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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (757568)	1/19/2007 5:18:30 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Re: [Dean, for example, presided over a long string of balanced budgets (what? six in a row, I believe....)] "My goodness, that's hardly the criteria for good judgement, after all, hitler was good to his pet dog and he also kept the trains running on time...." I never raised the issue of 'good judgment'... just talked about fiscal prudence and parsimony --- good conservative values of long stead. (And... I believe it was in Italy where they said 'the trains run on time', and that was an early success for Mussolini and his 'Corporatists', later called 'Fascists'.)

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (757568)	1/19/2007 5:41:56 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Fed chairman warns of potential fiscal disaster for United States Senate is told deficits are looming threat By Steven R. Weisman Published: January 18, 2007 WASHINGTON: Warning against complacency over the U.S. federal deficit, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said Thursday that recent positive trends on the budget were a "calm before the storm" masking a long- term economic threat posed by looming deficits in Social Security and Medicare. "The longer we wait, the more severe, the more draconian, the more difficult the adjustment is going to be," Bernanke said in response to a question at a Senate hearing about when lawmakers should tackle the growth of spending in the twin retirement systems. "I think the right time to start is about 10 years ago." In substance, Bernanke's comments were consistent with his past warnings, and those of his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, about the cost of the baby boom generation retiring. But his tone appeared to be more urgent, and the timing seemed aimed at the arrival of a new Democratic-led Congress that is just now setting its priorities. His comments also agreed with statements since last summer by the Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., in which Paulson said he favored dealing with the cost of entitlements now rather than later. That stance rejected the advice of some Republican lawmakers that the issues were too divisive for the new Congress to deal with less than two years before a presidential election.... ...But Bernanke was also careful not to make any judgments about how Congress should deal with the problem, despite efforts by Conrad and other Democrats to oppose extending the Bush administration's tax cuts, which expire at the end of the decade. Neither did Republican senators succeed in getting him to criticize tax increases and suggest that it would be better to cut spending, as they used to be able to do with Greenspan, much to the dismay of Democrats. Instead, he said Congress should decide what levels of spending on social programs were appropriate, and then set taxes at a level necessary to pay for them. He added that tax cuts may be beneficial to the economy but that they usually did not pay for themselves by generating more tax revenue than they drained from the Treasury. "I'm going to try to avoid making specific recommendations on tax policy," Bernanke said in response to a question from Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "I don't think there's a magic number. I only say that there is a difficult balance there." The Federal Reserve chairman came to a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee citing recent long-term projections by the Congressional Budget Office that Social Security and Medicare outlays will rise from 8.5 percent of the economy now to 10.5 percent in 2015 and 15 percent in 2030. These costs would force the United States to keep borrowing if they are not controlled, pushing the ratio of publicly held federal debt from its current level of 37 percent of the economy to roughly 100 percent in 2030, a level reached previously only during World War II. "If government debt and deficits were actually to grow at the pace envisioned by the CBO's scenario, the effects on the U.S. economy would be severe," Bernanke told the senators. He said the trends would slow economic growth, drain funds for private investment and sap the confidence of consumers, businesses and investors.... iht.com