View Single Post
Old 06-26-2011, 04:39 AM   #21
scottw
Registered User
iTrader: (0)
 
scottw's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 12,632
Quote:
Originally Posted by justplugit View Post
Speculation.

My original question still hasn't been answered.
speculation wrapped with absurdities....of course you measure the "stimulus" program by it's total cost, particularly when it was so ineffective...saved some union jobs, created some government jobs, much of it will end up back in Obama's campaign fund...just a little sugar rush for the Obama loyalist...and their children will be paying for it all for quite some time and nothing to show for it economically..no recovery...no reinvestment...just a really bad Act


CBO: Stimulus almost doubled U.S. debt
By: Conn Carroll | Senior Editorial Writer Washington Examiner Follow Him @conncarroll | 06/22/11 11:27 AM

. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that President Obama’s economic stimulus program helped nearly double U.S. debt.

The 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook, released Wednesday morning, reports that the “the combination of automatic budgetary responses” and Obama’s stimulus “had a profound impact on the federal budget.” According to CBO projections, before Obama’s stimulus became law, federal debt equaled 36 percent of GDP and was projected to decline slightly over the next few years. Instead, thanks in large part to the stimulus, debt reached 62 percent of GDP by 2010.

Other lowlights from the report include:

•Debt will reach 70 percent of GDP by the end of this year – the highest percentage since World War II.
•Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will reach 15 percent of GDP by 2035 – spending on all government programs has averaged 18.5 percent over the past 40 years.
•Total government spending is set to hit 27 percent of GDP by 2035.
•Taxes are set to grow from 19 percent of GDP in 2013, to 23 percent by 2035.
•Americans “at various points on the income scale would pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than people at the same points do today.”
•The effective marginal tax rate on labor income would rise from about 25 percent now to about 35 percent in 2035.

.............................................
Spence can continue to try to make excuses for this president, it appears to be his forte...but this guy is a COMPLETE disaster

"This repeated failure has nothing to do with the pace or type of spending. Rather, the problem is found in the oft-repeated Keynesian myth that deficit spending “injects new dollars into the economy,” thereby increasing demand and spurring economic growth. According to this theory, government spending adds money to the economy, taxes remove money, and the budget deficit represents net new dollars injected. Therefore, it scarcely matters how the dollars are spent. John Maynard Keynes famously asserted that a government program paying people to dig and then refill ditches(SHOVEL READY JOBS) would provide new income for those workers to spend and circulate through the economy, creating even more jobs and income. Today, lawmakers cling to estimates by Mark Zandi of Economy.com that on average, $1 in new deficit spending expands the economy by roughly $1.50.

If that were true, the record $1.6 trillion in deficit spending over the past fiscal year would have already overheated the economy. Yet despite this spending, which is equal to fully 9 percent of GDP, the economy is expected to shrink by at least 3 percent this fiscal year. If the spending constitutes an injection of “new money” into the economy, we may conclude that, without it, the economy would contract 12 percent — hardly a plausible claim.

If $1.6 trillion in deficit spending failed to slow the economy’s slide, there’s no reason to believe that adding $185 billion — the 2009 portion of the stimulus bill — will suddenly do the trick. But if budget deficits of nearly $2 trillion are insufficient stimulus, how much would be enough? $3 trillion? $4 trillion?

This is no longer a theoretical exercise. The idea that increased deficit spending can cure recessions has been tested, and it has failed. If growing the economy were as simple as expanding government spending and deficits, then Italy, France, and Germany would be the global economic kings. And there would be no reason to stop at $787 billion: Congress could guarantee unlimited prosperity by endlessly borrowing and spending trillions of dollars."

Last edited by scottw; 06-26-2011 at 06:13 AM..
scottw is offline