Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years

[Neil D]

Center on Budget and Policys Priorities

Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years

Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers

By Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney

Special Series: Economic Recovery Watch

Some critics continue to assert that President George W. Bush’s policies bear little responsibility for the deficits the nation faces over the coming decade — that, instead, the new policies of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress are to blame. Most recently, a Heritage Foundation paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4). Nevertheless, the fact remains: Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years (see Figure 1).

The deficit for fiscal year 2009 was $1.4 trillion and, at nearly 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was the largest deficit relative to the size of the economy since the end of World War II. If current policies are continued without changes, deficits will likely approach those figures in 2010 and remain near $1 trillion a year for the next decade.

The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.

While President Obama inherited a dismal fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them. Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s long-term deficit problem. But we should not mistake the causes of our predicament.

Recession Caused Sharp Deterioration in Budget Outlook

Whoever won the presidency in 2008 was going to face a grim fiscal situation, a fact already well known as the presidential campaign got underway. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presented a sobering outlook in its 2008 summer update,[1] and during the autumn, the news got relentlessly worse. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that became embroiled in the housing meltdown, failed in early September; two big financial firms — AIG and Lehman Brothers — collapsed soon thereafter; and others teetered. In December 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed that the nation was in recession and pegged the starting date as December 2007. By the time CBO issued its new projections on January 7, 2009 — two weeks before Inauguration Day — it had already put the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion.[2]

The recession battered the budget, driving down tax revenues and swelling outlays for unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other safety-net programs.[3] Using CBO’s August 2008 projections as a benchmark, we calculate that the changed economic outlook accounts for over $400 billion of the deficit each year in 2009 through 2011 and slightly smaller amounts in subsequent years. Those effects persist; even in 2018, the deterioration in the economy since the summer of 2008 will account for over $250 billion in added deficits, much of it in the form of additional debt-service costs.

Financial Rescues, Stimulus Add to Deficits in Near Term

The government put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship in September 2008.[4] In October of that year, the Bush Administration and Congress enacted a rescue package to stabilize the financial system by creating the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Together, TARP and the GSEs accounted for $245 billion (including extra debt-service costs) of fiscal 2009’s record deficit. Their contribution then fades quickly (see Figure 1).

In February 2009, the new Obama Administration and Congress enacted a major package — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — to arrest the economy’s plunge. Mainstream economists overwhelmingly argued that, to combat the recession, the federal government should loosen its purse strings temporarily to spur demand, with a mix of assistance to the unemployed, aid to strapped state and local governments, tax cuts, spending on infrastructure, and other measures. By design, this package added to the deficit. Since then, policymakers have enacted several smaller measures to spur recovery and aid the unemployed. By our reckoning, the combination of ARRA and these other measures account for $1.1 trillion in deficits over the 2009-2019 period (including the associated debt service). Their effects are highly concentrated in 2009 through 2011 and fade thereafter, delivering a boost to the economy during its most vulnerable period.[5]

Bush Tax Cuts, War Costs Do Lasting Harm to Budget Outlook

Some commentators blame recent legislation — the stimulus bill and the financial rescues — for today’s record deficits. Yet those costs pale next to other policies enacted since 2001 that have swollen the deficit. Those other policies may be less conspicuous now, because many were enacted years ago and they have long since been absorbed into CBO’s and other organizations’ budget projections.

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. [6] (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).

Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the previous Administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade. That would have put the nation on a much sounder footing to address the demographic challenges and the cost pressures in health care that darken the long-run fiscal outlook.[7]

The Effect of President Obama’s Budget

The key question is: where do we go from here? President Obama’s 2011 budget proposes to reduce anticipated deficits over the next ten years, chiefly by letting the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers expire on schedule, closing certain tax loopholes and reforming the international tax system, keeping estate taxes at their 2009 parameters, enacting health care reform, and freezing (in aggregate) most appropriations for non-security domestic programs for the next three years. The President also supports another round of temporary recovery measures that would boost the deficit in 2010 through 2012, a proposal that is appropriate in size and well targeted.[8] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analyses have found that in aggregate, the President’s proposals would reduce deficits over the 2011-2020 period by an estimated $1.3 trillion.[9]

Like most fiscal analysts, we believe that the Administration and Congress will need to take considerably larger steps. The President himself acknowledges that his proposals do not fully put the budget on a sustainable footing and has established a bipartisan fiscal commission to recommend more substantial deficit reductions. First and foremost, policymakers will need to restrain the growth of health care costs. The health reform legislation begins that process. It takes important initial steps to restructure the health care payment and delivery systems and to move away from paying providers for more visits or procedures and toward rewarding effective, high-value health care. As we learn more about how to slow health care cost growth without endangering health care quality, strong additional measures will be essential. But restraining health care cost growth will not itself be sufficient to address the long-term fiscal problem. Other actions also will be needed, including steps to raise additional revenue and make changes in other programs.

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.

Technical Note

Baseline projections depict the likely path of the federal budget if current policies remain unchanged. We base our estimates on CBO’s latest ten-year projections, published in March 2010, with several adjustments to reflect what will happen if we continue current tax and spending policies.

Specifically, our baseline includes the budgetary effects of continuing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that are scheduled to expire after 2010, renewing certain other so-called “tax extenders” such as the research and development tax credit, and continuing relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Our baseline also assumes the effects of continuing to defer scheduled cuts in payments for Medicare providers, as has routinely occurred in recent years, and instead providing doctors with a payment increase based on the Medicare Economic Index. We also account for a gradual phase-down of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In all cases we based our adjustments on estimates published by CBO.

We calculated major components of the deficits as follows:

* Economic downturn — This category includes all changes in the deficit that CBO labeled “economic” in the five reports — in January, March, and August 2009 and January and March 2010[17] — that it has issued since September 2008, which total $1 trillion over the 2009-2018 period. It also includes the bulk of revenue changes that CBO classified as “technical.” In the revenue area, so-called technical changes essentially refer to trends in collections that CBO’s analysts cannot tie directly to published macroeconomic data. In fact, those data become available with a lag and are subject to major revision; weak revenues are often a tipoff that the economy is worse than the official statistics suggest. Furthermore, some key determinants of revenues — such as capital gains on stock-market transactions — are tied to the economy, but those influences are not captured by the standard macroeconomic indicators. Because the economic-versus-technical distinction is so arbitrary for revenues, we have ascribed most of CBO’s large, downward “technical” reestimates to the economic downturn. We add the associated debt-service costs. The technical reestimates to revenues and the associated debt-service costs add $1.5 trillion and $0.4 trillion, respectively, to this category over the 2009-2018 period.

Combined, the factors that we ascribe to the economic downturn account for nearly $3 trillion in extra deficits in 2009 through 2018. [18]

* TARP, Fannie, and Freddie — The Treasury spent $243 billion for these entities in 2009 ($151 billion for TARP and $91 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, net of dividends received). Projections for 2010 through 2019 come from CBO’s January 2010 baseline. We computed the extra debt-service costs, which total $111 billion over the 2009-2019 period. (By 2014, virtually the entire cost shown in Table 1 represents debt-service costs.)

* Recovery measures — When ARRA was passed, it bore a “headline” cost of $787 billion as officially estimated by CBO. [19] In January 2010, CBO revised that figure to $862 billion, chiefly to reflect higher costs than initially expected for ARRA’s provisions governing unemployment insurance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as food stamps) — primarily as a result of economic conditions — and for Build America Bonds.[20] We removed the portion of ARRA costs ascribed to indexing the AMT for another year.[21] Annual AMT “patches” have been a fixture since 2001, and ARRA just happened to provide the vehicle. The AMT provision accounted for $70 billion of ARRA’s $862 billion cost, leaving $792 billion. CBPP then added the cost of several smaller, discrete recovery measures that have been enacted in late 2009 and early 2010, totaling $84 billion in 2010 (but just $38 billion over the 2010-2019 period).[22] We then added the associated debt-service costs, which amount to $317 billion over the 2009-2019 period.

* Bush-era tax cuts — Through 2011, the estimated impacts come from adding up past estimates of various changes in tax laws — chiefly the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA), the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA), the 2008 stimulus package, and a series of annual AMT patches — enacted since 2001. Those estimates were based on the economic and technical assumptions used when CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) originally “scored” the legislation, but the numbers would not change materially using up-to-date assumptions. Most of the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire after December 2010 (partway through fiscal 2011). We added the cost of extending them, along with continuing AMT relief, from estimates prepared by CBO and JCT.[23] (We did not assume extension of the temporary tax provisions enacted in ARRA.) Together, the tax cuts account for $1.7 trillion in extra deficits in 2001 through 2008, and $3.4 trillion over the 2009-2019 period. Finally, we added the extra debt-service costs caused by the Bush-era tax cuts, amounting to more than $200 billion through 2008 and another $1.7 trillion over the 2009-2019 period — over $330 billion in 2019 alone.

* War costs — Spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and related activities cost $610 billion through fiscal 2008, according to CBO ($575 billion for the Department of Defense and $35 billion for international affairs), and another $160 billion in 2009. [24] We based estimates of costs in 2010 through 2019 on CBO’s projections, adjusted for a phase-down to 60,000 troops; those costs come to $1 trillion.[25] We add the associated debt-service costs, which came to $64 billion through 2008 and will total another $684 billion over the 2009-2019 period ($119 billion in 2019 alone).

This is added in the article as an insert. It is in addition to the articles like the graphs- nd

What About the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit?

One of the major domestic initiatives of the Bush Administration was enactment of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (known informally as the Medicare Modernization Act, or MMA). The MMA created a new prescription-drug benefit in Medicare, known as Medicare Part D. This legislation was only partly paid for, and it added significantly to the deficit that President Obama inherited. Why is it absent from this analysis?

The Congressional Budget Office initially estimated that the MMA would add to the deficit by $395 billion over its first decade, spanning the years between 2004 and 2013. (Medicare’s chief actuary pegged the net cost significantly higher — at $534 billion over that period.) CBO’s estimate consisted of $552 billion in net spending — new benefits, partially offset by premiums and by receipts from the states — for the new Medicare drug benefit itself, minus $157 billion in savings in Medicaid and other federal programs. Although that “headline” estimate spanned ten years, costs were negligible in the first two years, because the new benefit took effect in January 2006.

Part D outlays are coming in somewhat lower than CBO and the Medicare actuary expected, but it is not possible to update the original price tag for the entire MMA. CBO now expects the net cost of Medicare Part D over that initial 2004-2013 period to be about $385 billion (as compared to the original $552 billion figure), excluding any effects from the newly-enacted health reform legislation. But, it is not possible to tell whether the savings in Medicaid and other programs have deviated from CBO’s original estimate of $157 billion. While Part D is a new, identifiable account in the federal budget, those other effects represent relatively small changes in large, ongoing programs.

In short, we did not include the costs of the prescription-drug program in this analysis because we could not estimate those net costs with the same confidence that we could estimate costs, based on CBO analyses, for other Bush-era policies — namely, the tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the 2009-2019 period that is this paper’s focus, CBO now expects net outlays for Part D to total approximately $880 billion (almost $130 billion in 2019 alone), but some fraction of that will be offset by savings in Medicaid and other programs that we are not able to estimate. Nevertheless, it is clear that, as noted above, enactment of the prescription-drug program added materially to the deficit that the current administration inherited.

Conspicuously missing from this list is the Medicare prescription-drug program that Congress enacted in 2003. That new program has also added significantly to deficits through 2019, but data limitations leave us unable to quantify its net budgetary effects (see the box above).

[Neil D]

A couple of notes-

All those numbered points, are in the origional article and they can be found in the link that I provided at the end of the article.

I appologize for the length of the article...but it is broken up in colored and graphs and should be fairly easy reading...not that boring black print...

I am interested in what you all think of this....and am not interested in this being moved to the political forum.....However, if some of you want to review it in MY political forum [shameless plug for my political forum], it is there for your review...however, you will have to ask the members of that forum to let you in...

Review this carefully, and please try to not dump political nay-sayings here...Let's be constructive...not destructive...

[Woody]

Quote:

Let's be constructive...not destructive...

IOWs ... Partisan ?

[Dr. Shane]

I don't think this belongs in Townhall. This really needs to be moved.

[Neil D]

I have made my wishes known....

I would like to see how this plays out....and besides, Shane, once it's in your area, a few of us, myself included, can not reply to the replys....

Of course, you are welcomed to copy the link and post it into your forum...

[phkrause]

The problem I have with all these analysts is that you get some people that say one thing and some that say something else. There is no way to know who is right and or wrong. I remember listening to financial advisors who said things can't get any worse, and at the same time you had financial advisors saying its not that bad! What do we do with that kind of info? You have financial advisors saying don't look at the stock market, its not an indication of anything!! But you watch news shows and depending who's side there on they tell you that its what you need to watch.

I agree that this problem is definitely from the Bush adminstration's spending. Especially the war's in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes they cost much money. But its always funny, we have no money until we need it!!! What's that about. And were do we also come up with the money to help other nations when they have a disaster????? We always seem to have money and almost no one complains, but yet let someone want to help people in there own country and all of a sudden there's no money and all complain!!!!! Garbage I say. But to blame anyone is not fruitful.

[Bravus]

The thing is, there is an actual truth. It's hard to get at, and people spin things one way or the other, but the truth is out there, as the saying goes.

The bailouts have definitely contributed to the deficit - and then it's possible to argue about how well they were targeted and whether they were needed.

But it's also true that multi-year foreign wars do not come free, or anywhere near it. Like it or not, Iraq was a war that never needed to be fought, and has cost a trillion or so and is still costing.

And then there are the Bush tax cuts (and the dishonest claims now that letting them lapse amounts to a tax hike).

Cutting the revenue side of the budget while massively increasing the spending side is just not smart management.

The reason it's hard to get a clear picture is partisanship and spin. Some people think tax cuts stimulate the economy and the Iraq war was necessary, so their perspective on the meanings of the numbers is different.

And the truth is that both the previous government and the current government have contributed to the problem.

Any claim that the previous government is faultless, though, is clearly arrant nonsense.

[LifeHiscost]

And the truth is that both the previous government and the current government have contributed to the problem.

Any claim that the previous government is faultless, though, is clearly arrant nonsense.

As long as government is expected to give services, someone will be expected to pay for those services. In America, the people are supposedly the government, with duly elected representatives to do their honest duty. When and until those elected choose to be honest, with honest costituents, the mess we are in will not miraculously disappear.

And tomorrow all those mentioned will be honest in their efforts.

Yeh, right.

"Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. "

2 Timothy 3:12-15 NKJV

A few days ago I received a letter, the first, from a government delegated insurance company asking for payment for premiums covering the last three years of Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage.

When Part D coverage was first instituted, I was under the impression it was included in the Medicare premium. Considering the economic decline I see no reason to deny the request for payment as I'm part of the government that must be turned to in order to move in the direction of solvency for the U.S.

However I'm also under loyalty to a higher Power that makes it incumbent for me to do what I'm able.

"...bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back." Luke 6:28-30 NKJV

War is initiated by those insisting on their own rights. Major war is perpetrated by those who have found ways to get others to do their nefarious deeds.

" Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking"1 Corinthians 13:5 AMP

Regards!!

[Dr. Shane]

The thing is, there is an actual truth.

[Bravus]

I didn't say anyone *knows* the truth, just that there is one. And it's not necessarily simple.

I do know that *neither* 'Obama caused the vast majority of the deficit' *nor* 'Bush caused the vast majority of the deficit' is the truth. Both contributed a lot, and Goldman Sachs and their ilk also have a large share.

From my perspective, the purpose of the article was to bring some truth in opposition to the false claim that Obama is the main cause of the deficit.

[Bravus]

Still more insults, not fact or argument.

Let's break it into smaller chunks.

'Tax cuts stimulate the economy' - but the economy crashed and burned while the tax cuts were in place.

And the crash was already well and truly under way by the time Obama was elected.

Those are simple, spin-free facts that need to be addressed if your thesis is going to hold up.

[Dr. Shane]

'Tax cuts stimulate the economy' - but the economy crashed and burned while the tax cuts were in place.

[phkrause]

That's not entirely correct, here in MA the unemployment has been coming down month by month. Its at 9% according to NPR yesterday. We were as high as 10.5%, if I'm correct. But of course some of that is due to people that have gone to the end of there benefit. The problem's I see with those out of work is that there are less jobs to go back to. At least in the printing industry, not sure about others, they are finding out that they can do the same jobs (in prepress) with less people to do the same that they had before. But that's life.

[Dr. Shane]

The unemployment rate has come down a little. I wasn't trying to deny that. However it hasn't come down significantly. I tend to think the untapped gold mine is energy. If we were to start building nuclear power plants that are also desalinization plants and build them in unirrigated lands we could create thousands of jobs. First would be construction jobs building the power/desalinization and new irrigation systems. Following would be energy and agricultural jobs. The other energy sector is oil and gas exploration. There are several areas the government could open to exploration. All of these are high-paying jobs and the money earned would have a ripple effect in the economy.

[phkrause]

The unemployment rate has come down a little. I wasn't trying to deny that. However it hasn't come down significantly. I tend to think the untapped gold mine is energy. If we were to start building nuclear power plants that are also desalinization plants and build them in unirrigated lands we could create thousands of jobs. First would be construction jobs building the power/desalinization and new irrigation systems. Following would be energy and agricultural jobs. The other energy sector is oil and gas exploration. There are several areas the government could open to exploration. All of these are high-paying jobs and the money earned would have a ripple effect in the economy.

I agree about the unemployment situation, also there are fewer jobs available. As far as the energy is concerned I agree very much with this. I believe that alternative energy is definitely the way to go.

[Dr. Shane]

I think nuclear is our bridge to alternate energy. If we want to get away from fossil fuels one big area is personal transportation. The problem with electric cars is that we don't have the power grid to power them. That is where nuclear power comes in. We can build nuclear power plants now to power all those cars to replace what we are driving now. There are lots of jobs waiting to be created in the energy sector.

[phkrause]

I think nuclear is our bridge to alternate energy. If we want to get away from fossil fuels one big area is personal transportation. The problem with electric cars is that we don't have the power grid to power them. That is where nuclear power comes in. We can build nuclear power plants now to power all those cars to replace what we are driving now. There are lots of jobs waiting to be created in the energy sector.

I agree, but they had a guy on a few months ago that was talking about electric cars and that they are making great advances in that area. Also one of the things Obama has been trying to do is get companies to start working towards alternative energy.

[nuff sed]

We could build atomic cars that never needed fueling because the 'fuel', the size of a pea, would never need recharging. Of course, there would be other inherent dangers...............but.......IMO nuclear power is the answer to ALL our energy problems. 'Nuff sed

[phkrause]

You think so?

[Dr. Shane]

we the public put these demands on government and industry to supply us with all our 'wants', but not willing to pay for it. We can't blame government or politics and not include ourselves.

The people certainly have a part they played in it but calculating how much is really hard to say. To a great extent, the population as a whole has been victimized by government and industry. The people were sold on borrowing all this money and taking on all this debt. If we put someone like Dave Ramsey in charge of our schools, we will see the next generation turn things around. As long as we have Toys R Us selling toy credit cards, there is little hope for the future.

[olger]

We could build atomic cars that never needed fueling because the 'fuel', the size of a pea, would never need recharging. Of course, there would be other inherent dangers...............but.......IMO nuclear power is the answer to ALL our energy problems. 'Nuff sed

olger agrees.

og

[Guest]

Yeah, I want one of those. And have two extra switches on the dash that say: "Very Fast" and "Hang On". And on mine I want one that says: "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS"?

[LifeHiscost]

Yeah, I want one of those. And have two extra switches on the dash that say: "Very Fast" and "Hang On". And on mine I want one that says: "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS"?

[LifeHiscost]

Maybe this might add some light to our economic fiscal irresponsibility.

Look up the Cloward & Piven Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy. It really show what this Obama is about.

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> Subject: FW: This explains it - OMG!!!

> WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Overwhelm the system Barack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within. Barack Obama is my college classmate ( Columbia University , class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University . They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it. -- Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression? -- Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around." -- Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state? Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama's plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government. -- Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America . But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security. -- Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America . The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means. -- Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system. Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

[Bravus]

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The people certainly have a part they played in it but calculating how much is really hard to say. To a great extent, the population as a whole has been victimized by government and industry. The people were sold on borrowing all this money and taking on all this debt. If we put someone like Dave Ramsey in charge of our schools, we will see the next generation turn things around. As long as we have Toys R Us selling toy credit cards, there is little hope for the future.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility?