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On September 21 2012 04:11 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 03:56 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:41 ziggurat wrote:On September 21 2012 03:29 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
I have seen a few clips of Obama's appearance on Letterman and I was a bit surprised by some of the inaccurate statements he made.
1. He claimed that he had never called his political opponents "unpatriotic" which of course anyone who was alive in 2008 knows isn't true
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
3. He claimed that he couldn't remember how much the national debt was (?!?)
When politicians say things that aren't true I usually want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Obama was trying to say that he had never called Romney unpatriotic? Maybe by "inherited a trillion dollar deficit" he meant that he inherited a bad economy such that he had no choice but to pass incredibly costly programs?
But how is it even possible that he doesn't know how much the debt is? Did he get nervous and freeze up? Maybe he was just stunned that Letterman was asking him moderately challenging questions? Or did he just not want to say "sixteen trillion" on the air? But seriously, how can the president not know the national debt when the size of the debt has been one of the biggest issues in the campaign?
So assuming that Obama wasn't "lying" when he made these comments -- can anyone offer any defence for these statements? 1. Did he call anyone other than Bush unpatriotic? If not, then I think he's just being lawyerly, since technically Bush wasn't a political opponent, even though that's basically who he ran against. 2. Obama was inaugurated during FY '09, when Bush/110th Congress policies were still in place, so yeah, that's inheriting it. 3. Either incompetence or, as you said, not wanting to say the number on air, i.e. playing politics. The elections were held in Nov of 2008. Obama won, and the democrats achieved strong majorities in the house and the senate as well. Then in January 2009 Obama was inaugurated. Shortly afterwards they passed the $800 billion stimulus bill. Then, at the end of FY 2009, there was a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit (compared to less than 5 hundred billion in FY 2008). So I don't really understand your point in #2. The U.S. government is like a big ship in that it takes minute to alter course. So what I mean in point #2 is: Obama took office a full third into FY '09, which means most financial legislation in effect that year was passed before he was sworn in. Further, way to ignore the $700 billion bailout signed by Bush on the third day of FY '09. I think this is misleading, because although Bush authorized $700 billion, it wasn't all spent. Only $475 billion was actually spent, and that happened over several years. You do make a fair point that Bush started policies that contributed to the debt. But here's what I think is important. Obama had no obligation to follow through on those policies. His party controlled all 3 houses of government. He could have repealed Bush's excessively expensive policies. He did not. In fact, he accellerated those policies with even more unaffordable spending. Obama has continued to run trillion+ dollar deficits since he's been in power. So for him to say that he was stuck with Bush's policies is false -- he actually endorsed and expanded Bush's already-profligate spending plans. So here we are four years later, and debt and the economy are still George Bush's fault.
The three most expensive single policies were the Bush tax cuts and the two wars. Obama ended the war in Iraq, can't exactly walk out of Afghanistan that easily, and supported ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. In fact, the Republicans forced him to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich if he wanted to extend them for the middle-class, so they're still responsible for those tax cuts since the end of 2010.
In addition, I can't really take seriously anyone who claims the deficits are simply Obama's fault rather without even taking into account the absolutely huge economic crisis he inherited.
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On September 20 2012 17:05 Derez wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2012 16:56 Souma wrote:On September 20 2012 16:53 Derez wrote:On September 20 2012 16:43 ey215 wrote:On September 20 2012 16:42 Voltaire wrote:On September 20 2012 16:17 ey215 wrote:On September 20 2012 16:09 Souma wrote:On September 20 2012 16:02 ey215 wrote:On September 20 2012 15:48 Souma wrote:On September 20 2012 15:34 ey215 wrote:
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I'm all for paying teachers more, but that in and of itself is not going to fix our K-12 education problem. We spend more per school aged child in education than any other country in the world. Our K-12 education system needs wholesale reform not just more money.
To start, more money needs to go into the classroom and not into administrative overhead. Teachers need to be evaluated and paid on performance not seniority. The school year needs to be longer. Innovation should be encouraged and arts programs need to be refunded.
A lot of problems dealing with education are socioeconomic and also negligence on the parents side as well. There's only so much teachers can do. If teachers were paid more, however, it may make it worth it for them to extend the school year and also allow them to shoulder more responsibilities (like keeping parents in the loop as much as possible). Not to mention, if teachers were making decent income straight out of graduation, it would foster more competition for teachers and raise the level of teaching. Like I said, fine with paying teachers more but it really shouldn't be additional money it needs to come from somewhere else. I agree that education could use a nice reform though and evaluations/pay should only take seniority into consideration if the school benefits from that specific teacher's seniority. We also need to get over this idea that we need to treat every child the same way. All that leads to is teachers teaching to the lowest common denominator leaving our best and middle of the road students not nearly as challenged as they should be. Students should be tested for aptitude at some point along the way and steered into tracks that will help them specialize into areas of interest and aptitude earlier. Specialization should start in High School at the latest, not your second year of college. Your school didn't split its students up by aptitude? Mine didn't in elementary but it did in middle school and high school. Except for Honors and AP no. Granted it's been almost 20 years since I graduated from high school so it's possible that's changed. I know that Georgia is in the process of implementing a system that has high school aged kids pick areas of interest and then focuses their classes in high school on preparing them for that but it's a year out. At my high school, we had remedial, regular, honors and AP (and now IB). I think that is optimal at the moment. We didn't have specialization tracks in high school, and I'm not sure if there's a need for it to be honest. A lot of people do not know what they want to major in until their second-third year of college, and those who do know can get a head start during their first year of college. As it is, I think only four years of college is too little these days. Jumping into a career at 21-22 seems too early for many. I believe the number of fifth-year seniors has been increasing as well. Just my opinion though. Maybe some of our European friends can elaborate, but I know that it used to be the case in Germany that they had high schools for university prep and for vocations. After training at a vocational school you would go into a paid apprenticeship for your chosen field and after some more time you're in a good middle class job. Somewhere along the way we decided as a country that all kids should go to college and somehow working as a plumber, HVAC, etc. is somehow being lesser. Some kids just aren't cut out for college, and that's ok. It's part of the reason we see so many remedial classes taught in colleges. I strongly disagree with the German system. It basically sorts kids out at a young age and sends them the message "you can't do that" if they don't make it into Gymnasium... It disenfranchises kids with worse family backgrounds at a young age. There is an obvious link between school performance at the younger ages and family situations. At what age does it do it? edit: And does it stop them from ever going to University? If I remember correctly: It usually happens after primary education is done, which would be around 12 years old. And no, the selection at 12 years old doesn't stop you from going to university. It's possible (and common) for people to be switched to higher/lower levels during their first years depending on performance. Even if you were to complete a vocational high school there is always a way to reach university, but it does mean you have to catch up on several years of high school education you missed out on. Oof, 12-years-old is way too young. I was thinking more around the age of 16 or even 18. More than anything its a selection based on how fast a learner you are. It limits the options of the child to some extent, but there is always a road to the highest level of education and the system is pretty flexible. I personally think it only has benefits because the smarter kids actually have things to do instead of being bored to death. It's been quite a while since I was in high school, I did the Dutch equivalent of the 'gymnasion' (pre-university) and I was never challenged significantly in all 6 years of it. If the level had been even lower I don't know what I would have done.
I just want to clear some things up about the german education system here.
Yes we get divided into a 3-tier system at the age of 10/11 after 4 years of primary school.
Let's say you were as a child a bad learner and got into the lowest tier.
You had to go to school for 5 more years and you would have your basic degree.
Now you have the option of doing an apprenticeship or hanging on a year and get the tier 2 degree.
Let's say you took the tier 2 degree. Again you would have the option to go directly into the tier 1 tree the "gymnasium" (at least you could do this in my area, I think in other parts of the country, you can't do this), or you can do something called a "fachoberschule" or you could find a job with your degree. To elaborate on the fachoberschule: This is basically a not so hard-version of the gymnasium, which will get you a degree to study later on at a "Fachhochschule", which is another form of university that is more orientated towards real life application of studies. If you got your Tier 1 degree (called Abitur) you have possibility to go to either a University (theory orientated, but more reputable) or Fachhochschule. Just to clarify: University and Fachhochschule are on the level of college.
But now comes another part into the system the so called "Berufsoberschule". If you went into the lowest tier, got a apprenticeship, finished that and were now thinking what to do next, you could go to Berufsfachschule. You can go into a field, which you already know about thanks to your experience and get a degree that allows you to study at a Fachhochschule in this field.
What I wanted to say with that is, yes we get divided early, but if you have the dedication and willigness to learn stuff later on, you will always have the possibility to do that.
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On September 21 2012 04:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 04:42 0mar wrote:On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
Bush ran trillion dollar deficits for approximately 3 years. It was disguised as ~400 billion dollar deficits on paper because spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan war were classified as "emergency spending" which is not subject to Congressional oversight. When Obama came into office, he did away with this accounting method and lumped it all under the current fiscal year budget. That's why it looks like the deficit jumped so significantly when Obama took office when in fact the only thing that changed was the accounting method. Interesting point. Do you have a good source for that? I'd like to take a look at the numbers for that myself. I'll poke around and see what I can find.
I would also be interested in a source for this.
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On September 21 2012 04:42 0mar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
Bush ran trillion dollar deficits for approximately 3 years. It was disguised as ~400 billion dollar deficits on paper because spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan war were classified as "emergency spending" which is not subject to Congressional oversight. When Obama came into office, he did away with this accounting method and lumped it all under the current fiscal year budget. That's why it looks like the deficit jumped so significantly when Obama took office when in fact the only thing that changed was the accounting method.
Well, the accounting method, and a big assed, not so 'shovel-ready' stimulus package.
edit: ... and some bailouts.
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On September 21 2012 05:25 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 04:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 21 2012 04:42 0mar wrote:On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
Bush ran trillion dollar deficits for approximately 3 years. It was disguised as ~400 billion dollar deficits on paper because spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan war were classified as "emergency spending" which is not subject to Congressional oversight. When Obama came into office, he did away with this accounting method and lumped it all under the current fiscal year budget. That's why it looks like the deficit jumped so significantly when Obama took office when in fact the only thing that changed was the accounting method. Interesting point. Do you have a good source for that? I'd like to take a look at the numbers for that myself. I'll poke around and see what I can find. I would also be interested in a source for this.
as would I, it sounds like something I read earlier this year but I just tried looking it up and came up dry.
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United States41976 Posts
On September 21 2012 05:12 niTsEn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2012 17:05 Derez wrote:On September 20 2012 16:56 Souma wrote:On September 20 2012 16:53 Derez wrote:On September 20 2012 16:43 ey215 wrote:On September 20 2012 16:42 Voltaire wrote:On September 20 2012 16:17 ey215 wrote:On September 20 2012 16:09 Souma wrote:On September 20 2012 16:02 ey215 wrote:On September 20 2012 15:48 Souma wrote:
[quote]
A lot of problems dealing with education are socioeconomic and also negligence on the parents side as well. There's only so much teachers can do. If teachers were paid more, however, it may make it worth it for them to extend the school year and also allow them to shoulder more responsibilities (like keeping parents in the loop as much as possible). Not to mention, if teachers were making decent income straight out of graduation, it would foster more competition for teachers and raise the level of teaching. Like I said, fine with paying teachers more but it really shouldn't be additional money it needs to come from somewhere else. I agree that education could use a nice reform though and evaluations/pay should only take seniority into consideration if the school benefits from that specific teacher's seniority.
[quote]
Your school didn't split its students up by aptitude? Mine didn't in elementary but it did in middle school and high school. Except for Honors and AP no. Granted it's been almost 20 years since I graduated from high school so it's possible that's changed. I know that Georgia is in the process of implementing a system that has high school aged kids pick areas of interest and then focuses their classes in high school on preparing them for that but it's a year out. At my high school, we had remedial, regular, honors and AP (and now IB). I think that is optimal at the moment. We didn't have specialization tracks in high school, and I'm not sure if there's a need for it to be honest. A lot of people do not know what they want to major in until their second-third year of college, and those who do know can get a head start during their first year of college. As it is, I think only four years of college is too little these days. Jumping into a career at 21-22 seems too early for many. I believe the number of fifth-year seniors has been increasing as well. Just my opinion though. Maybe some of our European friends can elaborate, but I know that it used to be the case in Germany that they had high schools for university prep and for vocations. After training at a vocational school you would go into a paid apprenticeship for your chosen field and after some more time you're in a good middle class job. Somewhere along the way we decided as a country that all kids should go to college and somehow working as a plumber, HVAC, etc. is somehow being lesser. Some kids just aren't cut out for college, and that's ok. It's part of the reason we see so many remedial classes taught in colleges. I strongly disagree with the German system. It basically sorts kids out at a young age and sends them the message "you can't do that" if they don't make it into Gymnasium... It disenfranchises kids with worse family backgrounds at a young age. There is an obvious link between school performance at the younger ages and family situations. At what age does it do it? edit: And does it stop them from ever going to University? If I remember correctly: It usually happens after primary education is done, which would be around 12 years old. And no, the selection at 12 years old doesn't stop you from going to university. It's possible (and common) for people to be switched to higher/lower levels during their first years depending on performance. Even if you were to complete a vocational high school there is always a way to reach university, but it does mean you have to catch up on several years of high school education you missed out on. Oof, 12-years-old is way too young. I was thinking more around the age of 16 or even 18. More than anything its a selection based on how fast a learner you are. It limits the options of the child to some extent, but there is always a road to the highest level of education and the system is pretty flexible. I personally think it only has benefits because the smarter kids actually have things to do instead of being bored to death. It's been quite a while since I was in high school, I did the Dutch equivalent of the 'gymnasion' (pre-university) and I was never challenged significantly in all 6 years of it. If the level had been even lower I don't know what I would have done. I just want to clear some things up about the german education system here. Yes we get divided into a 3-tier system at the age of 10/11 after 4 years of primary school. Let's say you were as a child a bad learner and got into the lowest tier. You had to go to school for 5 more years and you would have your basic degree. Now you have the option of doing an apprenticeship or hanging on a year and get the tier 2 degree. Let's say you took the tier 2 degree. Again you would have the option to go directly into the tier 1 tree the "gymnasium" (at least you could do this in my area, I think in other parts of the country, you can't do this), or you can do something called a "fachoberschule" or you could find a job with your degree. To elaborate on the fachoberschule: This is basically a not so hard-version of the gymnasium, which will get you a degree to study later on at a "Fachhochschule", which is another form of university that is more orientated towards real life application of studies. If you got your Tier 1 degree (called Abitur) you have possibility to go to either a University (theory orientated, but more reputable) or Fachhochschule. Just to clarify: University and Fachhochschule are on the level of college. But now comes another part into the system the so called "Berufsoberschule". If you went into the lowest tier, got a apprenticeship, finished that and were now thinking what to do next, you could go to Berufsfachschule. You can go into a field, which you already know about thanks to your experience and get a degree that allows you to study at a Fachhochschule in this field. What I wanted to say with that is, yes we get divided early, but if you have the dedication and willigness to learn stuff later on, you will always have the possibility to do that.
We had the exact same system. An exam called the 11+ separated children into grammar schools (classical education -> university etc), technical colleges (engineers, architects etc) and secondary moderns (prep for factory work, shop work, basic stuff etc). However systemic bias towards the grammar schools in funding and also in terms of better teachers preferring to work at them and the 11+ being biased against the lower classes etc led to it breaking down. Children were condemned at the age of 10 rather than being offered the most appropriate of three different but equal options. I think ending it was a good shift although I would advocate more setting (grouping students by ability and teaching them at different speeds) within the comprehensive schools we now have.
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On September 21 2012 05:06 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 04:11 ziggurat wrote:On September 21 2012 03:56 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:41 ziggurat wrote:On September 21 2012 03:29 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
I have seen a few clips of Obama's appearance on Letterman and I was a bit surprised by some of the inaccurate statements he made.
1. He claimed that he had never called his political opponents "unpatriotic" which of course anyone who was alive in 2008 knows isn't true
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
3. He claimed that he couldn't remember how much the national debt was (?!?)
When politicians say things that aren't true I usually want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Obama was trying to say that he had never called Romney unpatriotic? Maybe by "inherited a trillion dollar deficit" he meant that he inherited a bad economy such that he had no choice but to pass incredibly costly programs?
But how is it even possible that he doesn't know how much the debt is? Did he get nervous and freeze up? Maybe he was just stunned that Letterman was asking him moderately challenging questions? Or did he just not want to say "sixteen trillion" on the air? But seriously, how can the president not know the national debt when the size of the debt has been one of the biggest issues in the campaign?
So assuming that Obama wasn't "lying" when he made these comments -- can anyone offer any defence for these statements? 1. Did he call anyone other than Bush unpatriotic? If not, then I think he's just being lawyerly, since technically Bush wasn't a political opponent, even though that's basically who he ran against. 2. Obama was inaugurated during FY '09, when Bush/110th Congress policies were still in place, so yeah, that's inheriting it. 3. Either incompetence or, as you said, not wanting to say the number on air, i.e. playing politics. The elections were held in Nov of 2008. Obama won, and the democrats achieved strong majorities in the house and the senate as well. Then in January 2009 Obama was inaugurated. Shortly afterwards they passed the $800 billion stimulus bill. Then, at the end of FY 2009, there was a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit (compared to less than 5 hundred billion in FY 2008). So I don't really understand your point in #2. The U.S. government is like a big ship in that it takes minute to alter course. So what I mean in point #2 is: Obama took office a full third into FY '09, which means most financial legislation in effect that year was passed before he was sworn in. Further, way to ignore the $700 billion bailout signed by Bush on the third day of FY '09. I think this is misleading, because although Bush authorized $700 billion, it wasn't all spent. Only $475 billion was actually spent, and that happened over several years. You do make a fair point that Bush started policies that contributed to the debt. But here's what I think is important. Obama had no obligation to follow through on those policies. His party controlled all 3 houses of government. He could have repealed Bush's excessively expensive policies. He did not. In fact, he accellerated those policies with even more unaffordable spending. Obama has continued to run trillion+ dollar deficits since he's been in power. So for him to say that he was stuck with Bush's policies is false -- he actually endorsed and expanded Bush's already-profligate spending plans. So here we are four years later, and debt and the economy are still George Bush's fault. The three most expensive single policies were the Bush tax cuts and the two wars. Obama ended the war in Iraq, can't exactly walk out of Afghanistan that easily, and supported ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. In fact, the Republicans forced him to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich if he wanted to extend them for the middle-class, so they're still responsible for those tax cuts since the end of 2010. In addition, I can't really take seriously anyone who claims the deficits are simply Obama's fault rather without even taking into account the absolutely huge economic crisis he inherited.
If Obama ended the Bush tax cuts for the rich the deficit would still be $1.2T+
Its one thing to excuse Obama for inheriting a bad situation, its another thing to give him a pass on making very little progress.
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I thought it was a relatively widely known fact that the two wars were not part of the normal budget while Bush was in office.
Article from none other than the heritage foundation back in '08 on why Iraq and Afghanistan spending should no longer be allocated as emergency funding:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/09/time-to-move-iraq-and-afghanistan-funding-into-the-regular-budget-process
Obama from 2009:
Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/
Edit:
To make it clear, emergency appropriations are not part of the budget and therefore do not count towards the budget deficit. It is used quite frequently for the initial phases of a war when unexpected events can occur but is usually moved to the normal budget after things have "stabilized", at least in terms of spending. For the entirety of Bush's time in office, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were paid through emergency appropriations and thus do not appear on Congress' budget for those years.
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On September 21 2012 05:37 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 05:06 kwizach wrote:On September 21 2012 04:11 ziggurat wrote:On September 21 2012 03:56 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:41 ziggurat wrote:On September 21 2012 03:29 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
I have seen a few clips of Obama's appearance on Letterman and I was a bit surprised by some of the inaccurate statements he made.
1. He claimed that he had never called his political opponents "unpatriotic" which of course anyone who was alive in 2008 knows isn't true
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
3. He claimed that he couldn't remember how much the national debt was (?!?)
When politicians say things that aren't true I usually want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Obama was trying to say that he had never called Romney unpatriotic? Maybe by "inherited a trillion dollar deficit" he meant that he inherited a bad economy such that he had no choice but to pass incredibly costly programs?
But how is it even possible that he doesn't know how much the debt is? Did he get nervous and freeze up? Maybe he was just stunned that Letterman was asking him moderately challenging questions? Or did he just not want to say "sixteen trillion" on the air? But seriously, how can the president not know the national debt when the size of the debt has been one of the biggest issues in the campaign?
So assuming that Obama wasn't "lying" when he made these comments -- can anyone offer any defence for these statements? 1. Did he call anyone other than Bush unpatriotic? If not, then I think he's just being lawyerly, since technically Bush wasn't a political opponent, even though that's basically who he ran against. 2. Obama was inaugurated during FY '09, when Bush/110th Congress policies were still in place, so yeah, that's inheriting it. 3. Either incompetence or, as you said, not wanting to say the number on air, i.e. playing politics. The elections were held in Nov of 2008. Obama won, and the democrats achieved strong majorities in the house and the senate as well. Then in January 2009 Obama was inaugurated. Shortly afterwards they passed the $800 billion stimulus bill. Then, at the end of FY 2009, there was a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit (compared to less than 5 hundred billion in FY 2008). So I don't really understand your point in #2. The U.S. government is like a big ship in that it takes minute to alter course. So what I mean in point #2 is: Obama took office a full third into FY '09, which means most financial legislation in effect that year was passed before he was sworn in. Further, way to ignore the $700 billion bailout signed by Bush on the third day of FY '09. I think this is misleading, because although Bush authorized $700 billion, it wasn't all spent. Only $475 billion was actually spent, and that happened over several years. You do make a fair point that Bush started policies that contributed to the debt. But here's what I think is important. Obama had no obligation to follow through on those policies. His party controlled all 3 houses of government. He could have repealed Bush's excessively expensive policies. He did not. In fact, he accellerated those policies with even more unaffordable spending. Obama has continued to run trillion+ dollar deficits since he's been in power. So for him to say that he was stuck with Bush's policies is false -- he actually endorsed and expanded Bush's already-profligate spending plans. So here we are four years later, and debt and the economy are still George Bush's fault. The three most expensive single policies were the Bush tax cuts and the two wars. Obama ended the war in Iraq, can't exactly walk out of Afghanistan that easily, and supported ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. In fact, the Republicans forced him to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich if he wanted to extend them for the middle-class, so they're still responsible for those tax cuts since the end of 2010. In addition, I can't really take seriously anyone who claims the deficits are simply Obama's fault rather without even taking into account the absolutely huge economic crisis he inherited. If Obama ended the Bush tax cuts for the rich the deficit would still be $1.2T+ Its one thing to excuse Obama for inheriting a bad situation, its another thing to give him a pass on making very little progress.
Yes, quite obviously no-one is saying that ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich is supposed to erase the deficit.
Where exactly should he have "made progress", according to you?
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Both these sources seem to be talking about incorporating the costs of the war into budget projections. Which is something that's pretty hard to disagree with I would think. But you're saying that the wars are actually not included in historical budget data, right? Because that's something completely different.
For example, here are some numbers from http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php:
2000 $236.4 Billion Surplus $314.78 Billion Surplus D R R
2001 $127.3 Billion Surplus $164.9 Billion Surplus R D R
2002 $157.8 Billion Deficit $201.02 Billion Deficit R D R
2003 $377.6 Billion Deficit $470.82 Billion Deficit R R R
2004 $413 Billion Deficit $501.21 Billion Deficit R R R
2005 $318 Billion Deficit $373.24 Billion Deficit R R R
2006 $248 Billion Deficit $282.14 Billion Deficit R R R
2007 $161 Billion Deficit $178.1 Billion Deficit R D D
2008 $459 Billion Deficit $488.82 Billion Deficit R D D
2009 $1413 Billion Deficit $1509.62 Billion Deficit D D D
2010 $1294 Billion Deficit $1360.67 Billion Deficit D D D
2011 $1299 Billion Deficit $1324.16 Billion Deficit D D R
2012 $1100 Billion Deficit $1100 Billion Deficit D D R
You (or some earlier poster) are claiming that the reason this historical data looks so bad for Obama is that the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not included in the data until 2009! That is a surprise to me if it's true! So that's what I was interested in seeing a source for, if it's actually the case.
Edit:
No, these articles are talking about incorporating the war into the budget projections. They don't say anything about incorporating the wars into historical spending data. You are completely misreading this. The point of these articles is that the reubblicans would year after year produce a budget that didn't account for the costs of the wars. Then they would say "we're projecting a surplus" but then there would be an "emergency" funding bill that would cost billions. This may have made sense in the early days of the wars when expenses were hard to forecast. But as things became more regular year after year the practice became slippery and misleading, and Obama deserves credit for ending it
However, you are using thes articles to say something that they absolutely do not say. The historical data about deficits is based on dollars actually spent, not the unrealistic "forecasts" that were produced before war spending was incorporated into the budget process.
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On September 21 2012 05:53 ziggurat wrote:Both these sources seem to be talking about incorporating the costs of the war into budget projections. Which is something that's pretty hard to disagree with I would think. But you're saying that the wars are actually not included in historical budget data, right? Because that's something completely different. For example, here are some numbers from http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php:2000 $236.4 Billion Surplus $314.78 Billion Surplus D R R 2001 $127.3 Billion Surplus $164.9 Billion Surplus R D R 2002 $157.8 Billion Deficit $201.02 Billion Deficit R D R 2003 $377.6 Billion Deficit $470.82 Billion Deficit R R R 2004 $413 Billion Deficit $501.21 Billion Deficit R R R 2005 $318 Billion Deficit $373.24 Billion Deficit R R R 2006 $248 Billion Deficit $282.14 Billion Deficit R R R 2007 $161 Billion Deficit $178.1 Billion Deficit R D D 2008 $459 Billion Deficit $488.82 Billion Deficit R D D 2009 $1413 Billion Deficit $1509.62 Billion Deficit D D D 2010 $1294 Billion Deficit $1360.67 Billion Deficit D D D 2011 $1299 Billion Deficit $1324.16 Billion Deficit D D R 2012 $1100 Billion Deficit $1100 Billion Deficit D D R You (or some earlier poster) are claiming that the reason this historical data looks so bad for Obama is that the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not included in the data until 2009! That is a surprise to me if it's true! So that's what I was interested in seeing a source for, if it's actually the case.
Yeah so you can see that there was a $459 bill deficit from your data in 2008. That doesn't include off budget receipts and outlays and is purely the budgeted deficit. Emergency appropriations are not included in that.
Here are data on off budget deficits straight from the + Show Spoiler +whitehousewhitehouse: 2001 160,681 2002 159,659 2003 160,833 2004 155,234 2005 175,265 2006 186,313 2007 181,452 2008 183,295 2009 136,993 2010 77,005 2011 67,182 Notice the drop in off-budget spending in FY 2010.
Actually I don't believe emergency appropriations are included in the off-budget spending, trying to get a better idea of how its calculated. But yes, your numbers do not include emergency appropriations.
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On September 21 2012 05:53 ziggurat wrote:Both these sources seem to be talking about incorporating the costs of the war into budget projections. Which is something that's pretty hard to disagree with I would think. But you're saying that the wars are actually not included in historical budget data, right? Because that's something completely different. For example, here are some numbers from http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php:2000 $236.4 Billion Surplus $314.78 Billion Surplus D R R 2001 $127.3 Billion Surplus $164.9 Billion Surplus R D R 2002 $157.8 Billion Deficit $201.02 Billion Deficit R D R 2003 $377.6 Billion Deficit $470.82 Billion Deficit R R R 2004 $413 Billion Deficit $501.21 Billion Deficit R R R 2005 $318 Billion Deficit $373.24 Billion Deficit R R R 2006 $248 Billion Deficit $282.14 Billion Deficit R R R 2007 $161 Billion Deficit $178.1 Billion Deficit R D D 2008 $459 Billion Deficit $488.82 Billion Deficit R D D 2009 $1413 Billion Deficit $1509.62 Billion Deficit D D D 2010 $1294 Billion Deficit $1360.67 Billion Deficit D D D 2011 $1299 Billion Deficit $1324.16 Billion Deficit D D R 2012 $1100 Billion Deficit $1100 Billion Deficit D D R You (or some earlier poster) are claiming that the reason this historical data looks so bad for Obama is that the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not included in the data until 2009! That is a surprise to me if it's true! So that's what I was interested in seeing a source for, if it's actually the case.
From reading his0mar's subsequent links, it seems that the Emergency Spending allows the government to spend more than the normal discretionary budget cap. Normally, anything added to the discretionary budget must require a reduction somewhere else. The Emergency Spending allows the President to go above that cap without including it into the budget calculations. So while the budget was assessed to be $900b in 2008, it was actually costing $1200bil - and that $300bil was put into the deficit (see 2007-2008).
Supposedly there was a lot of Emergency Spending in 2009 (The stimulus apparently was one, at $300b) and that part of the reason why the deficit from 2008-2009 jumped almost a trillion bucks.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/emergency-spending-333-billion-tab-busted-the-budget-in-2008
I can't seem to track all of the 2009 Emergency Spendings to see who they belong to, but the stimulus was mentioned in the above link at $300b.
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On September 21 2012 06:05 ZeaL. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 05:53 ziggurat wrote:Both these sources seem to be talking about incorporating the costs of the war into budget projections. Which is something that's pretty hard to disagree with I would think. But you're saying that the wars are actually not included in historical budget data, right? Because that's something completely different. For example, here are some numbers from http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php:2000 $236.4 Billion Surplus $314.78 Billion Surplus D R R 2001 $127.3 Billion Surplus $164.9 Billion Surplus R D R 2002 $157.8 Billion Deficit $201.02 Billion Deficit R D R 2003 $377.6 Billion Deficit $470.82 Billion Deficit R R R 2004 $413 Billion Deficit $501.21 Billion Deficit R R R 2005 $318 Billion Deficit $373.24 Billion Deficit R R R 2006 $248 Billion Deficit $282.14 Billion Deficit R R R 2007 $161 Billion Deficit $178.1 Billion Deficit R D D 2008 $459 Billion Deficit $488.82 Billion Deficit R D D 2009 $1413 Billion Deficit $1509.62 Billion Deficit D D D 2010 $1294 Billion Deficit $1360.67 Billion Deficit D D D 2011 $1299 Billion Deficit $1324.16 Billion Deficit D D R 2012 $1100 Billion Deficit $1100 Billion Deficit D D R You (or some earlier poster) are claiming that the reason this historical data looks so bad for Obama is that the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not included in the data until 2009! That is a surprise to me if it's true! So that's what I was interested in seeing a source for, if it's actually the case. Yeah so you can see that there was a $459 bill deficit from your data in 2008. That doesn't include off budget receipts and outlays and is purely the budgeted deficit. Emergency appropriations are not included in that. Here are data on off budget deficits straight from the whitehousewhitehouse: 2001 160,681 2002 159,659 2003 160,833 2004 155,234 2005 175,265 2006 186,313 2007 181,452 2008 183,295 2009 136,993 2010 77,005 2011 67,182 Notice the drop in off-budget spending in FY 2010.
No, you are looking at the wrong column. You are looking at "Off-Budget" only. The actual deficit is the total of "off budget" and "on budget" numbers. You need to look at the "total" surplus or deficit:
2001 128,236
2002 -157,758
2003 -377,585
2004 -412,727
2005 -318,346
2006 -248,181
2007 -160,701
2008 -458,553
2009 -1,412,688
2010 -1,293,489
2011 -1,299,595
2012 estimate -1,326,948
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On September 21 2012 05:40 ZeaL. wrote:I thought it was a relatively widely known fact that the two wars were not part of the normal budget while Bush was in office. Article from none other than the heritage foundation back in '08 on why Iraq and Afghanistan spending should no longer be allocated as emergency funding: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/09/time-to-move-iraq-and-afghanistan-funding-into-the-regular-budget-processObama from 2009: Show nested quote +Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/Edit: To make it clear, emergency appropriations are not part of the budget and therefore do not count towards the budget deficit. It is used quite frequently for the initial phases of a war when unexpected events can occur but is usually moved to the normal budget after things have "stabilized", at least in terms of spending. For the entirety of Bush's time in office, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were paid through emergency appropriations and thus do not appear on Congress' budget for those years.
If I go to http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ it tells me that the deficit in 2007 was $160B. Is that correct or is it not including the emergency spending?
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On September 21 2012 06:18 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 05:40 ZeaL. wrote:I thought it was a relatively widely known fact that the two wars were not part of the normal budget while Bush was in office. Article from none other than the heritage foundation back in '08 on why Iraq and Afghanistan spending should no longer be allocated as emergency funding: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/09/time-to-move-iraq-and-afghanistan-funding-into-the-regular-budget-processObama from 2009: Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/Edit: To make it clear, emergency appropriations are not part of the budget and therefore do not count towards the budget deficit. It is used quite frequently for the initial phases of a war when unexpected events can occur but is usually moved to the normal budget after things have "stabilized", at least in terms of spending. For the entirety of Bush's time in office, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were paid through emergency appropriations and thus do not appear on Congress' budget for those years. If I go to http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ it tells me that the deficit in 2007 was $160B. Is that correct or is it not including the emergency spending?
Yeah I realized that I wasn't looking at the right data and I'm trying to figure out exactly how emergency spending is budgeted. Its surprisingly hard to find a hard source for this stuff.
Edit:
I did find a post from Ron Paul though lol.
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On September 21 2012 06:23 ZeaL. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 06:18 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 21 2012 05:40 ZeaL. wrote:I thought it was a relatively widely known fact that the two wars were not part of the normal budget while Bush was in office. Article from none other than the heritage foundation back in '08 on why Iraq and Afghanistan spending should no longer be allocated as emergency funding: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/09/time-to-move-iraq-and-afghanistan-funding-into-the-regular-budget-processObama from 2009: Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/Edit: To make it clear, emergency appropriations are not part of the budget and therefore do not count towards the budget deficit. It is used quite frequently for the initial phases of a war when unexpected events can occur but is usually moved to the normal budget after things have "stabilized", at least in terms of spending. For the entirety of Bush's time in office, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were paid through emergency appropriations and thus do not appear on Congress' budget for those years. If I go to http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ it tells me that the deficit in 2007 was $160B. Is that correct or is it not including the emergency spending? Yeah I realized that I wasn't looking at the right data and I'm trying to figure out exactly how emergency spending is budgeted. Its surprisingly hard to find a hard source for this stuff.
They aren't budgeted - they are above the budget. They show up in the deficit for the next year though, if I am reading 0mar's links correctly.
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On September 21 2012 06:23 ZeaL. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 06:18 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 21 2012 05:40 ZeaL. wrote:I thought it was a relatively widely known fact that the two wars were not part of the normal budget while Bush was in office. Article from none other than the heritage foundation back in '08 on why Iraq and Afghanistan spending should no longer be allocated as emergency funding: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/09/time-to-move-iraq-and-afghanistan-funding-into-the-regular-budget-processObama from 2009: Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/Edit: To make it clear, emergency appropriations are not part of the budget and therefore do not count towards the budget deficit. It is used quite frequently for the initial phases of a war when unexpected events can occur but is usually moved to the normal budget after things have "stabilized", at least in terms of spending. For the entirety of Bush's time in office, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were paid through emergency appropriations and thus do not appear on Congress' budget for those years. If I go to http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ it tells me that the deficit in 2007 was $160B. Is that correct or is it not including the emergency spending? Yeah I realized that I wasn't looking at the right data and I'm trying to figure out exactly how emergency spending is budgeted. Its surprisingly hard to find a hard source for this stuff.
I think it is in the whitehouse numbers someone else linked to. It shows on and off budget deficits separately. My guess is that the emergency spending is in the off budget numbers along with other off budget items like SS surpluses.
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On September 21 2012 04:11 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2012 03:56 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:41 ziggurat wrote:On September 21 2012 03:29 madsweepslol wrote:On September 21 2012 03:17 ziggurat wrote:
I have seen a few clips of Obama's appearance on Letterman and I was a bit surprised by some of the inaccurate statements he made.
1. He claimed that he had never called his political opponents "unpatriotic" which of course anyone who was alive in 2008 knows isn't true
2. He claimed that he "inherited" a trillion dollar deficit, but the trillion dollar deficit only came in FY 2009
3. He claimed that he couldn't remember how much the national debt was (?!?)
When politicians say things that aren't true I usually want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Obama was trying to say that he had never called Romney unpatriotic? Maybe by "inherited a trillion dollar deficit" he meant that he inherited a bad economy such that he had no choice but to pass incredibly costly programs?
But how is it even possible that he doesn't know how much the debt is? Did he get nervous and freeze up? Maybe he was just stunned that Letterman was asking him moderately challenging questions? Or did he just not want to say "sixteen trillion" on the air? But seriously, how can the president not know the national debt when the size of the debt has been one of the biggest issues in the campaign?
So assuming that Obama wasn't "lying" when he made these comments -- can anyone offer any defence for these statements? 1. Did he call anyone other than Bush unpatriotic? If not, then I think he's just being lawyerly, since technically Bush wasn't a political opponent, even though that's basically who he ran against. 2. Obama was inaugurated during FY '09, when Bush/110th Congress policies were still in place, so yeah, that's inheriting it. 3. Either incompetence or, as you said, not wanting to say the number on air, i.e. playing politics. The elections were held in Nov of 2008. Obama won, and the democrats achieved strong majorities in the house and the senate as well. Then in January 2009 Obama was inaugurated. Shortly afterwards they passed the $800 billion stimulus bill. Then, at the end of FY 2009, there was a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit (compared to less than 5 hundred billion in FY 2008). So I don't really understand your point in #2. The U.S. government is like a big ship in that it takes minute to alter course. So what I mean in point #2 is: Obama took office a full third into FY '09, which means most financial legislation in effect that year was passed before he was sworn in. Further, way to ignore the $700 billion bailout signed by Bush on the third day of FY '09. I think this is misleading, because although Bush authorized $700 billion, it wasn't all spent. Only $475 billion was actually spent, and that happened over several years. You do make a fair point that Bush started policies that contributed to the debt. But here's what I think is important. Obama had no obligation to follow through on those policies. His party controlled all 3 houses of government. He could have repealed Bush's excessively expensive policies. He did not. In fact, he accellerated those policies with even more unaffordable spending. Obama has continued to run trillion+ dollar deficits since he's been in power. So for him to say that he was stuck with Bush's policies is false -- he actually endorsed and expanded Bush's already-profligate spending plans. So here we are four years later, and debt and the economy are still George Bush's fault.
Yes, the initial $700 billion was limited to $475 billion almost two years later, which I think supports my point. Emergency financial legislation passted in Oct. '08 still wasn't fully effected July '10. How was Obama to change the financial policies of the previous presidency and congress in only 8 months, and not only change those policies but effect those changes in only 8 months? They FY '09 mess is something he inherited, not created.
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EPT
