack of political will.
“Lack of political will”? Would that be anything like the guys rolling around on the floor, screaming at the top of their lungs and tearing their hair out in clumps? If so, definitely, there is a “lack of political will”.
More like the President postponing the pain, always until after the next election. Now we also find out that the vast majority of people without health insurance will not be subject to the mandate because of all the exemptions.
That was also part of the funding for the health care law. Looks like the public was right again. Most voters thought the bill would increase the deficit. Liberal analysts like Ezra Klein and Jonathon Cohn assured us that was false. They were wrong.
Most people think Republicans are in favor of reducing the deficit. Looks like they were wrong.
Yet the deficit goes down, primarily because the Republicans always give the President $200 billion less than he asks for in his budget.
And if the law does get scored by the CBO in the near future as increasing the deficit, the repeal position will be the more fiscally responsible position.
Cite? Fear Itself provided a cite, and fair is fair.
Requested by the President: 3.8 trillion
President got: 3.6 trillion
Requested: 3.7 trillion
Received: 3.5 trillion
Requested: 3.8 trillion
Received: 3.45 trillion
What’s so striking is that the President wants to increase spending every year, yet spending is going down. It’s as if he’s living in a different reality, where his previous budget requests were granted so he’s just calling for the next 3% increase. No, the baseline is $3.45 trillion now, and he needs to go off that spending level.
Wiki cites - nice! But you’re telling only part of the story. There’s the question of revenue. In 2011 Congress cut the President’s $2.567T revenue request to $2.303T. If they had left the revenue proposal alone the deficit that year would have been $1.036T instead of $1.300T. The revenue cuts of $0.264T more than offset the spending cuts of $0.231T. In 2012 and 2013 the revenue cuts were less than the spending cuts, but 2013 was the year with the fiscal cliff - not exactly a normal or rational process.
You also did not mention 2010: Revenues were cut $0.218T but expenditures were only cut $0.096T, leaving a deficit of $1.293T that would have been $1.171 under the proposed budget, and could have been $1.075T had only the spending cuts happened.
So in 2 of the 4 years Congress cut revenue more than they cut spending, increasing the deficit over the proposed one. In the other two years they cut spending, but still cut revenue allowing the deficit to grow more than it could have. Not exactly the behavior of people for whom the deficit if the highest priority.
That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that the deficit was lower than what the President requested, and it could very well be because the President didn’t get the taxes he wanted.
That’s not how this works. You see, if you’ve got a hole in the ground, and you take another shovelful of dirt out, the hole gets bigger. Put a shovelful of dirt back in, hole gets smaller. Let us know if you have any trouble with this, we’re here to help.
Which is why we’ve been cutting spending. It’s working pretty well so far. Let’s see if we can get down to $3.3 trillion this year.
Cutting the budget spend doesn’t do any good deficit/debt-wise when you cut revenue as fast or faster than you cut spending. Is that really so hard to understand?
Would you be happy if the President submitted a budget to Congress for $1T, but with revenue of $0? How or why is that better or worse than a budget of $4T with revenue of $3T?
Revenue is rising. Spending is falling. Which means the deficit is falling.