Political Ruminations

Fact Check: President Obama Increased Federal Spending at Historic Rate

The claim: Romney said it during the debate, and his campaign website loudly proclaims the whopper of a lie depicting President Obama as a Big Government Spender:

“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history.”

The facts: President Obama has achieved the lowest growth in federal spending in sixty years.

Bob Cesca on the facts:

With the end of fiscal year 2012, the Congressional Budget Office announced the 2012 federal budget deficit: $1.1 trillion. Taken purely at face value, this number is enormous. Yet every Democrat, and especially the Obama campaign, ought to be telling anyone who will listen: Not only has the president cut the deficit by $312 billion during his first term (so far), but he’s cut the deficit by $200 billion in the past year alone. And the CBO projected that the 2013 Obama budget, if enacted as is, would shrink the deficit to $977 billion — a four year total of nearly $500 billion in deficit reduction.

Cesca goes on to discuss the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act enacted by President Obama and a Democratic Congress in February 2010:

As I’ve documented before, the CBO reported in January, 2009 that the federal budget deficit for that fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2008, was already $1.2 trillion. President Obama’s additional ’09 spending added another $200 billion to the deficit, bringing the total to $1.412 trillion. Unprecedented and huge, but given the enormity of the financial crisis and the depth of the recession, there weren’t many other options on the table. Add two wars into the mix and there you go.

But nearly every bill signed by the president has included offsets to make the spending deficit neutral. Why? Because it’s been the law of the land ever since President Obama signed the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act in February, 2010, which mandates that new spending be offset with spending cuts or new revenue. Yes, a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress passed this legislation. Guess how many congressional Republicans voted for the law. Zero. Not one. Perhaps during this week’s debate, Vice President Biden could ask Rep. Paul Ryan who voted against the bill. Mitt Romney should also be asked about it.

Rating of claim? I agree with Cesca……”pants on fire times a thousand” , the president’s record is the actual opposite of Mitt Romney’s claim.

Full Video and Text Transcript: First Presidential Debate October 3, 2012 Denver, Colorado

Watch the video:

Full Text Transcript of the First Presidential Debate October 3, 2012:

JIM LEHRER: Good evening from the Magness Arena at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. I’m Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour, and I welcome you to the first of the 2012 presidential debates between President Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee.

This debate and the next three -- two presidential, one vice- presidential -- are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Tonight’s 90 minutes will be about domestic issues, and will follow a format designed by the commission. There will be six roughly 15-minute segments, with two-minute answers for the first question, then open discussion for the remainder of each segment.

Obama’s Second Term Agenda

“ It’s time for a new economic patriotism. ”

Watch:

Mitt Romney Embraces Paul Ryan's Radical Plan to Voucherize Medicare

Watch:

So, you heard Mitt Romney say: “for people 55 years of age and older, there’s no change.” You won’t like the translation.

Under the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare, if you are younger than age 55, let’s say 54, and Romney-Ryan are elected to office, you will see a Medicare that is completely different from the one that your parents and grandparents enjoyed. It will be a voucherized plan, entailing fewer benefits and much higher costs to the beneficiaries.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman on Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, emphasis mine:

In the first decade, the big things are (i) conversion of Medicaid into a block grant program, with much lower funding than projected under current law and (ii) sharp cuts in top tax rates and corporate taxes.

Is this a deficit-reduction program? Not on the face of it: it’s basically a tradeoff of reduced aid to the poor for reduced taxes on the rich, with the net effect of the specific proposals being to increase, not reduce, the deficit.

Paul Ryan is a Very Serious Deficit Hawk....or Not

The image is from Chris Hayes, and I think this pretty much puts the lie to the notion that Paul Ryan is a Very Serious Deficit Hawk.

As can be seen from his voting record, Paul Ryan was unconcerned about the deficit when voting for Bush era policies, and in fact, Ryan continued to vote for the extension of the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy even after Obama took office.

Morning Quote: Jose Canseco on Romney

Professional baseball player Jose Canseco on Mitt Romney’s idiotic remark about how President Obama hasn’t ‘fixed’ the deficit:

“ Romney. This joker comes in saying that Obama has done nothing: ‘He hasn't fixed the deficit.’ Let me tell you something. Do you actually fucking believe that in four years you're going to fix the deficit? Are you kidding me? That's a lifetime project. ... It's amazing the bullshit that people believe.”

It should be noted by anyone with half a brain that no president “fixes” or has ever “fixed” the deficit. It should also be noted that President Obama, unlike his predecessors in the Republican Party , has reduced the deficit that they ran up by $312 billion. Fact.

Another Right Wing Lie About Obamacare and the Deficit

An article in the Washington Post today promotes yet another right wing lie about Obamacare aka the Affordable Care Act, claiming that the ACA increases the deficit rather than reducing it:

President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative, long touted as a means to control costs, will actually add more than $340 billion to the nation’s budget woes over the next decade, according to a new study by a Republican member of the board that oversees Medicare financing.

Jonathan Chait proceeds to nail the Koch-funded author of the paper, Charles Blahous (all emphasis in this piece is mine):

That sounds pretty legit, right?

Actually, no. It’s not even remotely legit.

The first thing to understand here is that this is not a study by a government agency. It’s a paper by Charles Blahous. Who is Charles Blahous? He’s a Republican policy guy. By tradition, the president appoints a member of each party to serve as a trustee of Medicare and Social Security. Blahous, who served under George W. Bush and was active in his attempt to introduce private accounts into Social Security, is the Republican trustee. But the other trustee, Robert Reischauer, has zero to do with his paper. It was published by the Mercatus Center, a Koch-funded organization that produces some quality work as well as a fair amount of schlock that does not meet the standards of your typical university economics paper. This paper is an example of the latter.

The Affordable Care Act spends a bunch of money to cover people who are too poor or sick to afford their own health care. To pay for that, it raises some taxes and cuts a bunch of spending from Medicare. The new revenue and the spending cuts outweigh the cost of the new spending, which is why the Congressional Budget Office projected it to reduce the deficit. Projections always have a margin for error attached, but the CBO’s two year update actually bumped up the savings projections a bit.

According to Chait, Blahous obtained his measure of the bills’s cost  using a conceptual trick:

Morning Quote: President Obama on the Ryan Plan

Yesterday afternoon, President Obama gave a terrific speech at the Associated Press luncheon. Yes, he got in a few digs at Mitt Romney, but he had much more to say about Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget (a budget which Mitt Romney called “marvelous”- said that he wanted to see one just like that on his desk the first day of his presidency):

“This congressional Republican budget ... is something different altogether. It's a Trojan Horse... Disguised as deficit-reduction plan, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It's nothing but thinly-veiled Social Darwinism. It's antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who's willing to work for it -- a place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last - education and training; research and development -- it's a prescription for decline.”

MSNBC-First Read prior to the speech:

Senior administration officials are billing Obama’s address -- coming on the same day as another round of GOP primaries -- as an important speech, and they say it builds off his remarks in Kansas last December (when he invoked Teddy Roosevelt’s “square deal”) and his State of the Union in January (when he talked about an economy “built to last”).

You can read the full text transcript here.

RELATED POSTS:

Full Text Transcript & Video: President Obama Speech in Osawatomie, Kansas

 Full Video: President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address

 Full Text Transcript: 2012 State of the Union Address

Chart of the Day: Paul Ryan's Latest Federal Budget

You probably remember Rep. Ryan’s (R-)Path to Poverty. After all, it was only a few short months ago, back in mid-2011 that Ryan gained national attention with his plan to kill Medicare.

He’s baaack, and this time with another federal budget which will cause pain for everyone but the very wealthy. Ezra Klein on Ryan’s 2013 federal budget plan with the money quote first:

Here’s the basic outline of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget in one sentence: Ryan’s budget funds trillions of dollars in tax cuts, defense spending and deficit reduction by cutting deeply into health-care programs and income supports for the poor.

You see where Ezra said “Ryan’s budget funds trillions of dollars in tax cuts”? Of course you do. But here’s my point. The tax cuts will go disproportionately to the upper upper income brackets, same as all Republican tax cuts have done since Ronald Reagan took office. You know, that trickle down pile of crap.  And, it should be noted, unlike President Obama’s budget plan, Ryan’s plan provides no new revenue because he won’t increase taxes on the wealthy, and he is afraid of the political power of the middle class, so increasing middle class taxes is not going to happen under this plan. But lest you think “aha.....at least he left the middle class alone”, Ryan’s budget cuts, and cuts hard, aid to the poor, and the subsidies which many uninsured middle class Americans would have received to help pay for health care insurance. Ezra again:

Ryan prides himself on making tough choices. But where such choices need to be made for politically powerful constituencies — say, the tax breaks offered to the wealthy and the middle class, or the benefits offered to current seniors — Ryan punts. Changes for seniors don’t begin for a decade, the tax breaks Ryan will close to pay for his tax cuts go unnamed, and, of course, there are no tax increases at all. When such choices need to be made for programs that the poor depend on, however, Ryan is considerably more specific, and considerably more willing to inflict real budgetary pain on current beneficiaries.

And then there are Ryan’s spending cuts, which are massive, and come primarily from health care programs.

Gone would be the $1.5 trillion that the Affordable Care Act uses to subsidize health insurance for 30 million uninsured Americans.  Medicaid would be cut by a third ($770 million), and Medicare would see $200 billion in cuts. The chart  is from the CBO, via Ezra Klein, and provides a picture of how massive these cuts to health care programs would be.

Ryan’s next significant source of cuts is so-called “other mandatory.” Compared to the president’s budget, Ryan cuts $1.8 trillion from this category. Some of that might simply be an accounting difference: The president’s budget proposes to move infrastructure spending from the “discretionary” side of the budget to the “mandatory” side. Ryan might be moving that back, which isn’t, in and of itself, a spending cut. But beyond that, the main programs in “other mandatory” are low-income supports like refundable tax credits for the poor and food stamps. Ryan is cutting these quite substantially.

So, I urge you, before this budget comes to the floor for a vote, be sure to call your congressional representatives and direct them to vote “NO” as the only acceptable response to Paul Ryan’s 2013 federal budget!

Adding......in spite of deep cuts to programs that are vital to the health and well being of the American people, Paul Ryan saw fit to increase defense spending.

Image credit:  Joshua Roberts-Reuters

RELATED POSTS:

- Krugman on Paul Ryan’s 2013 Budget
- Republicans Love the Banksters

Chart of the Day

President Obama’s proposed budget will do some serious deficit a$$-kicking, according to the chart prepared by the CBO, as seen below.

Kevin Drum explains:

The light blue line is their "baseline projection" which assumes that all current laws stay in effect forever and the Bush tax cuts all expire at the end of the year. It shows the federal deficit nearly disappearing by 2017. The dashed line is their "alternative scenario," which assumes extensions of the Bush tax cuts and a few other things as well. It shows the federal deficit improving a bit, but then deteriorating to 6% of GDP by 2022.

The dark blue line is the Obama budget, and it's somewhere in between. But here's an important point that you can't see just from looking at the chart: Obama's budget reaches primary balance in 2018. This means that federal spending is in balance, and the only source of the deficit going forward is interest payments on the national debt. At that point, the debt-to-GDP ratio is stable. That's a big milestone.

Via Bob Cesca

Morning Quote: Rick Santorum

“On so many fronts, there could be no person in this country we could nominate who would be any worse on taking on Barack Obama on the most important issue of the day, ObamaCare, than Gov. Romney. And it's the equivalent of malpractice to nominate someone who gives away the most important issue in this race.”

According to Rick Santorum, the most important issue in this race is eliminating a health care policy [the Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare”] which insures the uninsured, and reduces the deficit, while eliminating roadblocks for those with pre-existing conditions. Far more important than the economy, according to GOP candidates.

No ecoli conservatism happening in this race.

Chart of the Day: GOP Deficit Hawk Fakery

Krugman’s chart illustrates what U.S. debt would look like under the plan of the Obama administration, as well as under the plans of the four remaining Republican presidential wannabes.

U.S. debt would be much higher under all of the Republican plans except Paul’s, and as Krugman pointed out, Paul’s plan includes “huge and probably impossible spending cuts”.

Deficit hawk fakery.........don’t catch it!

U.S. Debt, the Debt Ceiling and the Deficit

It is, on the virtual eve of a U.S. debt default (midnight of August 2), important to link all current and future discussions of the debt, and the debt ceiling, to the cause of our very large deficit. To the party and the administration responsible for that deficit. This chart says it all.

James Fallows:

It's based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who's "to blame" for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.

H/T  Bob Cesca

Quote of the Day

Andrew Sullivan on Majority Leader Harry Reid’s deficit reduction plan, and the likely Republican reaction to it, emphasis mine:

“Of course, Reid's proposal, in most known parts of the universe, is a conservative's dream: all spending cuts and no tax increases, with a combined savings of something like $2.2 trillion over the next decade. And so one faces an interesting dilemma: can the GOP declare victory if Reid's plan is the most viable? Or are they truly the foam-flecked fanatics they appear to be? Are they in this for substance or merely for destroying this president, whatever it takes? ”

I firmly believe that the Republican crazies in the House wouldn’t take this plan with a damn cherry on top. They are only about destroying this president. 

Adding….I also do not think that the Reid plan is intended to be anything more than a ruse.

Morning Quote: Speaker of the House John Boehner

After Republicans once again walked out on debt ceiling negotiations yesterday, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) ignores the polls and the press, and lies like the scourge that he is during his subsequent press conference:

“The American people will not tolerate a clean increase in the debt limit.”

Watch the video:

Adding........ Bob Cesca rightly points out  "Oh yes they will. We’ve tolerated it dozens of times — even all those times John Boehner voted for clean increases in the debt limit.".

Quote of the Day

Jonathan Cohn on the #debt ceiling talks:

“Does anything matter to Republicans more than protecting tax cuts for the very wealthy? Developments of the last 18 hours suggest very strongly that the answer is no.”

Via Krugman

Adding......I should have checked the date. Cohn made this remark on July 10, but I suppose it still holds true today.

Morning Quote

Michael Tomasky, on the GOP’s “maximalist” bent, shortly after Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) walked out of the Biden budget talks:

“Today’s GOP is about ideological maximalism on all fronts. Eric Cantor’s withdrawal from the Biden talks shows it again. They cannot negotiate, because negotiating means accepting something you don’t like, which the noise machine will not permit. And worse, because the noise machine wants Obama to fail and is so powerful, Republican office-holders inevitably arrive at that point too. Mitch McConnell in essence admitted Wednesday that Republicans were opposing Obama on Libya for partisan reasons. They can’t be quite so brazen about the economy, so they hide their political motives behind rhetoric about the deficit. It’s high time the Democrats started pulling back the curtain.”

We really need to begin shouting this from the rooftops. If the American public could see what we online see every single damn day, Republicans would never win a national election again.

VIDEO: President Obama on Cutting the Deficit and Creating Jobs

President Obama’s weekly address: Cutting the Deficit and Creating Jobs.

Watch:

FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT: Remarks of President Barack Obama

Growing the Economy

Former Reagan advisor, Bruce Bartlett, on what we need for long-term economic growth, emphasis mine:

The bottom line is that neither taxes nor spending by themselves are the most important government contribution to the investment climate; it’s the budget deficit. Consequently, a reduction in tax revenue which raises the deficit is unlikely to stimulate domestic investment because more money will have to be borrowed from abroad. Conversely, a tax increase dedicated to deficit reduction could well be stimulative, as was the case with the 1982 and 1993 tax increases. Contrary to Republican dogma, rapid growth followed on both occasions.

Long past time to raise taxes on the rich.

TRANSCRIPT-April 13: President Obama Speech on Fiscal Policy

Missed the speech? View the video here, and/or read the  fact sheet here.

---

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

The Country We Believe In

George Washington University

Washington, DC

April 13, 2011

Good afternoon. It’s great to be back at GW. I want you to know that one of the reasons I kept the government open was so I could be here today with all of you. I wanted to make sure you had one more excuse to skip class. You’re welcome.

VIDEO: Obama Speech on Fiscal Policy

A truly great speech. Read the transcript here, and/or the  fact sheet here.

Rachel Maddow: 81% of Americans Want to Raise Taxes on the Rich

Heh.

Watch:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Boehner Lies - Says Spending Cuts Will Lead to Jobs

In a tweet today, Boehner tried again to tie the House GOP’s draconian spending cuts to job creation.

Nothing could be further from the truth, because we know that the horrific cuts will lead to many jobs lost, and higher unemployment.

Adding……Boehner, the lying corporate tool, just tweeted another lie designed to prop up the one above. Bastard.

To help create a better environment for job growth, far more spending must be cut, & harmful DC regs stopped.

Also….shouldn’t he be doing some actual work?? Not to mention the fact that he would be far smarter just to shut the hell up. Sheesh……

320 Economists Tell GOP Morons That Spending Cuts Are Bad

You can read the statement from economists, and view the long list of economists/signers, here. The gist of it is this:

We recognize that resources are scarce and that fiscal responsibility demands that federal budget policies tackle the long-term budget deficit. But responsible governance demands that we neither damage the recovery today nor forsake America’s economic future by cutting critical investments.

The reality is that if we forced the corporate tax dodgers to pay their fair share, spending cuts would be unnecessary.

'Via Think Progress

Fake Deficit Hawks

Nothing new, but I've been angry at the bullshit right wing budget process over the past few days, and just have to point out that If Republicans really cared about the deficit, they'd be amenable to raising tax rates on the wealthy.

The fact that they adamantly refuse to raise rates on the wealthy is certainly a strong indication that they don't really give a damn about the deficit, OR U.S. debt.

Hell, if they cared, they would demand higher rates. Bastards.

Morning Quote: President Obama

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Obama lays a well deserved trap for Republicans during the State of the Union address:

Now, the final critical step in winning the future is to make sure we aren’t buried under a mountain of debt.

      We are living with a legacy of deficit spending that began almost a decade ago.  And in the wake of the financial crisis, some of that was necessary to keep credit flowing, save jobs, and put money in people’s pockets.

      But now that the worst of the recession is over, we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in.  That is not sustainable.  Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means.  They deserve a government that does the same.

      So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years.  (Applause.)  Now, this would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President.

      This freeze will require painful cuts.  Already, we’ve frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years.  I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs.  The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without.  (Applause.)

Of course, there will be no such spending freeze in spite of the fact that Republicans have ranted about spending for two years. Their bluff is called, and we already know what the hell they're made of.

Republicans Hold Expired Unemployment Benefits Hostage

Yesterday, Democrats introduced a proposal to extend unemployment benefits through 2011, at a cost of $56 million, without offsets. Republican, Scott Brown [R-MA] singlehandedly shut them down with a refusal to consider the proposal unless the cost is paid for. 2.5 million unemployed Americans are left with out needed aid just in time for the holidays.

After his objection, Brown offered his own proposal for a year-long extension as long as the Office of Management and Budget finds funds from already approved appropriations to pay for it. But Democrats turned down the plan because, as Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) noted, “we have to deal with the immediate crisis” and “the families that are struggling today.” This, of course, was the governing philosophy of both parties when they passed unemployment extension seven times under the Bush Administration. In fact, before yesterday, Congress went 40 years without allowing extended unemployment benefits to expire when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent. The unemployment rate today stands at 9.6 percent.

And yet, Scott Brown, along with his Republican cronies in Congress, want to give millionaires a gift by extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy at a cost of $830 billion with no offsets.

But, in a video released this morning, Brown defended his opposition, saying he “disagreed” that Congress should “pay for unemployment benefits” by “putting more debt on the credit card.” A curious position considering Brown is more than happy to slap the nation with a $830 billion bill in order to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent of wealthy Americans. In touting the GOP’s absurd logic, Brown and his GOP colleagues champion an extension that provides “virtually no economic stimulus,” while rebuking one that “contribute[s] powerfully to the economic growth that is vital for a healthy budget.”

Watch the faces of the unemployed.

This morning, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) called Brown’s vote against 60,000 Massachusetts workers “outrageous” and a “question of national character.” “We need Scott Brown to see and be worried about the people of the Commonwealth who are trying to get groceries on the table while they continue to look for work,” he said. But, according to his schedule, Brown is busy focusing on his Christmas-themed fundraisers this week.

Bastards.

Reagan Budget Director Blasts GOP Over Tax Cuts Fiscal Irresponsibility

The Republicans in Congress still have not backed down on extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of the wealthiest people in America.

Today on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, President Reagan’s former budget director and the architect of Reagan’s fiscal policy, David Stockman, took on the GOP over the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Stockman mercilessly battered them over their lack of fiscal responsibility. Stockman’s remarks as noted by Think Progress:

– We need “a higher tax burden on the upper income.”

– “After 1985, the Republican Party adopted the idea that tax cuts can solve the whole problem, and that therefore in the future, deficits didn’t matter and tax cuts would be the solution of first, second, and third resort.”

– The 2001 Bush tax cut “was totally not needed.”

– On claims that Reagan proved tax cuts lead to higher government revenues: “Reagan proved nothing of the kind and yet that became the mantra and it just led the Republican Party away from its traditional sound money, fiscal restraint.”

– Former Vice President Cheney “should have known better” than claim the Bush tax cuts would pay for themselves.

– “I’ll never forgive the Bush administration and Paulson for basically destroying the last vestige of fiscal responsibility that we had in the Republican Party. After that, I don’t know how we ever make the tough choices.”

 

RELATED POSTS:
~Quote of the Week: Fareed Zakaria on Republican Deficit Hawks and the Bush Tax Cuts
~3 Charts: Bush Era Tax Cuts for the Wealthy vs. Obama Tax Plan

8 False Tea Party-Republican Memes to Talk About Before You Go to the Polls

1. The Tea Party is a grass roots movement.

REALITY: The Tea Party is a rebranding effort by the Republican Party, led by the billionaire Koch Brothers and their organization, Americans for Prosperity. Read this report, and don't forget to look at this fabulous graphic, which is worth at least 10,000 words all by itself. The corporate takeover of our government is in process.

2. The stimulus was a failure.

REALITY: Not only was it not a failure, but a huge number of Republicans not only had their hands out to grab the money while the "failure" word came flying out of their mouths at regular intervals, 114 of them took credit for the same stimulus that they voted against. Additionally, the stimulus cost $787 billion, not $1.2 trillion, and created 3.3 million new jobs, and prevented an even deeper recession.

3. The President is a Muslim Kenyan Socialist who has never produced his birth certificate.

REALITY: The President is an American Christian centrist who produced his birth certificate for public display when this ridiculous meme first began during the 2008 election. Socialism requires a more left wing point of view, and this president is not even center left, much less far left.

4. Nowhere in the constitution does it state that there must be a separation between church and state.

REALITY: It is important to understand that this meme was not born out of ignorance, but out of a desire to intertwine religion and government, and thus the Far Right has re-interpreted the first two clauses in the First Amendment to be more to their liking. Constitutional scholars agree that these clauses denote the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Because our SCOTUS is Far Right, it is a dangerous meme.

5. The health care reform bill enacted by Democrats hurt Medicare and recipients of Medicare.

REALITY: Not only did it not harm the Medicare program, it actually strengthened it.

6. There is no difference between union funding of election ads and funding by secretive Super PACs.

REALITY: The difference between them is enormous. Union funding comes from the workers, the people who belong to the unions, and thus we know who is funding these ads. Secretive Super PACs, on the other hand, are funded by anyone, including in some cases foreign interests or multi-national companies, and no disclosure is required. There is also NO limit on donor contributions. Individuals funding union pacs are limited to specific, and low, dollar amounts, and there is disclosure.

These last two are from Dave Johnson, in his words.

7. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, and is "going broke".

REALITY: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8. President Obama tripled the deficit.
REALITY: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

Please re-blog this post, email it, and link to it. This stuff matters.

Links to Obama Administration / Democratic Party Accomplishments:

~ Rachel Maddow recounts what the Democrats accomplished in the past two years, and in the face of unrelenting opposition from the Republican Party. Maddow says that the Democrats, who controlled both Housees and the Presidency, were about policy, not politics.

~ Crowd-sourced on Twitter, a well sourced listing of the achievements of the Obama administration.

~ WTF has Obama done so far?.com

And finally, go VOTE!

8 Myths You Need to Know About Before You Go to the Polls to Vote

These myths are more prevalent than you might think, and because we are now down to the wire, it’s more important than ever to spread truthiness!

From Dave Johnson:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality:The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

Please help get this information out there! This stuff matters.

ht Bob Cesca

‘Pledge to America’ Budget Plan is Fiscally Irresponsible

I missed this report when it first came out, but in September, the Center for American Progress published their analysis of the GOP's ‘Pledge to American’ budget plan.

And it isn’t pretty [emphasis mine].

Republicans in Congress released “Pledge to America” today, a plan  they characterize as laying out a “new governing agenda.” Integral to that plan is a new commitment to “fiscal responsibility.” Our analysis, however, shows that implementing the plan’s proposals would increase the federal budget deficit and accelerate growth in federal debt.

The “Pledge to America” budget would mean $11.1 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. By 2020, the federal budget deficit would be 6.3 percent of gross domestic product, the federal debt would exceed 93 percent of GDP, and interest payments on the debt would be more than $1 trillion a year. The budget deficit would be about $200 billion larger in 2020 under the “Pledge to America” plan than it would be under President Barack Obama’s budget, and over the next 10 years deficits would be $1.5 trillion higher than under the president’s budget.

The substantial increase in deficits under the “Pledge to America” budget are due to the significant tax cuts that come from extending all expiring tax provisions and the implementation of several new tax cuts. Altogether, tax revenues under the “Pledge to America” plan would average 16.7 percent of GDP. During the last period the federal government ran balanced budgets revenues averaged 20 percent of GDP.

$11.1 trillion added to the deficit over the next 10 years, much of it added to the pockets of the already wealthy.

Be sure to read the full report. Download Pledge_to_america [pdf]

Lobbyists Heart John Boehner as GOP Plots House Takeover

Yesterday, The New York Times did a piece on the logistics of the care and feeding of House Minority Leader, John Boehner.

You know, that Republican, that guy that refuses to cast a yes vote to pay for health care for 9-11 heroes because of his fake deficit hawkishness, but demands that we extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The same guy who would become the Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency, should Republicans retake the House in November. That guy moron.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats were preparing late last year for the first floor vote on the financial regulatory overhaul when Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders summoned more than 100 industry lobbyists and conservative political activists to Capitol Hill for a private strategy session.

The bill’s passage in the House already seemed inevitable. But Mr. Boehner and his deputies told the Wall Street lobbyists and trade association leaders that by teaming up, they could still perhaps block its final passage or at least water it down.

“We need you to get out there and speak up against this,” Mr. Boehner said that December afternoon, according to three people familiar with his remarks, while also warning against cutting side deals with Democrats.

That sort of alliance — they won a few skirmishes, though they lost the war on the regulatory bill — is business as usual for Mr. Boehner, the House minority leader and would-be speaker if Republicans win the House in November. He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.

They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and waterfront bashes and are now leading fund-raising efforts for his Boehner for Speaker campaign, which is soliciting checks of up to $37,800 each, the maximum allowed.

Meanwhile, the GOP is already secretly plotting their moves for  "when" Boehner becomes the Speaker.

House Republicans have held a series of private discussions to plot their first moves if they win the majority in November — with plans to use spending bills and subpoenas to rein in President Barack Obama and satiate their own ravenous base.

Republicans recognize they won’t be able to do any broad governing even if they take back the House; they’d hold just one chamber of Congress, or at most one branch of government, if they also win the Senate. So officials familiar with the early discussions say they’ve centered on undoing key parts of the Obama agenda and repositioning Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility heading into 2012 — a mantle the GOP surrendered during the big-spending George W. Bush years.

The plans presently under discussion include defunding some parts of the new health care law and delaying implementation of others, withholding some of the unspent stimulus funds and using the oversight power of Republican-led committees to investigate the Obama administration.

“The goal, obviously, would be to make it a one-term presidency,” said a GOP lobbyist briefed on the talks.

I will be at the polls in November to vote. We can’t afford to let Republicans govern. Hell no.

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RELATED POSTS:

~ John Boehner is a Moron Whose Economic Plan Would Devastate the U.S. Economy

~ John Boehner is an Idiot

~ John Boehner wants to repeal the financial reform bill

Video: Obama Rebuts John Boehner's "Economic Plan"

During Obama's speech in Parma, Ohio today, he made it a point to rebut the remarks John Boehner  made to an Ohio audience a couple of weeks ago. Via Jon Cohn, Obama:

A few weeks ago, the Republican leader of the House came here to Cleveland and offered his party’s answer to our economic challenges.  Now, it would be one thing if he admitted his party’s mistakes during the eight years they were in power, and was offering a credible new approach to solving our country’s problems.
 
But that’s not what happened.  There were no new policies from Mr. Boehner.  There were no new ideas.  There was just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade – the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place:  cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.  Instead of coming together like past generations did to build a better country for our children and grandchildren, their argument is that we should let insurance companies go back to denying care to folks who are sick, and let credit card companies go back to raising rates without any reason.  Instead of setting our sights higher, they’re asking us to settle for a status quo of stagnant growth, eroding competitiveness, and a shrinking middle class.

Let's hope that this means the end of bipartisanship for a while.

ht Bob Cesca

John Boehner is a Moron Whose Economic Plan Would Devastate the U.S. Economy

Boehner, Fake Deficit Hawk that he is, would add approximately $3.7 trillion to our deficit over the next ten years if his economic proposals were followed.

Yes indeed, House Minority Leader, John Boehner, aka Orange Man, is one of the biggest and dumbest of the fake deficit hawks, and my opinion of this dunce was once again borne out when he gave an economic address in Ohio this week. Via Huffington Post:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was short on specifics during his much-touted economic address in Cleveland this week, promising to offer a more detailed plan as the election approached.

But the Ohio Republican did outline some ideas about how President Obama could restructure both his White House staff and the economy. And in a subsequent report analyzing his suggestions -- which included the firing of top economic advisers -- the progressive think tank NDN estimates that the plans could exacerbate the deficit by roughly $3.7 trillion over the next ten years.

NDN is, obviously, not an un-biased source in the debate. But they base much of their data on non-partisan indicators. Boehner's suggestions stand little chance of becoming law. They were offered, primarily, as a counterpoint to the agenda that the president is pushing. But NDN's President and Founder Simon Rosenberg makes the case that in a year when deficit reduction is a cause celebre, Democrats would be well served, simply, by highlighting the numbers.

You can read the full report of Boehner’s plan to increase the deficit by $3.7 trillion on Huffington Post.

Fareed Zakaria on the extension of the Bush tax cuts:

Most conservatives have been very concerned about America's sky high deficits. They believe they are a dire and urgent threat to the country's future. So when an opportunity presents itself to cut that deficit massively in one fell swoop you'd think they would jump at the chance, right? But they haven't.

You see, George Bush's massive tax cuts are the single largest chunk of our structural budget deficit.

Take a look at this chart. It shows the deficit growth over the next ten years, and the red stripe shows just how much those Bush tax cuts add to the deficit. Well, those tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year. Were the tax cuts to expire, the budget deficit would instantly shrink, by about 30% or more than $300 billion dollars.

But Republicans are now adamantly opposed to any expiration of the Bush tax cuts, because, they say, that would weaken the economy. But wait a minute. They have been arguing for the last year that what's weakening the economy most is the prospect of unending budget deficits.

Paul Krugman on the extension of the Bush tax cuts:

We need to pinch pennies these days. Don’t you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.

But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.

What — you haven’t heard about this proposal? Actually, you have: I’m talking about demands that we make all of the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the middle class, permanent.

Some background: Back in 2001, when the first set of Bush tax cuts was rammed through Congress……

The related charts are telling. And Boehner’s plan to increase our deficit by $3.7 trillion is nothing more than a hideous joke which could become a fact of life if Republicans regain control of Congress in November.

Republicans Want to Give $100K to Every Millionaire!

A millionaire bailout.

A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year -- and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation's millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday.

New data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation show that households earning more than $1 million a year would reap nearly $31 billion in tax breaks under the GOP plan in 2011, for an average tax cut per household of about $100,000.

F**k the Republican Party!

Via Bob Cesca

Jon Stewart Takes on the Hypocrisy of Republicans re the Deficit and the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich

The utter and complete hypocrisy of Republicans regarding the deficit and the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is simply put, astonishing. Jon Stewart dissects their stance using their own words, and with his inimitable brand of humor.

The deficit wants to skullf**k your mother. It wants to eat your children, after it shows your wife a level of physical passion you've never been able to provide. 

Via Huffington Post

Related Posts:

• 3 Charts: Bush Era Tax Cuts for the Wealthy vs. Obama Tax Plan
• Quote of the Week: Fareed Zakaria on Republican Deficit Hawks and the Bush Tax Cuts
• Stehphen Colbert: Quick, Rich People, to Your Tax Shelters!

Conservadem Deficit Chicken Hawks Vote to Extend Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich

Predictably, the two most conservative Conservadems, Lincoln, and Nelson, voted to extend the Bush tax cuts along with the Republicans. Via Think Progress:

Last month, as the Senate was gridlocked by a Republican filibuster of a bill to extend much-needed unemployment benefits to millions of out-of-work Americans, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) stood with the GOP against the extension. Nelson claimed that his concerns about the deficit overrode his support for the extension; he voted against the bill that finally passed 60-40.

Later that week, Nelson came out in support of an extension — “for now” — of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which adds many billions more to the deficit than the unemployment insurance extension. In fact, extending the Bush tax cuts for one year alone would add $115 billion to the deficit, compared to the “relatively tiny budgetary cost of $33 billion” for the extension of UI benefits.

Today, though, Ben Nelson provided further evidence that he is a deficit peacock — someone who claims to be concerned about the deficit but isn’t actually interested in taking serious steps toward a balanced budget. Before the final vote on the states’ aid bill that passed today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered two amendments that would, in effect, permanently extend the Bush tax cuts. David Dayen has the results:

ht Bob Cesca

Krugman to Obama: “Hey, Small Spender”

Krugman refutes the right wing mantra that goes “Obama is a big spender”.

One of the things everyone knows right now is that Obama has presided over a huge increase in government spending. But like so many of the things everyone knows, it isn’t true.

Bob Cesca:

Spending as a percentage of GDP is around 19 percent. It's midrange. Spending peaked in 1987, during the Reagan presidency, at around 21.5 percent.

Now can we pass more stimulus and create more damn jobs?! Of course, before that happens, Congress needs to unf-ck itself and realize that deficit reduction is really stupid (at this point).

More stimulus, please, Mr. President.

SUCK IT, Republicans!

Stehphen Colbert: Quick, Rich People, to Your Tax Shelters!

Colbert mocks the fake deficit hawks also known as Republicans and Conservadems, regarding their completely disingenuous hand-wringing over the impending expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy.

Hillarious! Colbert:

Quick, rich people, to your tax shelters!

ht Bob Cesca

Related Posts:
3 Charts: Bush Era Tax Cuts for the Wealthy vs. Obama Tax Plan
John Boehner is an Idiot

Quote of the Day: Bob Cesca Talks Deficit Growth

Emphasis mine.

Fact: one way or another, whether the Democrats control Congress or whether it's the Republicans, the deficit will grow in the near term. Do we grow the deficit with stimulus that creates jobs and grows the economy? Or do we grow the deficit with $678 billion in tax cuts to the top two percent that does next-to-NOTHING to create jobs or stimulate the economy? ~ Bob Cesca