Obama excepts his Nobel prize

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Riot

??? The President doesn't make up the vast majority of what we spend every year - it is largely predetermined, Medicare, federal employees, defense, etc. For example Fed employees are getting a 2% raise this year.

Are you talking about what is in the House and Senate now, the omnibus bill for 2010 spending, right?

So tell me, out of all the 2010 spending ("Obama's budget" is not what it is), what is specifically Obama's programs, added, that you don't like?

And yes, that bill (those bills, House and Senate are different) are huge and filled with pork, and much will be cut out, and the vast majority of crap in it is put there by our Congressmen and Senators for their districts and states.

Blaming everything in there for 2010 all on Obama is ridiculous. And yes, you have to wait and see what is passed and what is not.
News (not op-ed) article discussing it: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=alggRZ3von6w

you're now splitting hairs. you're suggesting obama isn't attempting to increase spending, and that it isn't just 'his budget'. but i know what i read in the below:

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/oba...ws-conference/



A $5 Trillion Whopper?

The president claimed he has cut federal spending by more than $2 trillion.

Obama: I am very worried about federal spending. And the steps that we’ve taken so far have reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office doesn’t agree that Obama’s budget has “reduced federal spending” at all. Quite the opposite. His budget calls for vastly increased spending, according to CBO.
Last month CBO estimated that total federal spending, without the changes Obama proposed in his budget, would be just under $39 trillion over the next 10 years. It also estimated that if Congress adopted the president’s budget, spending would increase to more than $41.7 trillion over the same period. As a percentage of the economy, CBO figured that federal spending would rise from 22.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) under current law, to 23.7 percent under Obama’s budget proposals

and no, it hasn't passed as yet-but his simply asking for it belies your posts.

[Danzig]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...ctions_opinion


ObamaCare's core promise—better quality care for everyone at lower costs—is being exposed as an illusion as it degenerates into the raw exercise of political power. Naturally, the White House and its media booster club are working furiously to prop up this fiasco, especially on cost control.

Cost containment will actually take "years to decades," Mr. Orszag(Obama budget director) conceded.

Atul Gawande, who likewise owned up to the fact that there is "no master plan for dealing with the problem of soaring medical costs," only "a battery of small scale experiments." Keep in mind, this is an argument in favor of ObamaCare.

But then Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf testified in July that "the curve is being raised," given that ObamaCare lacks "the sort of fundamental changes" necessary to tamp down costs


One liberal sage noted in a 2007 paper that "four decades of empirical research" have shown that insulating people through third-party insurance coverage "from the full cost of health care has been responsible for anywhere from 10% to 50% of the large increase in health expenditures."
Those are the words of Jason Furman, now the White House deputy economic director who seems to have been put into witness protection. Every serious health economist in the country recommends reforming the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance, perhaps by converting it to a deduction or credit. Cost control will never stick unless it is extricated from politics and transferred to individuals to make their own trade-offs.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

and no, it hasn't passed as yet-but his simply asking for it belies your posts.

The budget process (pretty ugly) in this country doesn't change with the President. What numbers you get varies depending upon what you include (assume things will be renewed, go out 10 years, assume tax cuts will be maintained, etc). And the numbers can vary in a huge way, as they are all speculation about the short and long-term future based upon multiple variables.

Four years ago, who predicted 2008?

All Presidents ask for things, all have their pet programs, the vast majority of stuff in these omnibus bills however is hooked-on pork from our Congress for their individual districts, and yes, the President can redline it out, Congress can fight it out and take it out, etc.

Obama campaigned on zero-based budgeting. Bush was the antithesis of that, he spent and spent without any plan at all to pay (which put us in this huge hole to start with), without finding the money to pay for what he wanted anywhere.

We'll see if Obama holds to his campaign promise, or not.

No President can be denied implementing his programs (we never have historically) just because there is a current budget deficit when he took office. That's why we elect them - to do certain things. They DO have the responsibility to pay for their personal programs, and to keep the general operating budget reasonable.

BTW, when looking historically at the last 40 years, the Democrats do this beautifully, and the Republicans have not. The Democrats have nearly always left the country owing less at the end of their terms, and the Republicans have not.