So, President Barack "I'll cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" Obama turned in a budget that puts yet another $1.3 trillion bucks on the national tab.
But that's okay! He's shaving money here and there! For instance, by some accounts, NASA will be having to tighten its belt by $100 million dollars...
Since those of us who are not astrophysicists getting payroll freezes are unaccustomed to dealing with such huge numbers, let's trim some of that vapor trail of zeroes and get the numbers down to the kind we're used to: This is like running your household debt up by $1,300 at Best Buy and then explaining to your significant other that it was okay, because you'd refrained from putting a dime in a gumball machine on the way out the door.
What's safe from budget cuts? Anything that will prevent this. When you're riding the tiger, you want to get off gracefully, and they haven't figured out how they're going to do that yet...
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I like how we're going to have 1.3 T in new deficit, but yet the Teleprompter still has the nerve to say he'll shave 4 T off the debt...in ten years.
People are getting accustomed to the polished excrement replacement for Tootsie rolls.
I feel sad knowing my almost 3 year old son's entire lifetime tax contribution was already spent, and likely that of his kids, making sure that people who have no urge to miss the next Springer and Povich show have a bigger TV set than mine to watch it on.
Holy shit, the first comment on the Greece article is all about how the entire crises was caused by capitalism! Europeans...
If DC burns as Athens is doing, it might make my office a bit warm but I don't really see the downside.
RWC:
All the stuff in the Smithsonian would be lost. That's the downside.
Garrett,
Didn't think that far ahead. Hopefully they're just stick with the buildings that can be named with an acronym.
"What's safe from budget cuts? Anything that will prevent (Greece).
Nothing will prevent (Greece). Extortion payments can only delay the inevitable.
Those who have spent a lifetime at the public trough will not just lay down and starve when the trough is gone, whether it is taken away, not refilled, or just collapses.... they will demand to be fed as they always have, and if not, there will be trouble. It can not continue, and what can not continue, will not.....
I note that in the pic with the Greece story, it appears that two of the three rioters in the foreground are morbidly obese ....
The SNAP and EDC programs must end, sooner or later. Better sooner than later.
That deficit is three times higher than the highest deficit under the Bush administration. In fact, it took Bush 7 years and 9 months to borrow as much money as Obama has borrowed in his first three years ($4.6 trillion).
The democrats like to blame the "Bush tax cuts" for this, conveniently forgetting that Obama reauthorized them in 2010, making them the "Obama tax cuts" from that point forward.
Divemedic - I've never understood the proclivity to defend something that is very, very bad by comparing it to something that is far worse.
Bush screwed us blue by not reigning in the dem congress starting in 2006, and to a large extent, the republican congress before then. Yes, Obama has quintupled down on bush's stupidity, but don't excuse Bush's stupidity just because Obama did it more. The fact is, Bush and the congresses under Bush were in charge for 8 years, and had a chance to put an end tot he stupidity that got us into this mess, and they did nothing other than push harder on the same programs that were showing signs of failing.
Remember his State of the Union address where he bragged about the homeownership rate going up? That was right around the time that most smart people were looking at the government sponsored sub-prime fiasco and were running the other way.
and to add: the subprime fiasco has its origins with the Clinton administration, and with the Gingrich congress with the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
Tam, you have President Barack Obama confused with Candidate Barack Obama.
WV: felatern
No, that was President Bill Clinton.
What I find interesting is that the Socialist Political Leaders at the EU are telling the Socialist Political Leaders of the individual European Countries that they have to Capitalistic Fiscal Policies, which will hurt their Socialist Voters. Weird.
I blame the "W" just not quite as much as the Teleprompter.
To be fair, I voted for "W" due to, well, figuring AlBore would likely regulate me into walking and only using organic lube for the bike chain, plus working for a lumber yard, I'd be out of a job anyways.
Then "W" and The Stupid Party decided we needed to subsidize Granny's medicine, leaving all pretense of being against deficit spending, and this kinda irked me...but not enough to vote for Lurch or the Evil Party
So I was back to the "Lesser of Two Weasels" yet again.
For now? Um, since we can look across the pond as to where the "uncontrolled spending for letting folk either not work or retire at 50" meets the whole "so very very out of money" thing ends up...I don't feel very confident.
As was put elsewhere, "we're not voting our way out of this mess." We either voted ourselves into it, by always settling for the "lesser of two weasels", buying imported crap when (at least at first) the domestic stuff wasn't too much more, blah blah blah...
I personally feel it'll take a major paradigm shift, as in, say, other nations deciding there's way too many "green stamps" floating around and they want something concrete, or at least less apt to be created by the boxcar load...or, say, that sticky black stuff we have to ship on from "someplace else" suddenly gets priced in another colored "stamp".
Goober - yes, plus: any comparison of the fiscal catastrophe that was the Bush Administration and the fiscal catastrophe that is the Obama Administration is incomplete without at least a mention of Bush's biggest debt baby, Medicare Part D. The bill isn't sitting in the mailbox yet, but the card has been scanned and we know it's coming. This was passed by a GOP Congress and signed by a GOP president. And the GOP, you know, is the party of fiscal responsibility.
Alath
Carmel IN
Why would you want to prevent that?
If DC and New York burn, I'll watch on TV with popcorn. If arsonists show up in my town, I'll get in some target practice.
I don't think there's a way off the tiger that does not involve becoming a lower part of the food chain than our ancestors would want for us --
Or the swift and fatal use of a howdah.
Maybe put the same effort in to making it easier for folks to start or expand companies, generating more tax revenue?
Anyone thought of this in DC?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Gerry
IIRC, Bush tried for six years to get the Frank-Dodd? regulations rescinded by the Rethug congress, as it was known from the first day what the eventual result would be. He didn't bother with the Dimmy congress.
wv: lumpesse. What 80 years of congresscriters should get for eternity...
"If DC and New York burn, I'll watch on TV with popcorn. If arsonists show up in my town, I'll get in some target practice." -Bram
No, you won't..... even if you have your own power supply ..... the grid will be one of the first things to go .... and when that goes, TV stations will be kinda pointless.....
...and I'm guessin' you'll have more target practice than you can appreciate: nigh 50% of Americans rely upon a .gov check for their lifestyle .... when the power goes out, more than 1/2 of your neighbors will be eyeballing you and yours enviously, no matter how well you prepared.
...and Tam, PWT Spam Products really likes your site!
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