excerpt from the following article by Veronique de Rugy:
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/september/making-bush-look-like-a-piker
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http://www.american.com/archive/2009/september/making-bush-look-like-a-piker
Based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, the following chart shows a projection of deficit numbers for each year until fiscal 2018. Each color represents the difference between the projected deficits at different points in time. The purple bars represent the deficit numbers as they were projected back in September 2008; the black and red bars represent the difference between the projected deficits at other points in time. The black bars represent the growth in the projected deficit numbers between September 2008 and January 2009. The red bars represent the difference between the January 2009 projections and the new deficit numbers as projected in August 2009. Finally, the orange bars represent the actual deficit numbers during President Clinton’s last year in office (fiscal 2001) and President Bush’s two terms.
Here are a few interesting things about this data:
First, while President Obama is fond of promoting what he calls a "new ethic of responsibility"—in fact he named his first budget, for fiscal 2010, "A New Era of Responsibility"—that is a misrepresentation of his actual budget plan. For each of Obama’s years in office, the deficit is projected to be larger than any year during Bush’s terms.
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I'm not sure how you can measure how it was distributed or how it helped - I hope someone can do that - but my point is that while the deficit seen on its own is much larger than in the last, well, forever, that's not the whole story.
When unemployment goes up, and the stock market goes down, the government collects less taxes. When people lose their job, lots of people start receiving unemployment, and other government assistance, making costs go up.
There's also a lot of Obama's legislative agenda aimed at fixing the long-term budget picture, like repealing Bush's tax cuts, reforming health care, and cap and trade which can't reasonably be factored into a 2010 budget projection, since we don't know what the specifics are going to be until they pass.
A big part of why the deficit gets so high is a pretty straightforwardly natural thing during a recession.
... the government collects less taxes..
There's also a lot of Obama's legislative agenda aimed at fixing the long-term budget picture, like repealing Bush's tax cuts...
I must've missed something.
>> ^NetRunner:
A big part of why the deficit gets so high is a pretty straightforwardly natural thing during a recession.
... the government collects less taxes..
There's also a lot of Obama's legislative agenda aimed at fixing the long-term budget picture, like repealing Bush's tax cuts...
I must've missed something.
Obviously. The government collects less taxes because n% of a smaller base of taxable funds is less than n% of a larger base. So with the same tax rate, if the economy goes down, the government will collect less taxes. It doesn't mean they're TRYING to collect less, it just means they end up getting less. Whether they cut or raise taxes is a separate matter. C'mon man, this shouldn't need explaining.