Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (43156)	5/9/2010 4:37:35 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

I don't think revenues being down forced Obama to double spending for his favorite money wasting departments. The blame Obama's predecessor model is long since stale. When the country was on the brink of another great depression did you expect him to come in with massive budget CUTS? I didn't realise that failing to increase spending by over 30% was a cut. Could you explain this to us? Greece is going through the SAME crap right now that WE are going to have to go through. We are going to HAVE to make major cuts in spending and we are going to have to RAISE taxes. So Obama's ridiculous increases in spending need to be unwound. Now would be a good time to start. Just say no to the Obama / Pelosi Administration. We are going to HAVE to make major cuts in spending and we are going to have to RAISE taxes. Raising taxes only works when the goal is strangling the economy. As REagan and others have proven it is far more effective to grow the economy to increase government revenues.

To: RMF who wrote (43156)	5/10/2010 3:22:53 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

When the country was on the brink of another great depression did you expect him to come in with massive budget CUTS? That's what Hoover did That's a commonly belived myth. -- Year-President/Federal Spending ($bil)/Surplus as percentage of GDP (deficits are negative figures) FY 30-Coolidge/3.3/0.8 FY 31-Hoover/3.6/-0.6 FY 32-Hoover/4.7/-4.0 FY 33-Hoover/4.6/-4.5 FY 34-Hoover/6.5/-5.9 presidency.ucsb.edu Except for FY32 to FY 33 there is a nominal dollar increase each year. FY 33 has a small nominal decrease (not a "massive budget cut"), but in real terms there was an increase since there was deflation at the time and $4.7 bil in 1932 dollars are worth only $4.46 bil in 1933. (calculation using bls.gov ) ------------------ Hoover's Deficit Spending Letter to the Editor in the Washington Post by Hans Bader April 7, 2009 Originally published in The Washington Post William Hettinger [letters, April 3] rewrote history by falsely claiming that “President Herbert Hoover’s response” to the 1929 stockmarket crash “was to balance the federal budget.” Hoover actually ranup massive deficits, as the federal Office of Management and Budgetnotes. Hoover inherited a large budget surplus, which hequickly turned into a deficit. By 1932, when he lost his bid forreelection, the deficit had reached $2.7 billion—the third-largestbudget deficit America had ever experienced. Hoover increasedgovernment spending from $3.1 billion to $4.7 billion in a failedeffort to stimulate the economy. And he increased marginal tax rates to63 percent. Mr. Hettinger claimed that “economists of allstripes” agree with him that a balanced budget “helped bring on theGreat Depression.” None of the economists I know—liberal or conservative—believe this. HANS BADER Counsel Competitive Enterprise Institute cei.org --- ...When it comes to federal spending during Hoover's single term in office, 1929 to 1933, what actually happened? According to the Office of Budget and Management Web site, Table 1.1, just the opposite of what Maddow repeatedly claims. Federal spending increased $166 million in 1929, or 5 percent. In 1930, it rose by $193 million over the preceding year, at 6 percent. The pattern continued in 1931, with an increase of $257 million, nearly 8 percent. And for 1932, it rose a whopping 30 percent, by $1.08 billion. All told, federal spending increased 57 percent in this four-year period, according to the OMB... newsbusters.org

To: RMF who wrote (43156)	5/10/2010 11:17:06 PM
From: Peter Dierks	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The Taxman Cometh by Grover Norquist 05/10/2010 President Obama is quoted in Jonathan Alter’s new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, explaining how he lost control of the political momentum early in his administration, claiming that the unanimous Republican opposition in the House of Representatives to his stimulus spending bill “set the tenor for the whole year.” “That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for Republicans.” Because the Democrat party was alone in passing the stimulus and then the budget and then the healthcare spending bill, the Democrats alone own the increasingly unpopular issue of overspending. Obama is determined not to repeat this mistake when he moves to massively raise taxes after the 2010 election. He needs cover, a useful idiot, a high profile Republican who can stand with him in the Rose Garden when he endorses a VAT and higher income taxes and energy taxes. He wants Republican fingerprints on the murder weapon. The Democrats are stuck with their ownership of overspending. They want to share the blame for the taxes to pay to continue their overspending. To try and lure Republicans into a repeat of the Andrews Air Force Base negotiations that tricked President George H.W. Bush in 1990 to join hands with the Democrats to raise taxes to pay for higher spending, Obama has built a mousetrap he calls the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform”. Obama chose Democrat apparatchik Erskine Bowles as the Democrat co-chairman of this 18-member “commission” which, as Donald Lambro noted in HUMAN EVENTS, is heavily weighted down with tax increasers. Bowles has already said the point of the commission is to recommend tax hikes. Another Obama appointee, Alice Rivlin, said she wants to raise taxes “in a pro-growth way.” Who to pick for the role of Republican enabler/collaborator? Obama chose former Wyoming Sen. Al Simpson. Why? Some have suggested that former Sen. Simpson has played Charlie Brown to the tax increasing Democrat’s Lucy and her football several times already. In 1990, Al Simpson voted to raise the top income-tax rate from 28% to 31% as part of the Andrews Air Force base deal. America was promised two dollars of spending reductions for every dollar of tax hikes. Taxes went up and so did spending. In 1988, Simpson voted for the ill-fated Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act that would charge seniors a surtax of 15% of their annual income tax liability. This so enraged elderly taxpayers that Congress then abolished the very entitlement they had enacted only months before. In 1986, Simpson opposed President Ronald Reagan's tax-reform proposal that drastically lowered the top income tax rate from 50% to 28% Then there was Simpson's vote for the 1982 TEFRA law that promised three dollars of spending restraint for every dollar of tax increases. The real result: higher taxes and higher spending. In his last year in office, 1996, Simpson posted a weak 68% score on holding down taxes and spending, according to the National Taxpayers Union, one of the lowest of any Senate Republican. There were 37 Republicans ahead of him. Obama chose Simpson because of his record. He has enthusiastically backed real tax increases while accepting phony promises to slash spending. This writer has harped on Simpson’s record of tax hikes and suggested that Simpson is somewhat “grumpy.” Al Simpson responded in the Wall Street Journal on April 6 proclaiming “I got the best damn record on no taxes of any son-of-a-bitch in the Senate.” Simpson could allay the fears of American taxpayers by stating clearly that he will vote in the commission for spending reductions and against any and all efforts to raise taxes. That would put the matter to rest. This is exactly what he has refused to do. Oddly Simpson has tried to make his policy differences with taxpayers and me into a personal fight. Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC interviewed Simpson and then tweeted, “wait til you hear what Simpson has to say about norquist on our show tomorrow. Just finished taping. Watch out grover!” On Mitchell’s show, Simpson launched an attack on me, making faces and funny noises to my concerns that once again he would be party to a “bi-partisan” cover for tax hikes. Simpson claimed “he’s (Grover’s) spending taxpayer money to send out this drivel.” (This was absurdly incorrect. Americans for Tax Reform has never and will never receive taxpayer dollars from any government.) When Americans for Tax Reform staff requested a correction from the Andrea Mitchell show for Simpson’s incorrect assertion that ATR received taxpayer dollars, Simpson called ATR and left a long rambling voicemail insisting that he meant that since American taxpayers contribute to Americans for Tax Reform he meant that we were supported by voluntary contributions from taxpayers, not “taxpayer dollars” as in government grants. This followed an e-mail attesting to his conservative credentials (skipping over the tax hiking bits). He kindly ended the e-mail, “See you on the road...You are a formidable opponent! I enjoy the scraps.” But this is not about Al or me. It is about President Obama wanting his own Marshall Petain or Vidkun Quisling. Why does Al think Obama chose him? For his sense of humor and charming personality? Obama wants a Republican to stand next to him when he calls for imposing a Value Added Tax on America to pay for his overspending. Al Simpson would serve America and taxpayers well by making it crystal clear that the VAT and tax hikes are not now or ever on the table. Until then we are wise to beware. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform. --------------------------------------------------------------- humanevents.com

To: RMF who wrote (43156)	7/7/2010 9:11:48 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama and the Fiscal 'Road to Hell' G-20 leaders don't agree with the president that more spending will revive the economy. Nor do most Americans. JULY 1, 2010. By KARL ROVE At last week's G-20 meeting, President Barack Obama achieved a two-fer. He suffered a significant international defeat, and he increased the chances his party will suffer a major domestic one this fall. Mr. Obama's international defeat was self-inflicted. He went to Toronto to press other major nations to do as he has done: Expand government spending, or suffer, in the president's words, "renewed economic hardship and recession." Canada, Germany, Great Britain and most other countries declined Mr. Obama's invitation. The German economic minister "urgently" prodded America to cut spending at a press conference on June 21, prior to the G-20 meeting. The president of the European central bank took direct aim at Mr. Obama's argument, telling the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on June 16 that "the idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect." The European Union president, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, tore into Mr. Obama's stimulus and other spending policies in a stunning address to the European Parliament in March 2009, calling them "the road to hell" and saying "the United States did not take the right path." If it sounds strange to have European leaders lecturing the U.S. about fiscal restraint, it should. But that is where America finds itself after Mr. Obama's 17-month fiscal orgy. The other flaw in his G-20 appearance is domestic. The president's statements that more deficit spending was "necessary to keep economic growth strong" and his cautioning against "the consequential mistakes of the past" when stimulus spending "was too quickly withdrawn" puts his administration and party squarely in favor of policies unpopular with most Americans. Since 2000, the Gallup organization has asked voters what they believe will be the most important problem for the U.S. in 25 years. This year Americans are saying the challenge will be the deficit. And last month, almost eight in 10 voters surveyed by the Associated Press called the federal budget deficit an "extremely" or "very important" issue. There was more bad news Tuesday for Democrats from recent focus groups conducted in battleground congressional districts in Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Arkansas and Florida. A report on these focus groups issued this week by Resurgent Republic (a group I helped found) showed that both political independents and tea party participants passionately denounced federal spending and deficits, using words like "reckless," "out of control," "unnecessary" and "unhelpful." The evidence suggests that both groups remain deeply skeptical of Mr. Obama's stimulus package and are unpersuaded by the administration's arguments in its favor. The authors of the Resurgent Republic study concluded that both independents and tea party voters believe "nearly unanimously" that reckless government spending, not lack of tax revenues, is responsible for the deficits. This goes to the very heart of the modern Democratic agenda with its guiding philosophy of bigger government and higher taxes. All of this negative news is wearing on the president. At the G-20's concluding news conference, Mr. Obama—brittle and petulant—attacked GOP critics "who are hollering about deficits," saying he would be "calling their bluff" next year by "presenting some very difficult choices." Then "we'll see how much of . . . the political arguments they're making right now are real, and how much of it was just politics." The president's problem is largely a mess of his own making. Deficit spending did not begin when Mr. Obama took office. But he and his Democratic allies have supported, proposed, passed or signed and then spent every dime that's gone out the door since Jan. 20, 2009. Voters know it is Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders who approved a $410 billion supplemental (complete with 8,500 earmarks) in the middle of the last fiscal year, and then passed a record-spending budget for this one. Mr. Obama and Democrats approved an $862 billion stimulus and a $1 trillion health-care overhaul, and they now are trying to add $266 billion in "temporary" stimulus spending to permanently raise the budget baseline. More G-20 Agrees to Cut Debt By 2013 Obama's Growth Goals Face Hurdles .It is the president and Congressional allies who refuse to return the $447 billion unspent stimulus dollars and want to use repayments of TARP loans for more spending rather than reducing the deficit. It is the president who gave Fannie and Freddie carte blanche to draw hundreds of billions from the Treasury. It is the Democrats' profligacy that raised the share of the GDP taken by the federal government to 24% this fiscal year. This is indeed the road to fiscal hell, and it's been paved by the president and his party. Voters will have their chance this November to render their verdict on the Obama years. No wonder Republicans feel confident these days. Mr. Rove, the former senior Presidential adviser and deputy chief of staff, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010). online.wsj.com Obama Versus Bush on Spending Message 26264403