UPDATED: Worst chart I've seen all day

This post only validates what I said about more people are looking for work now.

So yes we do need a comphrehensive jobs bill. Glad you agree. The government needs to do more and spend more not less.

You must didn't read the whole article about Krugman for his reasons of why we may be heading into another depression . Hint it wasn't because we were spending to much it's because
we spent to little and used tax-cuts as a stimulus(to get Republican votes)when their stimulitive effect is very little. You do have a comphresion problem. Your post only show we need to do more as a government not less. Keep trying Elmer.

Tsk,tsk,tsk, I bet you were one of those neo-cons who accused Clinton and the Dems of governerning based on polls now look at you. Anyway a leader leads and sometimes goes against popular beliefs. Sort of like taking a poll whether slavery should have been abolished. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing. HCR was the right thing to do,we are better for it whether those who voted for it lose in November or not.

Now your're just sinking into neo-con babble. Every liberal should own a home is what the Feds pushed? Really, was this part of G.W's ownership society? Nobody in the feds had the guts to put the breaks on but you argue we don't need brakes? Go on your slide into neo-con insanity is entertaining.

Yes it's clear that the independents you speak of wished they had voted for McSame/Palin. lol.

Glad you posted the above heres your response:

Heritage Foundation’s Analysis is Misleading
A recent Heritage Foundation report claims that tax cuts and other policies initiated during the Bush administration are not a significant factor behind the deficits we face in the coming decade.[10] Heritage places blame for the deficits squarely on rapid growth in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest costs, and dismisses the significance of weak revenues in general and the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts in particular. But Heritage’s analysis is both misguided and seriously misleading.

Heritage ignores the fact that rapidly-rising interest costs — one of its “culprits” behind rising outlays — result in significant part from the tax cuts and other fiscal policies of the Bush era . The tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for over $2.6 trillion of our national debt by the end of 2008 and, if continued, will add another $7 trillion in debt by 2019. In that year alone, about $450 billion of our interest bill will stem from those two policies. It is disingenuous to tar interest as a “fast-growing” spending program while ignoring which policies — including tax cuts — account for that fact.

Heritage admits that it understates the cost of the tax cuts by omitting their impact on rising net interest costs. “On the other hand,” Heritage asserts, “the original CBO scores of tax cuts have been underestimates because they excluded all supply-side feedback effects and overestimated the GDP between 2008 and 2011, which made all revenue and tax cut projections appear larger.” That convenient justification, however, misses the boat. We know that the tax cuts led to higher borrowing and larger debt-service costs. We do not know that they led to extra economic activity (or that they would have a positive effect on economic activity if made permanent). In fact, analyses of so-called “dynamic scoring” of tax cuts have found that: 1) such estimates generally come close to the standard estimates;[11] 2) stimulative effects may appear strong in the short run but tend to dissipate over longer horizons; and 3) most importantly, as both CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation have concluded, large tax cuts financed by borrowing can harm the economy over the long term rather than help it. [12] In short, there is no reason to ignore the enormous debt overhang that the Bush tax cuts caused and plenty of reason to be skeptical of their economic benefits. Including the interest costs, the Bush-era tax cuts account for over $700 billion — or nearly 55 percent — of the deficit projected for 2019 under current policies.
Heritage ignores the fact that the share of deficits accounted for by the Bush-era tax cuts will grow in future years as the impact of the economic downturn on deficits diminishes . Because the economic downturn and efforts to combat it have such a large effect on the deficit in 2010, the share of the deficit accounted for by the tax cuts seems relatively modest; we estimate that the tax cuts account for about one quarter of the 2010 deficit. But as the effects of the downturn recede, the tax cuts will account for a much larger share. In 2019, the tax cuts, if continued, will account for nearly three-fifths of the deficit. And, despite the growing impact of rising health care costs and the continued aging of the population after 2019, the tax cuts will continue to have a major impact on the deficit. The Center has estimated that not extending the tax cuts — or fully paying for the cost of extending them — would reduce the projected budget shortfall through 2050 by two-fifths. [13]
In constructing its baseline, Heritage partly assumes its own conclusion. The baseline projections developed by Heritage generally resemble CBPP’s, with one crucial difference. Heritage assumes that regular discretionary spending (other than war costs and stimulus funds) will grow at the same rate as the GDP over the next 10 years. In contrast, we assume that such appropriations will grow somewhat more slowly in the 10-year budget window because they will grow with inflation; this is the standard, widely accepted baseline assumption. Heritage’s decision to scrap normal baseline practices and assume higher levels of discretionary spending boosts such spending by more than a full percentage point of GDP by the end of the ten-year period and adds to interest costs as well. Heritage then uses this increased spending it assumes to buttress its claim that it is excessive spending growth that causes the deficit. In theory, policymakers might choose to increase discretionary spending to keep pace with GDP, but that is highly unlikely in these straitened times. And that is not how the Budget Enforcement Act, CBO, and the Office of Management and Budget define “current policy” when they make their baseline budget projections for the coming decade. [14]
It was not a sudden spurt of growth in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that turned projected budget surpluses into deficits . CBO and many budget analysts have long pointed out that the “big three” entitlement programs will swell in future decades as a result of an aging population and steady growth in per-capita health-care costs.[15] Indeed, CBO had already projected that this would eventually occur when, in 2001, it projected significant budget surpluses through 2011 and years beyond . [16] Since the growth in these large programs was anticipated (other than the growth due to enactment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit), it is not what turned projected surpluses to deficits.
Moreover, although CBO was projecting years of surpluses as the Bush Administration took office in 2001, it nevertheless warned that the nation’s long-term fiscal health was worrisome. The Bush Administration and Congress nevertheless opted to ignore these warnings and to cut taxes deeply, establish a Medicare drug benefit without covering its costs, and fight two wars on borrowed money.
from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

opinion piece from a "free market" probalbly libertarian site critizing Paul Krugman, now thats unique. lol.

Only in your blinkered view.

Whats scarrier is your failure to learn from history. Reagan ran up the biggest deficits in history of any president at the time. He increased pay-roll taxes and was responsible for one of the greatest banking failures since the Great Depression in the deregulation of S&L industry. Not to mention his trading arms to terrorist nations. Remember I don't negotiate with terrorist? Well he most certainly did prior to his election(strange the hostages were released right at his inauguration)and after selling arms and allowing drugs into this country to help fund his illegal war(Boland Admendment)in Central America.
We are still paying for that. RR let everyone know what his presidency was going to be like with his myth of the welfare queen and the kick-off of his campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia,Mississippi,the site of the 3 slain civil rights leaders. I'am old enough to know the history of this B movie actor turned right-wing hack turned conservative God. I saw him act like Generalismo Franco when he was governor of California and carry his race-baiting dog whistle politics into the whitehouse. The fantasy you cons have painted of him spits in the face of reality to the people and cities that have been ravaged by cocaine and crack and the safety net programs he started dismanteling. David Stockman's(Reagans economic advisor) philosophy of bankrupt the government thereby robbing it of funds for needed social programs has been practiced by every Republican president since and George Bush's spending policies were nothing more than Reagans trickle down on steroids with the resulting castrophe. Reagan was nothing more than a B movie actor and a worse president.

Ok, so now I know you have limited your education to that of the past 10 years and are oblivious to what happend prior to Bush. That makes it easy for you to blame it all on him. Whatever works for you.

I guess you got to salvage whatever you can but we all can read what benjr wrote. lol

This is your response? Really? Nothing at all about your false analogy concerning the Fox chart?

We can afford it about as much as two wars in the Middle East.

You've just cemented my point. Too many are always concerned about dollars and cents. I submit that there are other tangible assets that are hard to put a price tag on, but should be preserved nonetheless.

Clean Water, Beaches, air, abundant wild-life, quite literally, a habitable planet. I believe that humans can adapt to worsening conditions on the planet, but wouldn't it be cool if future generations didn't have to? I think that would be priceless!

That's it from me we are now WAY off topic.

"Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free."