Obama: Debt, deficits were 'baked into the cake'
Source: Politico
Obama: Debt, deficits were 'baked into the cake'
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"We signed two trillion dollars in spending cuts into law," Obama said. "Spending under my administration has grown more slowly than under any president in 60 years."
Obama said that the country's budget deficits and big debt were the result of the George W. Bush's two tax cuts, as well as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
"They baked all this stuff into the cake with those tax cuts... and the war," Obama said.
"It's like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, a martini and all that stuff, then just as you're sitting down they leave and accuse you of running up the tab," Obama said.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/06/obama-debt-deficits-were-baked-into-the-cake-125978.html
FirstLight
(13,364 posts)but he needs to say it louder to drown out all the BS on the airwaves... :/
lsewpershad
(2,620 posts)Like Bashir would say.
FirstLight
(13,364 posts)who?
I haven't had TV for a long time, sorry if this is a stupid question
elleng
(131,102 posts)ONE example, from Video&:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101734024
dkf
(37,305 posts)I can see extending them perhaps until we save Europe, but they all need to go and I've never heard him support an eventual lapse of the entire Bush cut. He needs to realize taxing the top 2% isnt going to cut it.
qazplm
(3,626 posts)will not be elected President. So if you want him to be pure and unemployed, then he should campaign against all of the tax cuts.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)Believe me I do not want to have to pay more taxes, but I will do it to keep this country solvent.
And no I am not in the top whatever percent. Maybe I am in the top half since I do pay taxes now.
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Half the debt we owe to ourselves (closer to 60%), kind of hard to go bankrupt that way. The debt ceiling is just a political tool the Republicans created to force policy.
dkf
(37,305 posts)Sirveri
(4,517 posts)It's like opening a savings account, and then spending the money from that account and saying that that puts you into debt.
It's great if you want to pay shell games with your accounts and claim that you're deep in debt when in reality you are hardly in debt at all.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)I don't know how I can make it any clearer.
Europe's crisis ultimately stems from a lack of available euro in their economy to pay down debts. You can blame this on whatever you choose, Germany's surplus, lazy Greeks, yadda, yadda.
The US doesn't have the legal authority to create euro.
Please don't reply with "IMF loans". More debt will not save Europe.
dkf
(37,305 posts)My point is that with the anxiety over Europe at distressing levels I can see postponing a tax increase til things stabilize.
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)Needs to engage in a round of quantitative easing. I have been saying that for at least a year now. The tools are available -- they just need the leadership to put it all in place.
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)See post 36
dkf
(37,305 posts)To me paying taxes means paying down debt. My worst nightmare is it gets so large it is unmanageable.
siligut
(12,272 posts)I know it is near impossible with the right-wing doing their best to blame him, but he can do it.
I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago with W's smiling face and the caption, "Miss me yet?".
Skittles
(153,193 posts)how about when they first realized the true wreckage left by the last misadministration? Before he decided we all had to LOOK FORWARD and NOT BACKWARDS? NOW it just looks like a pitiful cry for votes.
siligut
(12,272 posts)But they were always drowned out or over shadowed. Just a few weeks ago Mitt wanted to directly attack Obama on the economy but was told to back off as it would allow Obama to rebuke head on and make it clear whose mess he was cleaning up after.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)remember those ridiculous "tax refund" checks he sent out? It should be pointed out exactly what everyone ended up paying for THAT travesty
siligut
(12,272 posts)It was a nightmare people want to forget.
demwing
(16,916 posts)it's still the right message.
Would we rather he not say it at all, just because it's late in the game?
Skittles
(153,193 posts)THEY FUCKING DESTROYED THE ECONOMY
demwing
(16,916 posts)Skittles
(153,193 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)I can't, because I agree with you, mostly.
Tone. That's all...tone.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)Republicans lit the fuse for our downfall and took the rest the world with us.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)tanyev
(42,610 posts)bossy22
(3,547 posts)This is the time when we need government to spend. Stop listening to Alan Greenspan
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)I thought the Cons were so business saavy.
bossy22
(3,547 posts)and vice versa
it's strange that the repubs can't get this simple idea
lastlib
(23,286 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Cutting government payrolls, thinking that it'd score you points with the teabagger crowd, is stupid. It is stupid because a) facts don't matter to these assholes. You're still a "tax and spend socialist Kenyan". 2) the economy is suffering from is a lack of consumers - a liquidity trap. The more people you fire, the bigger the problem gets.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)I was at a party a few months ago and there was a full blow Teabagger there who used the term "Keynesian Economics" so I ask him if he knew what that was and he said defiantly it was "Some commie thing from Kenya".
I lost it at that point and couldn't stop laughing.
Skinner
(63,645 posts)Because you can't spell "Keynesian" without "Kenya".
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)Wilms
(26,795 posts)He meant to say Kenycia.
sendero
(28,552 posts).... all the Libertarian money sites yak on endlessly about Keynesians ruining the economy. If you point out that :
Alan Greenspan is a fucking libertarian and he used libertarian ideas to justify packing the economy with money in the early 2000s, a major contributing factor to our current economic malaise.
Keynes NEVER said deficit spending was to be used in all situations, it's only supposed to be used during downturns. When things are good you are supposed to replenish the Treasury. But REPUBLICANS like Reagan and BushShrub went FULL BORE KEYNESIAN during their administrations, running up huge debt to finance wars and tax cuts.
if you point these obvious and irrefutable facts out, you just get your post deleted.
And while I'm at it, almost as many people go around spouting the words Marxist and Socialist without having the slightest fucking clue what those words mean.
Face it, America is largely populated by idiot cows that believe whatever they hear on talk radio. I'm lost all sympathy for them and will enjoy vindictive pleasure when they get theirs.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Everyone has been talking forever about the baby boomers reaching retirement age so we know there's going to be a large percentage of people that are going to be supported by the government. This Teabagger was one of them.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Kolesar
(31,182 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)and assumed to have no attention span or memory of the past four years.
You will know them by their ACTIONS, not their words.
librechik
(30,676 posts)even when he supposedly had a super majority. Which included 12 dyed-in-the-wool Repub-voting Blue Dogs--and Lieberman. Yeah, why didn't he just fix everything? What is the matter with Obama???? It's obviously his fault!
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)From the people he chose to keep and hire for his administration, to the battles he chose and those he didn't, to the military policies he has backed and continues to back....All these things are recent history and current reality.
No Republican forced him keep on Geithner, or push for bank settlements, or propose and speak stirringly of austerity budgets while extending the Bush/Obama tax cuts. No Republican made him escalate the drone wars or expand the MIC into multiple new countries. No, Republican votes don't tell the whole story, and it is flatly inconsistent with reality to claim that they do.
You are entitled to your own opinions about this Presidency, and of course you can point out, rightly, that he is better than the alternative. But you are not entitled to rewrite history and claim that his many corporate choices were solely and wholly the result of being overwhelmed by Republicans.
We have been here watching the whole time, remember?
Have you seen this yet?: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002803945
librechik
(30,676 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Igel
(35,356 posts)The baseline was raised rather nicely during *'s last budget year when the budget allocations were finally approved.
That happened in months 5 and 6 (and also 7) of that budget year.
Very easy to forget that and misassign the "blame" (or credit) for those spending increases.
for your awesome sig line
harun
(11,348 posts)really wanted to get Congress to play along, they'd play.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)liberal N proud
(60,344 posts)RUMMYisFROSTED
(30,749 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)Better analogy? 3 Repubs trash a bar and walk out when Obama walks in and say "Put it on his tab"
I heard another joke about the banksters trashing a bar and walking out saying put it on their tab. Something like that.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)"and I think that I can't take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it,
and I'll never have that recipe again,
oh nooooooooooooo"*
Somehow it seems weirdly appropriate.
*song "MacArthur Park" by Jimmy Webb, first recorded by Richard Harris, 1968.
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)BlueIris
(29,135 posts)It won't change the fact that no one in government has managed to provide adequate solutions.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)He would have been all over them to stop it.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I thought Boosh** was trying to make the pie higher.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)"Let them eat cake."
high density
(13,397 posts)The GOP has been telling us for decades that lower taxes bring in more money. And the media has been repeating it for decades even though we have tons of firm proof now that this never is the case.
sofa king
(10,857 posts)wordpix
(18,652 posts)http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9662
It's absurd the O admin is even considering giving this loan. This comes on top of other news that we already spent at least $88 million to help out another private nuke corp, US Enrichment Corp, which wants $190 million more.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/science/earth/energy-department-steps-in-to-help-uranium-enrichment-company.html?_r=1&smid=tw-share
"The federal government will own the centrifuges and lease them back to USEC. The Energy Department said that arrangement did not amount to the renationalization of the uranium enrichment project because it could become the basis for a commercial business.
The USEC plant could enrich uranium for ordinary civilian-style fuel for Watts Bar 1, a reactor built by the Tennessee Valley Authority that generates electricity but is also used to produce tritium, the form of hydrogen used in the hydrogen bomb. snip
"The department is taking control of tons of uranium left over from USECs enrichment operations that is considered to be waste and is thus listed by the company as a liability. That will in effect add $88 million to the companys balance sheet, officials said. The aid was granted in anticipation of approval of the deal in Congress, where the nuclear weapons argument resonates. The administration hopes that lawmakers will grant its request for substantially more aid to the company, perhaps an additional $190 million or so, department officials said. snip
"But critics say that USEC, which started its life in 1998 with technology dating from the wartime Manhattan Project and has been working ever since to develop an alternate technology, is unlikely to come up with one that can compete with mature designs built by Urenco, a European consortium, and Areva of France. Urenco recently opened a centrifuge plant near Eunice, N.M.
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized the rescue plan. The real risks of this nuclear bailout is for taxpayers, who will be on the hook for questionable government handouts that are worth more than the entire company, he said.
USEC has been seeking a $2 billion loan guarantee to build a full-scale enrichment plant, but the Energy Department has said that it was not certain that the technology was ready." more
The "free" nuclear energy is NOT free AT ALL!