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U.S. economy bounces back sharply

I don't disagree that we are spending too much, but the fact that the rate of increase of spending under Obama are smaller...

Right there! That's where you make the fatal error. When you are increasing the deficit by a $Trillion a year, the rate should have dropped a tremendous amount to just get back into a tolerable area. So, you are giving him credit for increasing the deficit by a $Trillion, year after year. When it should have dropped like a rock. It's all relative.
 
First, it's rate of increase, not actual spending. Bloated, disgusting, spending. You would think Obama is really putting on the brakes, and keeping spending down. But no. Prior to Obama, the biggest deficits were around $400 billion, Odummy has been deficit spending over $1TRILLION per year.
Let's keep in mind that it was Bush who took the Clinton surplus, and turned it into massive deficits.

It's also not all "bloated disgusting spending." Huge swaths of the Obama deficits were a result of Bush tax cuts. We should note that a lot of that "bloated disgusting spending" were also Bush policies, most importantly waging two wars. Government receipts also tanked because of the recession.

FederalDeficitChart_BushTaxCutsWar_052511.jpg


cbpp_bush_tax_cuts_deficit.jpg



And jobs? We don't want government jobs. We want private sector jobs. Government jobs suck for the economy, literally. The government makes no money, it sucks money out of our pockets.
Government jobs generally do not harm the economy. What they do is put people to work. Some of that income is recaptured as taxes (income, payroll, sales). Most of it gets spent, which goes right back into the economy. Some programs like unemployment will have a higher multiplier rate (since it almost all gets spent), but government employees are not a drag.

We should note that this has helped, time and again, to combat recessions. Ideally you want to hire people to perform useful short-term tasks, such as fixing infrastructure. That in particular would have been perfect for the 2007 recession, since so much of the unemployment was in the construction sector, interest rates were ridiculously low, and those programs necessarily phase out after completion in a few years.

What did we get instead? A bunch of tax breaks, and a stimulus that erred on the small side. I.e. Public sector jobs declined during Obama's term.

publicmar2014.jpg
 
Right there! That's where you make the fatal error. When you are increasing the deficit by a $Trillion a year, the rate should have dropped a tremendous amount to just get back into a tolerable area. So, you are giving him credit for increasing the deficit by a $Trillion, year after year. When it should have dropped like a rock. It's all relative.

The deficit has been trending downward. Last years deficit was just over a half trillion, I believe that this years deficit is projected to be less than a half billion (right around where the 2008 Bush deficit was). Yes, that's too high, but we are trending in the correct direction, and as long as we continue to recover from the recession, the deficit will likely continue to trend downward - least until the end of the Obama administration.

After that, it's really going to depend on President Hillary and the republican held congress as to what happens. If history is the best predictor of the future, I'd imagine that spending will be very restrained if our next POTUS is a democrat as long as republicans remain in control of at least one house of congress.

In 2009-2010 tax revenues significantly declined due to the Great Recession, so the huge deficits those years was caused much more by a lack of revenue than an increase in spending. That would have happened regardless of who the president was.

Regardless, congress controls our fiscal policy much more so than the president does. It's up to them. All the POTUS can do is to sign or veto spending legislation.
 
Let's keep in mind that it was Bush who took the Clinton surplus, and turned it into massive deficits.
It was really the Republican Congress and Reagan that are responsible for the boom in the '90's. Clinton was dragged along. He did manage to get a tax increase in there to put the brakes on the economy though.
It's also not all "bloated disgusting spending." Huge swaths of the Obama deficits were a result of Bush tax cuts. We should note that a lot of that "bloated disgusting spending" were also Bush policies, most importantly waging two wars. Government receipts also tanked because of the recession.

Tax cuts, do not cause deficits. You can't say you are out of money because you didn't take enough of mine. Over spending causes deficits. Bloated, disgusting spending of epic proportions. Bush spent too much, but Obama made that look like nothing.
 
Tax cuts, do not cause deficits. You can't say you are out of money because you didn't take enough of mine. Over spending causes deficits. Bloated, disgusting spending of epic proportions. Bush spent too much, but Obama made that look like nothing.

Actually it can, it can be part of the problem. For example the Conservatives cut the federal sales tax here, if they did not even the last 1%, they would have far more cash to budget and would not have had to make cuts that piss off literally everyone including the provinces and their own voting block.
 
August is always that miracle month when magic happens just before elections.

There will be additional revisions even after August. Moreover, the advance estimate of Q3 GDP will be released on October 30 just prior to the election.
 
CNN reported:

New data released Wednesday show the U.S. economy bounced back in the spring, growing at a 4% annual pace in the second quarter. That was even better than the forecast of 3% growth, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by CNNMoney.

After terrible start to the year, the U.S. economy bounces back - Jul. 30, 2014

The full GDP report can be found at: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2014/pdf/gdp2q14_adv.pdf

Yeah right. Perhaps in la-la land but not in reality. This economy is stagnant at best.
 
The deficit has been trending downward. Last years deficit was just over a half trillion, I believe that this years deficit is projected to be less than a half billion (right around where the 2008 Bush deficit was).
All of Obama's deficits are record high deficits. Down a bit up a bit, who cares? All records. If you get a raise of a penny every year, that would not be to good. I'm guessing you would not say,"Hey, at least it's trending upward!"

Yes, that's too high, but we are trending in the correct direction, and as long as we continue to recover from the recession, the deficit will likely continue to trend downward - least until the end of the Obama administration.

After that, it's really going to depend on President Hillary
When did she get elected? As I remember, she was a shoe in for the 2008 election.
Regardless, congress controls our fiscal policy much more so than the president does. It's up to them. All the POTUS can do is to sign or veto spending legislation.
That's all the President does with regard to spending? Do you still believe in Santa? he's a bit more involved than that.
 
Yeah right. Perhaps in la-la land but not in reality. This economy is stagnant at best.

I suspect that the U.S. remains in a modest to occasionally moderate growth phase. I would be surprised if Q3's results are as strong or stronger than the advance Q2 outcome. There are some emerging downside risks going forward, as well.
 
And who do you think can do that?

Any GOP Governor who has created the jobs that Obama is taking credit for. A pro growth economic policy is what is needed, not massive dependence
 
Let's keep in mind that it was Bush who took the Clinton surplus, and turned it into massive deficits.

It's also not all "bloated disgusting spending." Huge swaths of the Obama deficits were a result of Bush tax cuts. We should note that a lot of that "bloated disgusting spending" were also Bush policies, most importantly waging two wars. Government receipts also tanked because of the recession.

FederalDeficitChart_BushTaxCutsWar_052511.jpg


cbpp_bush_tax_cuts_deficit.jpg




Government jobs generally do not harm the economy. What they do is put people to work. Some of that income is recaptured as taxes (income, payroll, sales). Most of it gets spent, which goes right back into the economy. Some programs like unemployment will have a higher multiplier rate (since it almost all gets spent), but government employees are not a drag.

We should note that this has helped, time and again, to combat recessions. Ideally you want to hire people to perform useful short-term tasks, such as fixing infrastructure. That in particular would have been perfect for the 2007 recession, since so much of the unemployment was in the construction sector, interest rates were ridiculously low, and those programs necessarily phase out after completion in a few years.

What did we get instead? A bunch of tax breaks, and a stimulus that erred on the small side. I.e. Public sector jobs declined during Obama's term.

publicmar2014.jpg

I don't know how you can look anyone in the idea with these bs charts you post. You have no idea how many jobs would have been created without the tax cuts and there is no credible economist who calls tax cuts an expense to the govt. especially when govt. revenue went up so much. You people pick and choose what you want to believe and if you believe keeping more of what you earn is an expense and that the govt. needs the money more than you do, then send it all to the govt. and have them send you what they think you need.

I am getting rather tired of trying to promote policies that allow you to keep more of what you earn when you don't appreciate it.
 
Yeah right. Perhaps in la-la land but not in reality. This economy is stagnant at best.


One would think that with 4% GDP growth we would have more than 205,000 jobs created thus the disconnect and reality.
 
Any GOP Governor who has created the jobs that Obama is taking credit for. A pro growth economic policy is what is needed, not massive dependence

Not buyin it. Most of the red states have not done a lot of job creation.
 
It was really the Republican Congress and Reagan that are responsible for the boom in the '90's. Clinton was dragged along. He did manage to get a tax increase in there to put the brakes on the economy though.

Yet is was only AFTER that tax increase that we had a balanced budget (more or less). Bush then came along, cut taxes, spent like a drunken sailor, and set new deficit records, which Obama inherited.

Tax cuts, do not cause deficits.

They do if you spend more. Which both Reagan and Bush did.

...Over spending causes deficits...Bush spent too much, but Obama made that look like nothing.
Bush absolutely did spend too much. Obama continued that trend. Would it have been wise to CUT spending when our economy is in the crapper? The time for cutting government spending is when our private sector economy is booming. Bush cut taxes and then increased spending.

Does that even make any sense to you?

Reagan did exactly the same. Does that make any sense? Do you have any clue how much Bush and Reagan ran up our federal deficits? And you want to blame Obama for that?

What do you think would have happened to our already on the brink of collapse economy if Obama would have came into office and then started slashing government spending? You don't realize how many jobs, public sector and private sector would have been lost? Was the deepest darkest part of the worst recession since the Great Depression the proper time to put people out of work? Do you really believe that?

Now let's say that your dream conservative candidate would have been elected instead of Obama. Do you think that he would have put another 10% of our economy out of work by slashing government spending? That he would have slashed social security spending? That he would have slashed our military? that he would have eliminated unemployment benefits?

So why would we want to vote another republican into the presidency? If the deficit is our number one issue, history has proven that the deficit will only get worse with a republican potus.
 
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One would think that with 4% GDP growth we would have more than 205,000 jobs created thus the disconnect and reality.

We had three months of job creation, not just one.

Of course with increasing technology and the efficiency that is created, it's possible to have GDP growth with no job creation, although I wouldn't expect that to happen instantly.
 
We had three months of job creation, not just one.

Of course with increasing technology and the efficiency that is created, it's possible to have GDP growth with no job creation, although I wouldn't expect that to happen instantly.

It has taken 7 years to get back to the 2007 numbers. You have such low expectations. Why is that?
 
It has taken 7 years to get back to the 2007 numbers. You have such low expectations. Why is that?

Bush set the bar pretty low.


But I guess I am to blame, I voted for him.

By the way, Obama didn't even take office until 2009, so two of those 7 years were on Bush.

In a couple of more years, even at the poor rate our economy is growing, we should have an unemployment rate of less than 5%, and the budget deficit should be close to nothing. That's a heck of a lot better than the way that Bush left the economy. It took Bush 8 years to wreak our economy and to take the balanced budget that he inherited to over a trillion dollar deficit, I don't see why anyone would expect Obama to be able to cure that in a day, or even in a year.

I guess I'd just prefer not to go back to the the economic devastation of the Bush years.
 
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Bush set the bar pretty low.


But I guess I am to blame, I voted for him.

By the way, Obama didn't even take office until 2009, so two of those 7 years were on Bush.

In a couple of more years, even at the poor rate our economy is growing, we should have an unemployment rate of less than 5%, and the budget deficit should be close to nothing. That's a heck of a lot better than the way that Bush left the economy. It took Bush 8 years to wreak our economy and to take the balanced budget that he inherited to over a trillion dollar deficit, I don't see why anyone would expect Obama to be able to cure that in a day, or even in a year.

I guess I'd just prefer not to go back to the the economic devastation of the Bush years.

Prior to the Democrats taking control of Congress the numbers were pretty darn good. You really don't understand civics do you?
 
Prior to the Democrats taking control of Congress the numbers were pretty darn good. You really don't understand civics do you?

No, I don't understand civics, I never took that class. But I do understand that part of the the nature of partisan politics is finding a reason to blame the other team.

I just looked it up, both houses of congress were controlled by republicans until 2007. The budget that Bush inherited from Clinton was a $127 billion dollar surplus. That surplus had disappeared by the next year, and Bush ran the surplus up to over a half billion adjusted to today's dollars (a little more than last years deficit and quite a bit more than this years projected deficit) by 2005. That was with fewer American citizens and social security operating at a budget surplus.

If Bush's budget performance was acceptable (although I don't believe that it was), then Obama's budget performance is even better. Bush spent 8 years running up the deficit, Obama has spent the last four or five reducing it.

What really scares the beejeebies out of republican strategist is the possibility that Obama may end his presidency with close to a balanced budget, unemployment under 5%, inflation under 2%, a record stock market valuation, more people with health insurance and an end to skyrocketing medical care costs, and a growing work force participation rate. Sounds ridiculous to right wing idiologs, but the numbers seem to be trending in that direction in all areas.

If that happened, that would mark the end of the republican party being able to be elected anywhere in the country. We'd all become democrats.
 
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There will be additional revisions even after August. Moreover, the advance estimate of Q3 GDP will be released on October 30 just prior to the election.

Of course it will, and it will be glorious.
 
No, I don't understand civics, I never took that class. But I do understand that part of the the nature of partisan politics is finding a reason to blame the other team.

I just looked it up, both houses of congress were controlled by republicans until 2007. The budget that Bush inherited from Clinton was a $127 billion dollar surplus. That surplus had disappeared by the next year, and Bush ran the surplus up to over a half billion adjusted to today's dollars (a little more than last years deficit and quite a bit more than this years projected deficit) by 2005. That was with fewer American citizens and social security operating at a budget surplus.

If Bush's budget performance was acceptable (although I don't believe that it was), then Obama's budget performance is even better. Bush spent 8 years running up the deficit, Obama has spent the last four or five reducing it.

What really scares the beejeebies out of republican strategist is the possibility that Obama may end his presidency with close to a balanced budget, unemployment under 5%, inflation under 2%, a record stock market valuation, more people with health insurance and an end to skyrocketing medical care costs, and a growing work force participation rate. Sounds ridiculous to right wing idiologs, but the numbers seem to be trending in that direction in all areas.

If that happened, that would mark the end of the republican party being able to be elected anywhere in the country. We'd all become democrats.

What you want to ignore is the 1 trillion dollar cost of 9/11 as well as the GDP growth of 4.5 trillion dollars prior to the Democrats taking control of Congress and the 9 million plus jobs created, now what happened in November 2006? Anything that you van think of?

Obama will not end with a balanced budget because he doesn't care about the balanced budget or he wouldn't have submitted a 3.9 trillion dollar budget request. Stop buying the leftwing spin, you are too smart for this. You don't seem to understand that not one of Obama's budget deficits ever were as low as Bush's. You buy the bs that he cut the deficit in half ignoring that what he cut in half was 1.4 trillion dollars. Think, please.
 
Yet is was only AFTER that tax increase that we had a balanced budget (more or less). Bush then came along, cut taxes, spent like a drunken sailor, and set new deficit records, which Obama inherited.
Oh, what a great tax increase that was! It didn't do crap except kill the economy. Or are you going to explain how we tax our way to prosperity? Please do.
Obama did not inherit deficits, he was under no obligation to turn the one time stimulus and TARP into a yearly $Trillion dollar hole, but he did, because he's a liberal Marxist.
Yes, cut taxes to get the economy going. Are you saying we needed tax increases to get the economy going?

Bush absolutely did spend too much. Obama continued that trend.
No, he didn't continue it, he turbo charged it.
Would it have been wise to CUT spending when our economy is in the crapper? The time for cutting government spending is when our private sector economy is booming. Bush cut taxes and then increased spending.
Yep.
Does that even make any sense to you?

Reagan did exactly the same. Does that make any sense? Do you have any clue how much Bush and Reagan ran up our federal deficits? And you want to blame Obama for that?
You obviously have no clue what Reagan did. Let me bring you up to speed. Reagan inherited a much worse situation than Obama did. Prime rate was 21.5% in 1980. Look at that number. 21.5% Prime rate. That's the rate for the best borrowers. Unemployment a 10.8%. Inflation at 13.5%. See those numbers? Yeah, that's what Reagan Walked into. Thanks, Jimmy!
Reagan cut taxes. Reagan cut the size of government. In constant dollars, nondefense discretionary spending declined by 14.4% from 1981 to 1982, and by 16.8% from 1981 to 1983. The Reagan recovery lasted seven years, the economy grew by one third. 20 million new jobs created. This Reagan created boom lasted 25 years.

The worst part is, Obama, the moron, had this template he could have used on a sick economy. But no, he does the opposite. Raise taxes, more government regulation, more government spending. In short, a disaster of a presidency, when he had the information to do better. That's why he sucks and is a total jerk.
 
The trend of the economy continues to push higher. The Bureau of Economic Analysis just released its first revision of second quarter GDP, now revised up to 4.2%. How many people will continue to deny the growing strength of the U.S. economy?

Isn't the private sector economy great? Too bad it took this long to get back to some economic growth. We would have been there much sooner with strong leadership instead of no leadership. The private sector has the incentive to grow and will eventually do so. Obama will seize this opportunity to raise taxes and create environmental regulations that will stifle economic growth. Too bad you still don't get it
 
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