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Here is another chart to the same effect, released this afternoon by the White House. It is a more comprehensive accounting of the forces that turned the large projected federal surplus as of 2001 into the large structural deficits that are dominating our politics as of 2011. Thus it attempts to explain a $12.7 trillion negative swing in public finance -- from the $2.3 trillion surplus forecast by Bill Clinton ten years ago, to the $10.4 trillion total debt Barack Obama encounters now.
Another Chart That Should Accompany All Debt-Ceiling Discussions - James Fallows - Politics - The Atlantic
Seeded on Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:40 AM EDT
Article Source: The Atlantic — News and analysis on politics, business, culture, technology, national, international, and food – TheAtlantic.com
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This chart explains clearly that before the disaster aka W. went to the WH, the US was in really good financial shape. It's time for all the Obama-haters to accept the facts and quit spreading lies.
- 2 votes
#1 - Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:45 AM EDTMost of the blame has to rest on Bush, no doubt about it. In fact, most of the expenses under the Obama Administration are directly related to the disasters the Bush Administration created.
- 2 votes
It is great that this chart and facts have been put together to show what is the major cause of our current debt mess.
Obama 1.4T vs Bush 7.0T
Pretty clear where the problem began. Also pretty clear why Obama has had to jettison nearly all of his proposed policy initiatives. Having to solve this Bush created debacle became job 1 just to keep the total collapse of our (and the world's) financial system from occurring.
Here's the thing though, this very informative graph will have zero effect on the people it needs to.
Imagine walking into the Guiana jungle to hand concrete proof to a true believer that Jim Jones was a fraud, a charlatan, and an insane megalomaniac. That true believer has given up everything. Everything they own. They've been taken by the hand into a strange place. Promised bliss and a life free of want. Their entire view of the world has been molded by their leader. They trust him implicitly. No recitation of fact can withstand the crafty words of their leader/God.
That is the situation many inside and out of congress on the right find themselves in today. Their leader is a twisted and decisive Right-wing media ginning up their fears. Their leader is also the GOP leaders who are more than willing to lie or shade the truth to keep their whelps scared about the every existence of their beloved country. Powerful stuff.
They CAN"T view this chart and learn from it. Otherwise their world will fall apart.
They are indeed, in a no-win situation. Sufficient is their dread, that I am afraid they will resort to violence to keep their house of cards from falling.
- 2 votes
Who's spreading lies. GW got us in the hole. Now Obama digs it deeper. That is the problem. Are, you so partisan as to not see this?
- 1 vote
Ed, Obama isn't digging a deeper hole, he's trying to minimize the damage from the already existing hole. Are you so partisan as to not see that? Facts don't lie, Ed and the CBO is widely regarded by both sides to be a reliable source of analysis, unlike the oft relied upon Heritage Foundation or Crossroads by the GOP.
- 2 votes
Ed-
Sometimes when you're handed a crises you have to have tools to help you get out of the crises. And just to be clear, the crises isn't the debt, it's the business slow-down and the resulting high unemployment rate. But for those things, the budget issues would be much more solvable.
Spending gov't money during an economic downturn i what is needed - an expansion of the economy. What Republican are proposing is a contraction of the economy. Did you ever think about where all those laid-off government workers are going to go if these Rep Governors get their way? They go straight ot the unemployment rolls, that's where.
Jobs are not created by companies, jobs are created via consumer demand. If people are working they buy things, creating demand. We simply must stop giving away our country's wealth only to have it end up on top of an already huge pile of money that sit there, moldering.
The largest segment of Bush's deficit creation is from the tax cuts. If that was such a good idea to stimulate the economy, where is the evidence that it accomplished that goal?
Much of this "crises will disappear once consumer demand and fair taxation of the rich resumes.
- 2 votes
trekie,
Thanks you for posting the chart; unfortunately some people prefer to be incited instead of informed. It is sad that my generation has allowed what my parents and their parent built to fall into the hands of so very few greedy people.
- 2 votes
#2 - Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:19 PM EDTI just love the "Obama is destroying the country" crowd.
No matter how hard you try and show them facts, they dismiss it as socialist propaganda.
I don't get how you can engage in a 2 front war, enhance your security apparatus, have bases in over 100 countries, AND simultaneously cut taxes. Eventually the bill comes due. If the Republicans were serious about debt and deficits, they'd be looking to cut our defense spending.
SS and Medicare's biggest issue is that since our unemployment rates have spiked, less people are paying into the system, while more people are reaching retirement age and drawing from the system. But to gut SS and Medicare would be irresponsible. They need to be put on a diet, not starved to death.
Tax rates need to go back to Clinton-era levels. Seeing as how Bush cut taxes under the guise of job creation, and the jobs weren't created, the whole project should be deemed a failure. If Reagan and GHB can raise taxes, why can't the current neocons?
- 2 votes
#3 - Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:22 PM EDTI think George Bush is rightly considered to be one of the fathers of our modern corporacracy. Not that he invented it, or was ever a policy maker for the Party... but he was the cog in the machine at the Presidency who formalized the American conversion from capitalism and independent government to a true representative corporacracy.
His bold act of coming out after he had lost the 2008 election and saying he needed (what was then) an absurd amount of money...on condition nobody know what he did with it... not only purchased large sectors of private industry for government...
.... but I believe it was the first really transparent deal between successive administrations since Nixon and Ford.
George and Obama planned it...and there is no question about it. They got together and George and Obama decided between them that George would get the first bail out... already hammered through Congress over weeks of back room deals and dealing.
Heck, Congress couldn't get the money to them fast enough. There was no resistance, no one played politics, no one said "hey wait a darn minnit..."
If there was ever a trend in American government that was bipartisan, and consistent over a century, it is the rise of the executive branch of government.
This 21st century has seen the Presidency and its attendant police agencies drop the last of their legislated limits with the Patriot Act and Citizens United.
And sure, George was there... but let's face it... the dude could hardly say "nuclear"....leave alone organize the fleecing of America.
This is Democrats and Republicans working together to represent their campaign contributors. This is corporate America buying representation in government according to their wealth and status in society.
It's a true representative corporacracy. ( "representative" means corporations don't rule directly, but must buy influence in government)
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#4 - Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:45 PM EDTThere are people on the Vine who have been saying what this chart shows and providing proof to back it up for two years.
This chart should be run on every news program for a month.
It won't be long before the Teapublican revisionists show up.
- 1 vote
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