Posted on 07/18/2011 1:34:06 PM PDT by Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!
In an unbylined update of the latest developments in the budget-tax-spending-debt ceiling discussions in Washington this morning, the Associated Press committed several blunders in attempting to explain what's going on and how we got to where we are. First and foremost was its list identifying "contributors" to the $8.5 trillion growth in the national debt since 2001.
Here's the AP's you-can't make-this-up, Comedy Central-worthy list of debt contributors:
Q: How did the debt grow from $5.8 trillion in 2001 to its current $14.3 trillion?
A: The biggest contributors to the nearly $9 trillion increase over a decade were:
- 2001 and 2003 tax cuts under President George W. Bush: $1.6 trillion.
- Additional interest costs: $1.4 trillion.
- Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: $1.3 trillion.
- Economic stimulus package under Obama: $800 billion.
- 2010 tax cuts (these weren't cuts at all; they were really a continuation of the current income tax structure -- Ed.), a compromise by Obama and Republicans that extended jobless benefits and cut payroll taxes: $400 billion.
- 2003 creation of Medicare's prescription drug benefit: $300 billion.
- 2008 financial industry bailout: $200 billion.
- Hundreds of billions less in revenue than expected since the Great Recession began in December 2007.
- Other spending increases in domestic, farm and defense programs, adding lesser amounts.
So I guess the AP's assertion that the Bush tax cuts were the biggest contributor to the deficit explains why the following graph shows how government collections tanked from 2003-2007:
Yeah, my wife’s uncle sent me the AP numbers verbatim. They are the gospel, everything else is lies, nothing but lies according to him.
I can’t believe an intelligent, well educated (in the hard sciences no less) person can be so damn ignorant and ill informed.
This guy has forgotten more higher level math than I ever knew. Yet he completely believes the Dem’s budget lies.
Ideology trumps facts every time with these people.
Dems are hilarious.
They don’t have to byline Hussein’s lies any longer. It would kind of make them unwelcome to say their God told them so.
What a bunch of “Morans” (so to speak.)
The AP huh.............They are becoming irrelevant.
Let’s see how many folks tell you that 5.6 plus 9.9 is larger than 14.5, ha ha ha ha ha.
2003 creation of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit: $300 billion.
well... THIS is Bush’s fault!
The level of constant lies from the media is disturbing. How free can we be with morons sitting around soaking in these lies and having it confirmed with John Stewart.
A liberal friend of mine constantly links to John Stewart as a news source...lmao.
The Bush Tax Cut were one of several reasons we recovered from the Tech Bubble Recession. Higher taxes and increased regulation will be the reason the Housing Recession is becoming the Obama Depression.
The increased debt was a direct result of additional spending much in the form of entitlements. But the AP knows that, they just want keep it from the increasingly stupid masses.
Being from Ohio and a small business owner, the conversation between Joe the plumber and Barack Obama caused me to pull in my horns and prepare for ‘Hurricane Obama’.
I’d have felt foolish if I had prepared in vain. But so far, I’ve been vindicated by current economic conditions.
In the proposed 2011 budget, the White House defensively attacks the “irresponsibility of past” deficits. For example, the 2009 budget deficit of $1.4 trillion is blamed on the George W. Bush administration as if President Obama’s $862 billion stimulus package and more than $400 billion supplemental spending bill had nothing to do with it. Mr. Obama’s planned 2010 budget deficit rises to an even higher record level of $1.6 trillion. By comparison, all of Mr. Bush’s deficits from 2002 to 2008 - the seven years during which his team had the most control over the budget - produced a combined deficit of $2.1 trillion.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/08/a-deficit-avalanche/
...much of the debt problem IS Bush’s fault, just not MOST of it.
The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth —
Runaway government spending, not declining tax revenues, is the reason the U.S. faces dramatic budget shortfalls for years to come.
With Washington set to tax $33 trillion and spend $46 trillion over the next decade, how does one determine which policies “caused” the $13 trillion deficit? Mr. Obama could have just as easily singled out Social Security ($9.2 trillion over 10 years), antipoverty programs ($7 trillion), other Medicare spending ($5.4 trillion), net interest on the debt ($6.1 trillion), or nondefense discretionary spending ($7.5 trillion).
There’s no legitimate reason to single out the $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, war funding and the Medicare drug entitlement. A better methodology would focus on which programs are expanding and pushing the next decade’s deficit up.
Entitlements and other obligations are driving the deficits. Specifically, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest costs are projected to rise by 5.4% of GDP between 2008 and 2020. The Bush tax cuts are a convenient scapegoat for past and future budget woes. But it is the dramatic upward arc of federal spending that is the root of the problem.
What a farce this article is. Just like man induced global warming!!!
AP... Written by the zombies of the O’bummer 2012 reelection sewer
Some idiot non poli junkie may read it and believe it; that’s what they are counting on.
Did they mention the 43% increase in federal spending that has occurred since Democrats took control of Congress in 2007?
You know it, tubular bender!!!
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