Wash. Times claims Obama is "killing the economy" by falsely attributing entire FY09 deficit to "his ruinous policies"
In a January 18 editorial entitled "Obama is Killing the Economy," The Washington Times claimed that "Barack Obama has the worst budget record of any president in American history" by comparing the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) projections of the FY 2009 deficit to the smaller FY 2008 deficit. In fact, only a small portion of the fiscal year 2009 deficit is due to Obama's policies; in January, before he took office or signed any legislation, CBO projected that, based on policies set under President Bush and economic conditions at the time, the deficit for fiscal year 2009 would reach $1.2 trillion.
Wash. Times uses deficit falsehood to accuse Obama of having the "worst budget record of any president"
Wash. Times: Obama has the worst budget record of any president in American history. In a January 18 editorial, The Washington Times accused President Obama of "hav[ing] the worst budget record of any president in American history" and wrote that the FY 2009 budget, which it called "Mr. Obama's budget," is "the most irresponsible in history." As evidence, the Times claimed that "the 2009 budget deficit tripled over 2008. The deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product went from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009. The deficit for the first month of fiscal year 2010 was $176 billion, which was greater than the $161 billion deficit for the entire 2007 fiscal year."
In fact, estimates of the deficit were made before Obama took office, and are mainly attributed to Bush policies
$1.2 trillion projection based on legislation passed under Bush before Obama's inauguration. CBO projected on January 7 that, including spending authorized under the Bush administration for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and government takeovers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the deficit would total $1.2 trillion. From CBO's January 2009 budget report, released on January 7:
The ongoing turmoil in the housing and financial markets has taken a major toll on the federal budget. CBO currently projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP. That total, however, does not include the effects of any future legislation. Enactment of an economic stimulus package, for example, would add to the 2009 deficit. In any event, as a percentage of GDP, the deficit will most likely shatter the previous post-World War II record high of 6.0 percent posted in 1983.
A drop in tax revenues and increased federal spending (much of it related to the government's actions to address the crisis in the housing and financial markets) both contribute to the robust growth in this year's deficit. Compared with receipts last year, collections from corporate income taxes are anticipated to decline by 27 percent and individual income taxes by 8 percent; in normal economic conditions, they would both grow by several percentage points. In addition, the estimated deficit includes outlays of more than $180 billion to reflect the cost of transactions of the TARP.
The projected deficit for 2009 also incorporates CBO's estimate of the cost to the federal government of the recent takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because those entities were created and chartered by the government, are responsible for implementing certain government policies, and are currently under the direct control of the federal government, CBO has concluded that their operations should be reflected in the federal budget. Recognizing the cost of the takeover adds about $200 billion (in discounted present-value terms) to the deficit this year, reflecting the long-term net cost of the more than $5 trillion in credit guarantees issued and loans held by those entities at the start of the fiscal year. In addition, the cost of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's new credit activity in 2009 will total $38 billion, CBO estimates.
New York Times: Obama policies are "responsible for only a sliver of the deficits." According to a budget analysis done by the New York Times, "Mr. Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies -- together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama -- account for 20 percent" of the increase between the FY2008 and FY2009 budget deficit estimates. The New York Times wrote that 70 percent of the increase is attributed to a combination of economic hardships, including "the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists' assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years" and "new legislation signed by Mr. Bush ... like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit."
By the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2009), the TRUE annual deficit had hit $1.8 trillion if all the "off budget" stuff, like the wars and other unbudgeted military items, interest on intergovernmental holdings and the Social Security Trust Fund surplus are figured in (which the above web site does).
$1.8 trillion for the deficit for one year is scary stuff. George W. racked up just under $1 trillion in his last full fiscal year in office. Over his eight years, George W. racked up a total of just under $5 trillion! He is responsible for about 40% of the total federal debt, which is now over $12 trillion.
-- The Obama administration's troubles are the result not of excessive ambition, but of policy and political misjudgments...
Obama's top economic and political advisers concluded that a bigger stimulus was neither economically necessary nor politically feasible...
Their political judgment may or may not have been correct; their economic judgment obviously wasn't...At this point Mr. Obama probably can't do much about job creation. --
Poor Pres.Obama. The right blames him for spending too much...and the left blames him for spending too little.
Krugman ties a neat little bow on his assessment by claiming that failure to pass health care will "doom" the democrat party.
BTW, the correct word is Democratic party, not the Democrat party. One is a noun, the other an adjective.
Had you followed the link you would have read exactly what you wasted your time posting...it's a tip to keep in one's "little life-savers" file.
And weasel that you are, Weaselly Wesley, we're not surprised that you'd improperly crop someone's comments to defame the President in an off-topic rant and then blame the fair use copyright rules as cover for your misdeed!
You're the dumbbass here, Weaselly Wesley, thinking that you're fooling anyone.
Essentially what your post does is prove how the right's program of condemning Obama no matter what he does is nectar for the irrational nutjobs. It also illustrates how Republican obstructionists' "Party of No" strategy exists for partisan gain alone; i.e. if you can make the country fail, then you make Obama fail.
You also show us that when you can formulate a clever "Poor Pres. Obama" talking point you are going to post it somewhere...anywhere.
But as you know, many here don't want that perspective, they want to live in the world that it's always the rightwing's fault. And MMfA feeds into that because that is the mission.
Thank you for showing us that criticism is not exclusive from one side. I would hope others would appreciate it too.
You can pretend that you're fooling us, but you're not. You can pretend that you're stunned that we are alleging that you're off-topic, but you're not really surprised at all.
You're just teed off that you got caught, and you're trying to continue to derail the thread with your ongoing complaints. You and RightOn are tag-teaming to try to avoid having us discuss the topic, that it's unfair to assess Obama for the outrageous deficit budget spending from Bush!
The Washington Times falsely claimed that Obama was responsible for stuff he wasn't responsible for.
He should be held responsible for those things he has responsibility for, but not for those things he had no control over.
That's the only fair way to judge people. It's unfair to judge people for things over which they have no control - like their given name, or the color of their skin, or like the budget hole that the previous President gave to President Obama in the fiscal budget that just ended this past October!
Krugman criticized the size of the stimulus, essentially criticizing Obama for not being far enough left, giving rise to the reasonable inference that Obama is center-left. But the right claims Obama is a radical socialist fascist anarchist nazi muslim super terrorist?
I'm so confused
/sarcasm
The Washington Times editorial board should be ASHAMED of the same FAILED economic policies that led to the only known job-less economic recovery (which was really fueled by tax cuts and a needless war that we couldn't afford). Their support of flawed, outdated and ignorant ideologies show no respect for Americans and the rest of the world struggling to climb out of the hell created by George W. Bush and his minions.
For shame Washington Times!!!