Tom Toles for March 14, 2013

  1. Birthcontrol
    Dtroutma  about 11 years ago

    The “Ryan budget”, morally as well as economically bankrupting to the nation.

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  2. Image
    RevBobMIB  about 11 years ago

    “Do either of you know how much deficit is being wracked-up each day?”

    Do you even know what the difference is between debt and deficit?

    Here’s a clue: DEBT is what increases daily due to an annual budget DEFICIT, which is the difference between revenues and spending.

    Under Obama, the DEBT showed a massive increase because he had the audacity to put Bush’s two wars on the books as something we actually have to pay for. On the other hand, the DEFICIT is shrinking pretty quickly, even as many economists agree that the government should be doing more deficit spending to dig us out of the current recession.

    As for the credit downgrade, calling that an Obama achievement is laughable. Congressional Republicans caused that, and everybody with an ounce of common sense knows that. But then, such people also know the difference between the debt and the deficit…

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  3. Drstrangelove slim pickens riding the bomb
    Kirk Sinclair  about 11 years ago
    5 years of hope and change has gotten us here today.

    .I love how Republicans have no memory of the eight disastrous years that precipitated the situation we’re now in. Until you people can own your mistakes, why should anybody listen to you? You’re still dreaming.

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  4. Reagan ears
    d_legendary1  about 11 years ago

    Meet the new plan! Same as the old plan only in 2013!

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  5. Masked
    Rickapolis  about 11 years ago

    Same old poop from the same old poops.

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  6. Jock
    Godfreydaniel  about 11 years ago

    Paul Krugman has it right: Ryan is nothing but a con artist. (Of course, so was Ayn Rand…….)

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  7. Missing large
    STLDan  about 11 years ago

    too funny HOW. here is what is thought about Ryan’s budget:The rigorous, widely respected Center on Budget and Policy Priorities slammed the exercise, taking Ryan to task for failing to live up to his billing as the guy courageous enough to put his ideas out there.David RothkopfIt wrote, “Is it courageous to propose tax cuts but not identify a single tax expenditure to rein in? Is it courageous to target your deepest cuts on the poorest Americans, who vote in lower numbers and provide little in campaign contributions? Is it courageous to camouflage hundreds of billions in cuts for the poor and disadvantaged in broad budget categories without identifying the programmatic cuts, so that analysts, journalists, and other policymakers can’t identify the specific cuts and assess their impacts?”

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  8. Sunset on fire
    Fuzzy Thinker Premium Member about 11 years ago

    Obama has come out of the Closet: “There is no Debt Crisis”.

    Budgets are meaningless.

    “NASA, we have a problem”.

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  9. Giraffe cat
    I Play One On TV  about 11 years ago

    “The war spending was never off the books. It just was not part of the annual defense budget.”

    I believe you are mistaken. The war spending was voted on as emergency funding, which was not added to the books.

    Another example of cooking the books: I believe it was 2007…I got an e-mail from Medicare. It told me that I would not be paid on clean claims for the last 10 days of September of that year. (Coincidentally, that happens to be the last days of the fiscal year.) No one, no hospital, no doctor, no physical therapist, no one was getting money from Medicare.

    They would pay the claims, however, AFTER October 1. Don’t expect interest for late payment, however.

    What could have prompted that? The only conclusion I can come up with is that this would reduce government spending “on the books” until the “final” fiscal year figures were noted. I’m very willing to bet that those payments went back on the previous year’s books after that, and that those payments did not show up in the fiscal year that they were paid. Three-card monte, anyone? Follow the queen…..

    If you can come up with a better possibility, I’m all ears.

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  10. Missing large
    ARodney  about 11 years ago

    That’s because it would balance the budget and reduce the debt. Are you really that incompetent about math as well as economics?

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  11. Me on trikke 2007    05
    pam Miner  about 11 years ago

    Right on, Stratman! THis budget is a joke. he wants to lower taxes for the top riches people. People are nuts to support him.

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