U.S. deficit estimated at $250 billion

[techs]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...n_go_co/budget_deficit

U.S. deficit estimated at $250 billion

The deficit for the current budget year will jump to about $250 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday, citing the weakening economy. And that figure does not reflect at least $100 billion in red ink from an economic stimulus measure in the works.

"After three years of declining budget deficits, a slowing economy this year will contribute to an increase in the deficit," the CBO report said.

The figure greatly exceeds the $163 billion in red ink registered last year. Adding likely but still unapproved outlays for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brings its "baseline" deficit estimate of $219 billion to about $250 billion, the nonpartisan CBO said.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said the 2008 deficit would reach more than $350 billion once the costs of an upcoming economic stimulus measure under negotiation between the Bush administration and Congress are factored in.

The CBO crunches economic and budget data for lawmakers.


Once again I say, thanks Bush.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: techs
Once again I say, thanks Bush.

Thanks Bush, for not vetoing Congress?s budgets. That?s the only power he has in this, and yet you say nothing of its architects and the hundreds of people in Congress that are behind it.

Personally, I?m going to thank you Techs. You and other socialists and ensuring that government shall never again be shrunk peacefully. The current budget crisis stems from that, due to Republican failures to hold power over your ideals of spend spend spend.

 

[Mavtek3100]

$350 billion isn't that bad if we can keep it that low, the problem is it's only January

 

[bamacre]

This is the real problem, and both parties are to blame...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=52&threadid=2140534

And, techs, you can thank the Dem's for continuing to finance this insane, illegal, expensive, and deadly war in Iraq.

 

[Queasy]

The Dem controlled Congress is porking out by unconstitutionally "airdropping" in over 8,000 pork projects into the current Omnibus Spending Bill. These projects together run over $15billion. Nobody apparently has any problem with this.

I'm always amazed how the American people have gone from being spending hawks to blithely ignoring the absurd amount of useless spending, corruption, and waste that goes on in the government.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Queasy
The Dem controlled Congress is porking out by unconstitutionally "airdropping" in over 8,000 pork projects into the current Omnibus Spending Bill. These projects together run over $15billion. Nobody apparently has any problem with this.

I'm always amazed how the American people have gone from being spending hawks to blithely ignoring the absurd amount of useless spending, corruption, and waste that goes on in the government.

And it's not just the Britney Spears, FoxNews and CNN-watching Americans. Even here at P&N we have morons who think we can have "free" health care, and others who think we can continue to finance a world-policeman roll for our military.

It is too late to put our government on a diet, we need serious liposuction. We have to drastically cut government spending and the size of our government. And soon. The fiscal problems facing this country will not go away. Ignoring them is loony.

 

[Lemon law]

The 250 billion deficit figure does not include a heck of a lot more than this as of yet unrealized
$150 billion stimulus package.

Do de math--GWB&co has been in office for seven years. Subtract one years because they inherited a basically balanced Clinton Budget. Then take 3.2 trillion added to the national debt. Where I come from, thats an average of more than 500 billion a year in deficits.

But each and every year GWB claims his shortfall is far less than 500 Billion. Somehow that just does not compute. Because regardless what semantics on this item is really off Budget gets used, the off budget item still counts the same as on budget items when it comes time to count the Federal deficit.

So simple logic tells us, someone is speaking with forked tongue anytime they say our yearly deficit under GWB was only 250 billion.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The 250 billion deficit figure does not include a heck of a lot more than this as of yet unrealized
$150 billion stimulus package.

Do de math--GWB&co has been in office for seven years. Subtract one years because they inherited a basically balanced Clinton Budget. Then take 3.2 trillion added to the national debt. Where I come from, thats an average of more than 500 billion a year in deficits.

But each and every year GWB claims his shortfall is far less than 500 Billion. Somehow that just does not compute. Because regardless what semantics on this item is really off Budget gets used, the off budget item still counts the same as on budget items when it comes time to count the Federal deficit.

So simple logic tells us, someone is speaking with forked tongue anytime they say our yearly deficit under GWB was only 250 billion.

Once again, I hear NOTHING on the role anyone else had in this. Fascinating, as if GWB is a unique little spending vacuum with the power to suck up all the cash by himself. He is to blame as well, and I despise him for it, but the true lies and deceit here are to let everyone else off. To wrongly shift attention from the entire city of Washington DC to the narrow focus of a single man.

This perversion in your focus is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Your grand ideals of FURTHER entitlements and FURTHER spending are also part of the problem, but I digress. It certainly is hilarious to watch liberals attack spending, and to only focus on a Republican President as if he was the only spender in an entire town of spenders.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: techs
Once again I say, thanks Bush.

Thanks Bush, for not vetoing Congress?s budgets. That?s the only power he has in this, and yet you say nothing of its architects and the hundreds of people in Congress that are behind it.

Personally, I?m going to thank you Techs. You and other socialists and ensuring that government shall never again be shrunk peacefully. The current budget crisis stems from that, due to Republican failures to hold power over your ideals of spend spend spend.

Yes, because the government shrunk SO MUCH since Bush got elected. You're blaming Congress, yet we had huge deficits while the Congress (specifically socialists) was held solidly by Republicans, too.

You're a moron.

 

[Lemon law]

Jackalas is somewhat right but also deceptive in mentioning---It certainly is hilarious to watch liberals attack spending, and to only focus on a Republican President as if he was the only spender in an entire town of spenders.

Sorry, the entire GOP gets no pass here during the years 2001-2007 inclusive. When we had a Republican President and a Republican Congress. Even if the Democrats were united in opposition, the GOP did and had enough to force everything through. Yet during that entire time, GWB vetoed only one bill and that regarded stem cell research.

But Jackalas is correct, it takes both an irresponsible President and an irresponsible congress
to really run up deficits. But in recent years, its more the President than congress because the President controls the biggest army of bureaucrats.

I would have to regard both Bill Clinton and GHB as basically fiscally responsible Presidents.
And sadly, image to the contrary, Ronald Reagan and GWB are the two most fiscally irresponsible Presidents in US history. Both greatly expanded the size of the Federal government and relied on spend and borrow fiscal policy.

 

[glugglug]

The $250 billion also doesn't include the money spent by the "President's Working Group On Financial Markets" (google it) to bail out (rig) the stock market yesterday. There is no way in hell that yesterday afternoon's rally was naturally occurring.

 

[GoPackGo]

They may as well shit can the whole idea of a stimulus package

Now they want to give money to those who pay no taxes, and so it would be $300 per person instead of $800

What the hell good is that going to do? Pay my damn heat bill for this month?

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The 250 billion deficit figure does not include a heck of a lot more than this as of yet unrealized
$150 billion stimulus package.

Do de math--GWB&co has been in office for seven years. Subtract one years because they inherited a basically balanced Clinton Budget. Then take 3.2 trillion added to the national debt. Where I come from, thats an average of more than 500 billion a year in deficits.

But each and every year GWB claims his shortfall is far less than 500 Billion. Somehow that just does not compute. Because regardless what semantics on this item is really off Budget gets used, the off budget item still counts the same as on budget items when it comes time to count the Federal deficit.

So simple logic tells us, someone is speaking with forked tongue anytime they say our yearly deficit under GWB was only 250 billion.

Once again, I hear NOTHING on the role anyone else had in this. Fascinating, as if GWB is a unique little spending vacuum with the power to suck up all the cash by himself. He is to blame as well, and I despise him for it, but the true lies and deceit here are to let everyone else off. To wrongly shift attention from the entire city of Washington DC to the narrow focus of a single man.

This perversion in your focus is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Your grand ideals of FURTHER entitlements and FURTHER spending are also part of the problem, but I digress. It certainly is hilarious to watch liberals attack spending, and to only focus on a Republican President as if he was the only spender in an entire town of spenders.

That's funny ... :laugh:

I think you will do anything to defend your hero. For over six years Commander Codpiece never once vetoed any of Congress?s pork-laden spending bills - packages that included thousands of Dumbya's own earmarks ...

... the 2008 spending bills signed by Mr. Bush include more than 11,700 earmarks, totaling $16.9 billion. By the White House count, the number was down 1,754 from 2005, and the amount of money was down $2.1 billion, or 11 percent.

Dumbya's earmarks in the 2008 budget totaled nearly 1,000 ...

Tell us, Jack-o, how do you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y ???

 

[piasabird]

I thought the total us defeceit was around a Trillion or more. This may be just the Annual Defeceit.

This is from the Article:

"The national debt has risen to $9.2 trillion. "

 

[StageLeft]

As LL mentioned, there's the fake deficit, and the real deficit which includes Iraq, and other. The reason blame falls heavily on dumbya is that he institgated a substantial part of the current run-away debt and also that through veto threats and for a long time having a republican congress, he continued to spend, spend, spend. This buys no forgiveness for the dems in the last 14 months, though. They are complicit.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: techs
Once again I say, thanks Bush.

Thanks Bush, for not vetoing Congress?s budgets. That?s the only power he has in this, and yet you say nothing of its architects and the hundreds of people in Congress that are behind it.

Personally, I?m going to thank you Techs. You and other socialists and ensuring that government shall never again be shrunk peacefully. The current budget crisis stems from that, due to Republican failures to hold power over your ideals of spend spend spend.

did you just blame tech for what a republican congress and republican president did?

 

[M0RPH]

You can thank warmonger Bush and his defense spending for much of this deficit:

How astonishing are the budgetary numbers? Consider the trajectory of U.S. defense spending over the past nearly two decades. From the end of the Cold War into the mid-1990s, defense spending actually fell significantly. In constant 1996 dollars, the Pentagon's budget dropped from a peacetime high of $376 billion, at the end of President Reagan's military buildup in 1989, to a low of $265 billion in 1996. (That compares with post-World War II wartime highs of $437 billion in 1953, during the Korean War, and $388 billion in 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War.) After the Soviet empire peacefully disintegrated, the 1990s decline wasn't exactly the hoped-for "peace dividend," but it wasn't peanuts either.

However, since Sept. 12, 2001, defense spending has simply exploded. For 2008, the Bush administration is requesting a staggering $650 billion, compared with the already staggering $400 billion the Pentagon collected in 2001. Even subtracting the costs of the ongoing "global war on terrorism" -- which is what the White House likes to call its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- for fiscal year 2008, the Pentagon will still spend $510 billion. In other words, even without the president's two wars, defense spending will have nearly doubled since the mid-1990s. Given that the United States has literally no significant enemy state to fight anywhere on the planet, this represents a remarkable, if perverse, achievement. As a famous Democratic politician once asked: Where is the outrage?

Taken from here:
Bush's blank check

 

[CaptnKirk]

The 'Stimulus Package' is like trying to put a coat of paint on a house that is engulfed in flames - a waste of time.

Yeah, just what we need, some 130 Million fools sent shopping at the mall for more trinkets from China,
or to make sure Big Oil continues to maximize their profits on the backs of the worker bees.

The whole problem with our economy is that Petroleum Products just suck the life out of everything else.
Higher gas prices make every god damn thing you buy or want to buy, more expensive because of the
transportation, manufacturing, or production overhead costs - it all comes right back to $ 3.00 / Gallon
is the death knell of our economy, it was bad enough when a tank of gas ran $20 to fill, but now it seems
that when you've pumped in $ 60 you are still watching the dials spin higher and higher.

It now costs you as much each week to obtain what you used to spend in a whole month.

And there's a big surprise on the horizon - when the Military War Machine winds down,
and the need for fuel for the various task forces is no longer as high, do you think that
Big Oil will not raise everyone else's fuel costs to offset their potential loss of profit?

Look at what happened to the price of gasoline to the Average Joe when Vietnam ended.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: glugglug
The $250 billion also doesn't include the money spent by the "President's Working Group On Financial Markets" (google it) to bail out (rig) the stock market yesterday. There is no way in hell that yesterday afternoon's rally was naturally occurring.

The lowering of the prime bailed out the market.

 

[silent tone]

This still won't reach either of the magic numbers of a national debt that has doubled under GWB or even the $10 trillion mark, before Bush leaves office. So the majority won't notice.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: glugglug
The $250 billion also doesn't include the money spent by the "President's Working Group On Financial Markets" (google it) to bail out (rig) the stock market yesterday. There is no way in hell that yesterday afternoon's rally was naturally occurring.

The lowering of the prime bailed out the market.

The lowering of the rate triggered Tuesday afternoon's recovery. (1/22)

However, the much larger "rally" Wednesday afternoon (1/23) after what looked like it was going to be a crash Wednesday morning can not be explained by that.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: silent tone
This still won't reach either of the magic numbers of a national debt that has doubled under GWB or even the $10 trillion mark, before Bush leaves office. So the majority won't notice.

I predict we will hit $10 trillion by July 2008, and the majority still won't notice.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: glugglug

Originally posted by: silent tone
This still won't reach either of the magic numbers of a national debt that has doubled under GWB or even the $10 trillion mark, before Bush leaves office. So the majority won't notice.

I predict we will hit $10 trillion by July 2008, and the majority still won't notice.

$ 9.682 trillion end of FY on 9/30 .... based upon the accounting irregularities practiced by the Bushies, the next business day (first of the new budget year) Federal debt will leap $60 bil

$ 9.7+ trillion if the 'econ stimulus' is overly bloated ...

fyi - The CBO projected $9.726 trillion total federal debt four years ago ...

fyi2 - Federal debt held by the public (principle and interest) were projected to be eliminated by 2009 based upon debt reduction in the late 1990s

 

[Train]

A big part of the problem lies in the 2 party system. With both parties usually controlling close to half of congress, the only way anything gets passed is if they give concessions to the other party. GWB only managed to get many of his initiatives passed by allowing add-ons for the Dems. The dems would fight the war spending bills, then all of a sudden change thier vote to yes... the devil being in the details, some pork project for thier home state or district to ensure they get re-elected next go around. Theres no telling wether they were actually against it from the beginning, then were bought off with pork, or were just holding out for pork from the get go.

A 3(or more) party system would allow more to get done with less pork.

 

[heyheybooboo]

^^^^^

WTF ???