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Who Said It? Barack Obama or Herbert Hoover?

24 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by Craig in budget, economy, Obama

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Barack Obama, budget, Firedoglake, Herbert Hoover

Two presidents, two budget messages. One is Herbert Hoover in 1932, the other is President Obama yesterday. Guess which president made which statement. Here’s one:

“For years, the government has spent more money than it takes in.  The result is a lot of debt on our nation’s credit card – debt that unless we act will weaken our economy, cause higher interest rates for families, and force us to scale back things like education…

Now, folks in Washington like to blame one another for this problem.  But the truth is, neither party is blameless.  And both parties have a responsibility to do something about it.  Every day, families are figuring out how stretch their paychecks – struggling to cut what they can’t afford so they can pay for what’s really important.  It’s time for Washington to do the same thing.  But for that to happen, it means that Democrats and Republicans have to work together.  It means we need to put aside our differences to do what’s right for the country.  Everyone is going to have to be willing to compromise.  Otherwise, we’ll never get anything done.

That’s why we need a balanced approach to cutting the deficit.  We need an approach that goes after waste in the budget and gets rid of pet projects that cost billions of dollars.  We need an approach that makes some serious cuts to worthy programs – cuts I wouldn’t make under normal circumstances.  And we need an approach that asks everybody to do their part.”

Here’s the other:

“In framing this Budget, I have proceeded on the basis that the estimates for [the fiscal year] should ask for only the minimum amounts which are absolutely essential for the operation of the Government under existing law, after making due allowance for continuing appropriations. The appropriation estimates…reflect a drastic curtailment of the expenses of Federal activities in all directions where a consideration of the public welfare would permit it…. The welfare of the country demands that the financial integrity of the Federal Government be maintained…. [W]e are now in a period where Federal finances will not permit of the assumption of any obligations which will enlarge the expenditures to be met from the ordinary receipts of the Government…. To those individuals or groups who normally would importune the Congress to enact measures in which they are interested, I wish to say that the most patriotic duty which they can perform at this time is to themselves refrain and to discourage others from seeking any increase in the drain upon public finances…”

Which one was from President Hoover and which from President Obama? Does it matter? Is there any significant differentiation between the two? Scarecrow at Firedoglake:

“What we now face is a President who insists we are in a debt crisis that reputable economists say is phony, a product of deficit hysteria, political cynicism, and economic ignorance.. And he insists the debt crisis requires we take economically damaging steps that will harm the public by undermining popular and beneficial programs to preserve our future. He’s told us we must do this to achieve economic prosperity and that we can’t even have a meaningful conversation about the jobless until this is done so the debt problem is not just a distraction; solving it is a prerequisite to economic recovery. Eat your peas.

[…]

So take your pick. The White House is now occupied by a man who agrees with Herbert Hoover’s economics and is clueless about everything we learned about macroeconomics during or since the Great Depression, and he can’t be trusted with the family jewels . . . Or he should be supported because he’s a cynical liar who is willing to misinform the public, negotiate in bad faith, and mouth economic gibberish just to fool people.”

FYI, the first one is Obama, the second, Hoover.

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The Real Victims of Austerity

06 Wednesday Jul 2011

Posted by Craig in Politics, Unemployment

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budget, Florida, Medicare fraud, Rick Scott, state employees, unemployment

Those who can least afford it:

“Millions of Floridians head back to work Tuesday after a restful three-day Fourth of July weekend. But Toni Gugliotta won’t be among them. She’ll be applying for $275 a week in unemployment benefits instead. The Pinellas County woman is among 1,300 state employees put out of work by the new budget approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott on May 26.

Scott kept his promise to reduce the size of the state government bureaucracy. But he did so at the expense of real people with mortgages, healthcare bills, college tuition payments and credit card payments. Many of them earned less than $30,000 a year after years of state employment.

To them, the Scott mantra “Let’s get to work” rings hollow. They now join the hordes of Floridians looking for work in a state with an unemployment rate that, while declining, remains in double digits at 10.6 percent.

The state agencies that took the biggest hits are the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Children and Families, which together account for most of the layoffs.”

Nice job, Florida. Elect another Medicare fraud artist as governor.

It’s All About Priorities

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Craig in budget, economy, Unemployment

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budget, Endless War, infrastructure, unemployment

What about this is so difficult to understand? There is work to be done and millions of people are out of work.

“Experts say $2 trillion of infrastructure work is needed just to catch up. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Card, says a $2.2 trillion investment is needed to bring the country up to current standards. ASCE says, “Years of delayed maintenance and lack of modernization have left Americans with an outdated and failing infrastructure that cannot meet our needs.”

And while our “leaders” fiddle…

“The United States is falling dramatically behind much of the world in rebuilding and expanding an overloaded and deteriorating transportation network it needs to remain competitive in the global marketplace, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute.

[…]

As Congress debates how much should be spent and where to find the money, China has a plan to spend $1 trillion on high-speed rail, highways and other infrastructure in five years. India is nearing the end of a $500 billion investment phase that has seen major highway improvements, and plans to double that amount by 2017. Brazil plans to spend $900 billion on energy and transportation projects by 2014.”

But then again, infrastructure spending might cut into the Endless War budget, and we can’t have that. Priorities.

Cowards, Hypocrites, and Fools

02 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by Craig in budget, Congress, Democrats, economy, Politics, Republicans

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1937, budget, Congress, cowards, credit tightening, deficit commission, double dip recession, fools, Howard Beale, hypocrites, jobless claims, new home sales, Pelosi, Republican, Social Security, states, stock market

Quickly approaching mad as hell stage:

We have a Congress packed with cowards, hypocrites, and fools—on both sides of the aisle. House Democrats have passed a budget that’s not really a budget, and projected a balanced budget that’s not really a balanced budget because it excludes interest payments on the debt. They left out the minor details of how to achieve that lofty goal, depending on recommendations from the debt commission to cover their collective asses and keep them from having to make what could be controversial votes in an election year. Profiles in courage.

That would be the deficit commission packed with Social Security privatizers, some of whom support investing as much as 20% of the SS trust fund in the stock market. Speaker Pelosi, in the interest of openness and transparency, last night sneaked in inserted language in the war funding bill that would allow the House to have an up-or-down vote on the deficit commission’s recommendations in a lame duck session after the November elections. Buck passing and CYA at its finest.

Republican deficit hypocrites, who never saw a spending program they didn’t like when they held power, have now become fiscal conservatives, allegedly. They, along with their lackey Ben Nelson, have blocked the extension of unemployment benefits despite the fact that new jobless claims have hit their highest levels since March, and the unemployment numbers due out today are expected to show an increase from the 9.7% we have now.

Both sides have their collective moistened fingers in the wind which tells them that voters are worried about increasing deficits, so these geniuses look for ways to cut spending, except for the untouchable Defense Department, that is. Wouldn’t want to be accused of being “soft on terror.”. Never mind that the stock market is headed back down, pending new home sales dropped 30% from April to May, credit is still tightening, and many states are facing budget crises that, without federal assistance, could result in the loss of 900,000 more jobs.

Add these to the anticipated rise in unemployment and the prospects of a double-dip recession are increasing by the day. Exactly the wrong time to even be considering spending cuts, unless you want a repeat of 1937. Fools.

We don’t need one Howard Beale, we need to become a nation of Howard Beales.

The Long Road Ahead in Afghanistan

21 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by Craig in Afghanistan

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Afghanistan, Bagram, budget, Construction, contractors, Kandahar, Pentagon

A look at the Air Force budget for Afghanistan doesn’t sound to me like we’re planning on leaving any time soon, if ever:

* $65 million for a close-air support apron and an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance apron at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan.

* $61 million for a cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron at Kandahar.

* $13.8 million for a cargo terminal at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, according to Nick Turse at Tom Dispatch:

* In March, according to Pentagon documents, Contrack [International, an engineering and construction firm] was awarded a $23 million contract for “the design and construction of [an] Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance ramp, Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.”

* In April, Contrack was awarded another $28 million contract for work on airfields — to be performed at unspecified sites in Afghanistan.

* In June, Florida-based IAP Worldwide Services was awarded a $21 million contract to enhance electrical power distribution at the U.S. Marines’ still-growing Forward Operating Base (FOB) Leatherneck in Helmand Province…”

* In October, according to government documents, the Army also began soliciting bids — in the $10-$25 million range — for construction of fuel storage and distribution facilities at FOB Dwyer. These…are not scheduled to be completed until sometime in 2011.

* In October, defense contractor AECOM Technology signed a $78 million 6-month extension contract with the Army to “provide general-support maintenance as well as the operation of maintenance facilities, living quarters and offices at two U.S. military bases as well as forward operating bases and satellite locations” in Afghanistan.

* In July 2009, [Fluor]  was awarded a $1.5 billion contract for…services in Afghanistan…

* In July… DynCorp International along with partners CH2M Hill and Taos Industries received a one year $643.5 million order to “provide existing bases within the Afghanistan South AOR [area of responsibility] with operations and maintenance support, including but not limited to: facilities management, electrical power, water, sewage and waste management, laundry operations, food services and transportation motor pool operations”…With an eye to the future, the Pentagon has included four one-year options in the contract which, if taken up, would be worth an estimated $5.8 billion.

Turse sees two options. Either:

“…the U.S. military’s building boom in that country suggests that, in the ninth year of the Afghan War, the Pentagon has plans for a far longer-term, if not near-permanent, garrisoning of the country, no matter what course Washington may decide upon.”

Or:

“…it suggests that the Pentagon is willing to waste taxpayer money (which might have shored up sagging infrastructure in the U.S. and created a plethora of jobs) on what will sooner or later be abandoned runways, landing zones and forward operating bases.”

I’m betting on the former rather than the latter.

Cooking the Books: Fannie and Freddie Not In the Budget

04 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by Craig in economy, Financial Crisis, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

budget, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Peter Orszag, President Obama

As if the staggering numbers that are in President Obama’s budget weren’t enough, take a look at what’s not there:

“Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) — Look through President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget and you’ll see a line calling for a $235 million increase in the Justice Department’s funding to fight financial fraud. Lucky for them, the people who wrote the budget can’t be prosecuted for cooking the government’s books.

…They are keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off the government’s balance sheet and out of the federal budget, along with their $1.6 trillion of corporate debt and $4.7 trillion of mortgage obligations...Fannie and Freddie aren’t merely wards of the state. Practically speaking, they are the entire U.S. housing market. Their liabilities are the government’s liabilities.

White House budget director Peter Orszag on September 9, 2008, two days after Fannie and Freddie were seized, when he was director of the Congressional Budget Office:

“The degree of control exercised by the federal government over these entities is so strong that the best treatment is to incorporate them into the federal budget.”

That control is stronger today. Congress and the Treasury have given the companies a blank check to blow through whatever taxpayer money is necessary to keep the U.S. housing market afloat. Anyone buying large quantities of U.S. government bonds knows these liabilities exist. So why pretend they don’t?”

A good question for those who promised openness and transparency.

GOP Budget Released On April 1st, But It’s No Joke

02 Thursday Apr 2009

Posted by Craig in Politics

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70 years, April 1st, budget, chart, freeze spending, insane, privatization of Medicare, Republican alternative budget, tax cut

As I read the reviews around the blogosphere this morning of the latest work of science fiction known as the Republican alternative budget there seems to be 2 recurring themes. Questioning the sanity of the authors of that document, and a reference to the date on which it was released—April 1st.

Josh Marshall of TPM:
“I realize that it doesn’t afford me a lot of opportunities for personal or spiritual growth. But I’m nonetheless comforted by the fact that the Republicans running things in the House GOP caucus are still as clinically insane as in years past.”

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:
“It’s one thing to offer bad ideas. It’s another to offer bad ideas without doing your homework. But House GOP lawmakers are offering proposals that are just insane. Reading through the party’s new report one notices that we’d get just as serious a proposal from a group of children with crayons.”

Ron Beasley at Newshoggers:
“The Republican leadership was selected for a lack of independent thought and the ability to blindly follow the leader.  There is no leader and they are unable to come up with any new ideas.  They can’t even do sane politics.”

Kenneth Baer, OMB communications director:
“If you expected a GOP alternative to the failed policies of the past that got our country into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, then I have two words for you: April Fool’s.”

Bob Cesca at Huffington Post:
“It only makes sense that a party currently being wagged by fringe crazy people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann would release it’s alternative budget on April Fool’s Day.”

Here are just a few details that might help explain this reaction.

First, the massive tax cut reducing the top marginal rate from 35% to 25% and the explosion in the deficit that would cause. But here’s the rest of the story. The revenue predictions in this so-called budget are based on a top rate of 35%. So Republicans are assuming that wealthy people will choose the higher rate over the lower one.

The proposed 5 year freeze on non-defense discretionary spending. This means trivial things like education, health care, infrastructure, law enforcement, and medical research. All things we can do without, right?

The proposed privatization of Medicare.

“This is an idea that’s been kicking around in conservative circles for some time, and it’s an expensive one. Well, it’s expensive unless you’re an insurance company, in which case it’s extremely lucrative. The goal is to phase out Medicare over time by providing new seniors with the same health insurance options available under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.”

And last but not least there is this chart which presumes to track Democratic and Republican budget policy for the next 70 years.

budget-graph

Seventy year projections from the same people who didn’t see this recession coming. Now tell me the one about Goldilocks and the bears.

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