Obama slammed for spending

Link

Obama has spent more than any other president in his first year. The fact that this includes the $787 billion stimulus is apparently just an insignificant detail.

Obama supported the stimulus, helped sell it, and signed it. Hard to argue that he didn't think it was a good idea, or somehow it wouldn't have happened if he had been President at the time it was introduced. He had his chance to say no and didn't.

Aetius wrote:

Obama supported the stimulus, helped sell it, and signed it. Hard to argue that he didn't think it was a good idea, or somehow it wouldn't have happened if he had been President at the time it was introduced. He had his chance to say no and didn't.

I'm not crazy about the stimulus but my point was more that McCain or Bush would have done something very similar, if not identical. As much as the entire idea of a taxpayer-funded bail out of predatory banks offends my sense of justice, it seems to have helped. So if something was inevitable and/or the "right" thing to do, it seems unfair to attack Obama over it. It'd be kind of like slamming him for spending so much money on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Well, whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing, it's almost impossible to argue that the stimulus isn't his spending.

I'm not crazy about the stimulus but my point was more that McCain or Bush would have done something very similar, if not identical.

And then it would be their spending.

As much as the entire idea of a taxpayer-funded bail out of predatory banks offends my sense of justice, it seems to have helped. So if something was inevitable and/or the "right" thing to do, it seems unfair to attack Obama over it.

Inevitability has nothing to do with responsibility. And it wasn't inevitable - he could have vetoed it.

It'd be kind of like slamming him for spending so much money on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Which he is also responsible for.

I'm not saying it's not his spending, Aetius. Geez. All I'm saying is it's an attack article based on something that isn't entirely his fault. Or wait, maybe it's not an attack article, maybe we're supposed to think it's a good thing he's spent so much during a recession?

You're right that he could have vetoed it, but then my link would lead to an article about how he failed the American people by doing nothing to slow or stop a giant recession.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I'm not saying it's not his spending, Aetius. Geez. All I'm saying is it's an attack article based on something that isn't entirely his fault. Or wait, maybe it's not an attack article, maybe we're supposed to think it's a good thing he's spent so much during a recession?

So...you posted a Fox News article and then proclaimed that it was biased? Stop the presses!

I do think Aetius has a point that Obama needs to own the stimulus as his idea, and hope that the American people decide that it was a positive endeavor.

Aetius is correct that it's entirely his fault; he could have chosen not to spend that money.

What they're not showing you in those graphs is the other side of that line. The economy was trying to rid itself of stupid, wasteful sh*t. Those graphs are showing that we're going to be doing even stupider sh*t than we otherwise would have. It's nothing to be proud of.

LobsterMobster wrote:

You're right that he could have vetoed it, but then my link would lead to an article about how he failed the American people by doing nothing to slow or stop a giant recession.

To avoid situations like this, it's a good idea not to run for President of the United States.

Aetius wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

You're right that he could have vetoed it, but then my link would lead to an article about how he failed the American people by doing nothing to slow or stop a giant recession.

To avoid situations like this, it's a good idea not to run for President of the United States. :)

It's a solid plan, and I endorse it.

But it is a 4 year marathon. If he ever hopes to trump FDR, Bush, and Regan he needs to pace himself better.

I would also like to interject, seriously, much of this "spending" is congressionally approved bankroll. Much of the "stimulus" remains in reserve to be used at a future date.

Well, technically Congress does the spending.

But I think this is due to a belief in Keynesian economics. I'm not knowledgeable about economics, but my understanding is that part of it's basis is the idea that when the private sector can't do the spending, it's up to the public sector to pick up the slack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesi...

Unless I misread the Fox article, this is actually talking about ~9 months of Obama and ~3 months of Bush, so part of the 3.5 trillion is actually bailout money that Bush initiated . . . right? So, while Obama is likely to still spend more money than any other President in his first year, as it stand right now that 3.5 trillion number is partially Bush's, which includes 700 billion in bailout funds.

Just seems like they're jumping the gun a bit and waiving that 3.5 trillion number a bit much . . . right now.

And nothing even vaguely compares to Bush's Medicare drug program, which singlehandedly doubled the real Federal debt. All by himself, Bush spent more than all the Presidents that came before him, combined. And then the nationalization of AIG and the bailouts added at least another ten trillion to the public debt. We just can't see it yet.

Malor wrote:

And nothing even vaguely compares to Bush's Medicare drug program, which singlehandedly doubled the real Federal debt. All by himself, Bush spent more than all the Presidents that came before him, combined. And then the nationalization of AIG and the bailouts added at least another ten trillion to the public debt. We just can't see it yet.

And Obama quadrupled it after that. Obama has the same honor of spending more than all other presidents before him combined, and that includes Bush's spending.

As for the charts.... We borrowed and printed TONS of money and infused it into the system. Naturally, the GDP will go up as result. What they fail to show is the lasting effects it will have on us. Hey, everything must be great outside because we just painted rainbows and flowers over our windows.

And Obama quadrupled it after that.

Nothing Obama has done yet is even in the same ballpark, to my best knowledge. From what I can see, his total damage so far is about a trillion dollars, where Bush was pushing forty trillion.

If that healthcare bill passes, that equation could change dramatically, but it hasn't passed yet, so we don't know what will actually be in it.

Not sure where you get 40 trillion. The article says 16.8 trillion between 2001-2008. 209 amounts to 3.52 trillion, so I'm not sure where you get only 1 trillion.

Well, the Medicare drug plan will end up costing us the equivalent of 24 trillion in today's dollars, over time. The nationalization of AIG, FNM, and FRE, as well as the bank bailouts, carry probable losses of around ten trillion. The two wars are about a trillion so far. With the long-term liabilities of damaged soldiers and continued regime maintenance, doubling that base cost probably isn't too far off the mark. So call it 36 trillion dollars in new liabilities that were issued under Bush's leadership; I'm not including the routine budgets, because Congress is theoretically in charge of those. I'm blaming Bush for his new spending initiatives, rather than maintenance on old items.

The linked article is horribly partisan; if you actually look at "new things Obama has done that cost more money than what we were doing before", aka new initiatives, all I'm aware of offhand is that second stimulus package. The lion's share of the money that they're blaming Obama for was, in fact, spent by Bush.

Remember, Fox News will smile at you and lie through their teeth. This article alone should put you off that channel forever... including Bush's bailouts in the scorecard against Obama is reprehensible.

Here's what ticks me off. Obama really needs to be the most fiscally responsible president in our history if we're to have a chance of avoiding becoming Weimar Republic 2.0. But no, he's spending $700K for each job "created," much of it going to non-existent precincts. If that's not massive fraud, waste and abuse I don't know what is.

It's as if America is a family that ran up a $100,000 in credit card debt over the past 8 years. Instead of trying to pay down the debt or at the very least only spend money on things that will have lasting value, dad decides to take the ole family on a "morale" vacation to the Bahamas.

And don't get me started on the Obama family's jet-setting lifestyle. I fumed at the amount of days Bush spent goofing off at the ranch, but Obama's multi-million dollar celebrity bashes are just as bad.

I wonder how much every politician in Washington D.C. spends on lunch. Republican, Democrat...who cares. They are politicians and they do what they will for reasons most of us are too busy fighting about to ever understand. One thing I do understand is that I should be a politician!

Trillion doesn't even seem like a real number. A number that big is almost imaginary, I could probably live 100 lives on that much money, even spending it like I was MC Hammer.

Asssuming you lived to be 80 years old, you'd have to spend about 3.4 million dollars a day to get rid of it. 140,000 dollars an hour, 23,000 dollars a minute, 396 dollars a second.

I'm willing to try, in the name of science. Anyone got a spare trillion?

Rallick wrote:

I'm willing to try, in the name of science. Anyone got a spare trillion?

Take a check?

KingGorilla wrote:
Rallick wrote:

I'm willing to try, in the name of science. Anyone got a spare trillion?

Take a check?

No thanks, if I want to see something bounce I'll throw my housemate down the stairs. :-p

Brewster's Trillions?

Axon wrote:

Brewster's Trillions?

How much is that in hookers and blow?

All of them.

Malor wrote:

All of them.

*Slow clap*

jdzappa wrote:

It's as if America is a family that ran up a $100,000 in credit card debt over the past 8 years. Instead of trying to pay down the debt or at the very least only spend money on things that will have lasting value, dad decides to take the ole family on a "morale" vacation to the Bahamas.

Yep, this is basically the problem. We should have skipped the 'stimulus' and just invested in infrastructure. At least that way, we'd have something to show for all of the money afterward.

Kraint wrote:

Yep, this is basically the problem. We should have skipped the 'stimulus' and just invested in infrastructure. At least that way, we'd have something to show for all of the money afterward.

A great idea I would think.

But make no mistake: that course would have been incredibly painful. The economy is hooked on massive debt issuance, both by private parties and the government, and we've been doing it for so long that a very large fraction of the system has oriented itself around the false demand. A LARGE part of the economy would have outright failed if we hadn't intervened. It would have felt absolutely catastrophic, and that's what scared the politicians into acting.

But just like with a drug addict, prescribing more of the original drug is not a cure; it only worsens the original disease. All those sections of the economy that are oriented around the false demand are wasted wealth. The economy has been doing extremely stupid things for about the last dozen years, and we've just deployed more money than we spent on all our wars combined to keep it doing stupid things. Our intervention was the biggest in human history, and it was explicitly to not change anything.

Just remember that when you make these arguments, you are in essence arguing for a Second Great Depression.... and that that would have been the best possible outcome. What's going to happen instead will be even worse, just slower.

I'm repeating this because I'm not sure most folks realize just how catastrophic, and just how necessary, that outcome would have been.