Tom Toles for February 03, 2013

Please everyone: just google these words: Federal spending lowest in decades. Lowest in 60 years. Look it up. Let’s not go by way of Greece or Britain. Obama knows what he’s doing. The government actually shrank last month because of further cuts in the Defense budget; too much of that will further cripple the economy. Had Ronmey had been elected, he would have taken full credit for the Bullish stock market and warned the dire circumstances to the Dow if Obama was elected. Best since before the recession. Thanks, universe and whoever is in charge (the Dems, sorta.)

Oh, the Daily Kos, now that’s an objective non-partisan source. You also misquoted a very important point. *The article says, “In fact, growth in federal spending is the lowest it’s been since half a decade before Obama was born.” GROWTH in federal spending, not the current excessive amount of federal spending. The bullish stock market is no indicator of economic well being. The federal reserve is pouring billions into the financial markets and inflating the currency with abandon. Wall St. can borrow at cheap rates and turn a profit on short term bond purchases. GDP went negative for the last quarter and unemployment has become structural and is stuck close to 8%. The budget fighting is long from over and the Democrats are looking at raising taxes again. Business is frozen in place until they can determine the real costs of Obamacare. Obviously the Republicans are doing little to remedy the situation themselves, so it looks like a failure in leadership from both the president and congress.Obama and the democrats are more concerned with gun control and immigration than they are with budgeting and economic growth. Sorry I can’t generate optimism from your assumption that Obama knows what he’s doing. The main reason we haven’t gone the way of Britain or Greece is we can continue to print money and borrow liberally from our friends the Chinese.

^Curbing growth in Fed spending is about the best that can be done for now. If growth of spending dips below growth of GDP, the deficit will shrink.-

Business has been frozen in place well before Obamacare. Job creation has not been strong this century.

-And, although there are other indicators, especially employment numbers, the stock market is certainly an important indicator of economic well being. -I don’t believe gun control and immigration crowd out economic issues at all, only in the media.-In one interview, Romney said that you can’t take a trillion out of the economy, that it would be disastrous. I’m guessing that’s what he really thought, but who knows?-I still think our biggest problem is creating jobs. I don’t know where they come from. Automation and offshoring eliminate whole classes of jobs.

NEWS BULLETIN: If per capita federal spending goes DOWN 1% a year, and the population grows 2% a year, GOVERNMENT SPENDING WILL RISE. We always talk about needing a growing economy. If the population rises (it will), and the economy grows (it will), revenue will rise (tax rates remaining constant). If the federal budget grows more slowly than the population and the economy grow, the long-term result will be a shrinking of the national debt.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/23/facebook-posts/viral-facebook-post-says-barack-obama-has-lowest-s/

Excuse me? What is wrong with government spending? Roads, bridges, research, education, medical care, enforcement, justice, military defense. Every dollar the government spends is spent in the economy. Further, government is not motivated in its spending by profit. Unlike business and corporations, it is not tempted to constrain its spending to juice its bottom line. The government spends to build things of value— justice, educated citizens, safe workplaces, infrastructure—whose payoffs are certain but whose dividends are largely discounted or accepted as a given by those who wring their hands with worries about “debt”. Yes, the government also uses debt instruments to facilitate corporate and international finance and to manage the amount of money in private circulation, but this is not a measure of the government’s worthiness or even a failing. The measure of its worthiness is the value of its spending in making us a strong Nation. Other nations look at the United States with envy, and snap up the opportunity to protect the dollars they have in their treasuries by investing it in U.S. debt.

Find a real problem to worry about. Hey, I know one! Too many Americans are out of work, or homeless, suffering with inadequate health care. Let’s spend to help them. Christ knows, the private sector isn’t. Much of the money they have laying around is currently being sheltered in government debt.

When you do nothing but call others names you lose all credibility here or any other place for that matter.

And yes, those ultra liberals that do the same thing are no more credible than you are.

It is not so much that yours and the other ultraconservatives positions are so wrong. It is simply, the totally nasty tone of your posts that those of us that are at least somewhat moderate (whether we lean either to the right or the left) object to.

So, why not simply state your positions in an intelligent and reasonable manner?

That way you would not only increase your over all credibility, but at the same time stop emulating our do nothing and equally name calling Congress!

I could argue the actual points of this discussion, but this post is long enough as it is. So, all I will say, is you have a very good day now!!

I am the right wing. I demand that you cut spending even though it is as low as it has been in sixty years. I demand that you lower taxes even though they are as low as they have been in sixty years. I demand that we repeal guns laws even though 25,000 Americans a year a victims of gun violence. I demand that we disenfranchise anyone that will not vote for the above demands. I am the right wing.

From the right I hear, “Close the borders!”, “Take care of the mentally impaired.”, “Build up our armed forces!”, and at the same time, “Cut Taxes.”, “Cut spending!”. It would be nice if things worked that way but they don’t. If you buy something, you should pay for it. I always have.

I was skeptical of the study the minute I saw it, because some of the “myths” are based on pretty reliable science. I tried to read the whole article, but I haven’t found a free source. The abstract and the methodology seem pretty suspect, plus as you point out, the list of sponsors of the author immediately raises red flags.

“The Ayn Rand Republicans want it all in private hands”.Ayn Rand was a Libertarian, not a republican.

Night Guard:.The labor participation rate comes from a household survey. It is not automatic.

And Obama blames Bush, and Bush blamed Clinton. Said we had a surplus, and that was bad. It meant we taxed too much. So he cut taxes and put two wars “off-budget” so it looked like the budget was balanced. And Reagan blamed Carter for the deficit, then ran up a higher deficit, so Bush Republicans said “deficits don’t matter.” Republicans still don’t want to acknowledge their part in the problem.

“Obama has repaired all the damage done by Bush.”

I must say that’s a broad sweeping comment with no data to substantiate it. Considering our levels of almost structural unemployment, GDP sinking to negative levels and production numbers going sideways for the last several months I can’t help but consider your remark wildly optimistic.

Don’t they realize that austerity doesn’t work when the economy is bad? When it gets better is much safer to do austerity.

That tax raising was a RETURN to the previous rates due to the EXPIRATION of a TEMPORARY decrease. If they had made it permanent to start, the projected deficit would have scared the S—out of the American people. Again, Republicans refuse to acknowledge their part in our financial problems.