I’ll be happy if it turns out that Obama both appreciates and acts upon our obvious need to bring spending in line with revenue collected. But what we have here is, let’ s face it, no moe than a nod of the head to an abstract principle. That’s admirable as far as it goes, bit it’s also easy, costs nothing, and does not by itself reequire making hard decisions about what we the people can and cannot afford in the way of gov’t services.

We’ll have no idea whether there is any substance behind this head nod until we see how big the next budget is, and whether congress and Obama seek to understake a 2010 stimlus package when the economy is still struggling a year a from now.

On that count, one thing to notice is that if the gov’t reports a bigger annual deficit, then a stimulus package doesn’t appear to be adding as much to the deficit. Under the reporting we have seen, the 800 billion stimulus package added about 60% to the existing 1.3 trillion deficit, IIRC, and I may not. But if you report the deficit at 5 trillion, then an 800 billion stimulus is “only” a 16% increase in the annual deficit.

The bottom line, said an administration official Saturday, is to halve the federal deficit to $533 billion by the time his first term ends in 2013. He inherited a deficit of about $1.3 trillion from former President George W. Bush.

Apparently, Obama will continue to refer to the budget defecit in a similar fashion to the Bush administration. He may include Iraq war appropriations in the accounting, but not the extra 3 trillion in spending from the massive Stimulus packgage, TARP, the mortgage bailout, the auto industry bailout, or TARP II which will come out soon.

Our “system” is modeled after the principle of individual liberty, and what you propose is incompatible with that principle.

What do health care and college have to do with individual liberty? You see, in America all the people have the freedom to pursue happiness. It’s up to the individual. When government makes one group of people responsible for the happiness of another group through the use of force, that’s bondage.

The people of Denmark may be bliss and blinded by ignorance and are not truly happy. There is a difference.

I’m all right with a voluntary socialistic system in America. If a person wants to turn over all the fruits of their labor to the government to be redistributed “fairly”, I think a person has the freedom to do that. I’m opposed to a mandatory one, and so are our founding principles and our Constitutions that are based on those principles.

Besides, as God tells us through the Bible, we are to put our faith in Jesus Christ, not other men grouped together in this thing we call government. Only there will a person find truth and happiness.

Using GAAP, the US government’s deficit in 2008 was $5.1 trillion. See http://www.shadowstats.com/article/401 for details. (This isn’t my website, but it appears to provide a professional accounting. It includes much more than the deficit — honest figures for US GDP, inflation, unemployment, etc.)

BTW, the $5.1 trillion deficit amount is from 2008, so it does not include the so-called stimulus package that just became law.

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Obama may be a good guy, but he’s still a politician.

Which of you out there has a Ph.D. in economics *and* access to all the requisite data to prove it either way?

Every year the US government accrues hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded future liabilities, in much the same way as GM and co accrue huge liabilities in their pension plans (and for other things like employee leave entitlements).

The difference is that GM and co are required to account for the accruals.

If governments – and here I include ALL western governments – were listed companies, every single one of them would be in Ch11 and their management would be in jail.

It’s not this or that president, or this or that Congressional majority… it is the fact that politicians are parasites who are never satisfied with the blood they extract… they need to borrow more blood.

To the poster who cited the tax take – add in the imputed future tax obligations to fund unfunded liabilities and concurrent public sector deficits, and you’re at 50% immediately: a deficit is a future increase in tax liability.

Trying to ‘revive’ an economy by stealing money from future taxpayers instead of current ones, is like trying to build a cathedral out of marbles… time consuming, and not obviously a sensible thing to do.

Cheerio

GT
GT’s Market Rant.

You said Inre to gw; ” I can’t believe the libs aren’t in love with him.” And ” What a spender, funny how they were always saying he was cutting everything”

gw mostly spent on things that were DESTRUCTIVE, like 2 WARS. He was a destroyer, not a builder. That type of spending is abhorrent to libs. The few good things he did spend on were for AIDS and Malaria, but that was in AFRICA, not the U.S. Big help, dubya.

As far as healthcare; what is your solution? Leave things the way they are? Maybe you’re young and don’t need any medical, dental or mental healthcare right now, but once you are a little older…

And, if you have kids, SOME healthcare will ALWAYS be needed, included the children’s births. If you are wealthy, sure, healthcare is not a problem for you, but hear this; my family consists of my wife, my 16 year old son and myself, and our medications cost
about $2000.00 per month. With my insurance (I’m now on COBRA since I was laid-off in Oct ’08) I pay $1260.00 for the COBRA coverage and about $250.00 for our deductables and approx $60-$80.00 per months on doctors office visits, so I’m really not getting much of a break. I used to spend about $600.00 a month total on healthcare costs when I was employed and my employer picked up the rest. Now I’m unemployed and even tho I can’t really afford it, I’m paying more than double. How is this a good thing? Shouldn’t a nations health come FIRST and NOT LAST? And the cost of phamacuticals?! Good lord!!! But then again, maybe you are a pharmacutical company rep, and LOVE high med prices.

I’ll leave you with one last thought; In Denmark citizens pay about 50% of their wages in tax, but their healthcare is excellent, their country’s economy is healthy, everyone goes to college, and they are (literally) the worlds happiest people. By contrast, in the U.S. we end up paying about 38-40% of our wages in taxes anyway when you add it all up including federal, state, local, property, sales tax, etc, which DOESN’T include ANY healthcare, so a mere visit to the ER or OR, or ANY serious or semi-serious injury or illness can BREAK YOU. Is that a good system? I think Denmark is a paradigm that the U.S. ought to (hell, MUST) look into.