Obama's real deficit problem: His tax cuts (CNNMoney)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writerMarch 19, 2011: 8:28 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Obama takes a lot of heat from Republicans for supposedly being a big spender. But when it comes to future deficits, the president's problem isn't spending. It's the tax cuts.

The president's budget request for next year would add $9.5 trillion to deficits over the next decade, which is $2.7 trillion more than would otherwise be the case, according to a preliminary analysis released Friday from the independent Congressional Budget Office.

The main reason? Obama's budget would reduce revenue by a net $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years.

As a result, the amount of interest owed on the national debt would go up by another $519 billion. And that interest is the reason spending as a whole would rise under the president's budget.
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more: http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/18/news/economy/obama_budget_cbo/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

[shraby]

1. One huge problem with this article..the Republicans insisted

on the tax cut.

[msongs]

2. Obama could have vetoed them and chose not to nt

[Shiver]

5. Which would have meant vetoing the tax cuts he campaigned on as well.

[Myrina]

6. ... add it to the list of other campaign promises that haven't happened ...

... in the name of 'looking forward' and 'austerity' etc etc ...

[nashville_brook]

3. this was one of the few times he took an active role on the hill -- in favor of the "deal"

[Fuddnik]

4. He could have let them expire.

It was in the national interest. And the bottom 95% only got peanuts for cuts anyway.

We have a revenue problem. Not a spending problem.

[BobbyBoring]

9. How true

The $600.00 I got didn't make me or break me~

[Demeter]

7. We Have a Deficit in the Oval Office

Several, actually.

[Jefferson23]

8. So Obama just did not know any better, did not know who to employ

for advice..hmmm.


Published on Thursday, March 11, 2010 by The Capital Times (Wisconsin) The Dangers of Deficit Reduction

SNIP* The financial sector has imposed huge externalities on the rest of society. America's financial industry polluted the world with toxic mortgages, and, in line with the well established "polluter pays" principle, taxes should be imposed on it. Besides, well-designed taxes on the financial sector might help alleviate problems caused by excessive leverage and banks that are too big to fail. Taxes on speculative activity might encourage banks to focus greater attention on performing their key societal role of providing credit.

Over the longer term, most economists agree that governments, especially in advanced industrial countries with aging populations, should be concerned about the sustainability of their policies. But we must be wary of deficit fetishism. Deficits to finance wars or giveaways to the financial sector (as happened on a massive scale in the U.S.) lead to liabilities without corresponding assets, imposing a burden on future generations. But high-return public investments that more than pay for themselves can actually improve the well-being of future generations, and it would be doubly foolish to burden them with debts from unproductive spending and then cut back on productive investments.

These are questions for a later day -- at least in many countries, prospects of a robust recovery are, at best, a year or two away. For now, the economics is clear: Reducing government spending is a risk not worth taking.

in full:http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/11-7

[pscot]

10. So you agree with the OP's point?

Or would you say, with Dickcheney, that deficits don't matter?

[Jefferson23]

11. Obama has made one terrible decision after another regarding the

economy...I agree he needed to employ people like Stiglitz. The problem is for me, he is far too
intelligent to have chosen Geithner and Summers by mistake. Wall Street's stranglehold on our
election system won, the average American has lost, once again.

I was being sarcastic earlier..should have added the thingie, that is what they are there for.

[pscot]

12. His grandma was a bank exec

and he spent years at and around the U. of Chicago, where Milton Friedman is still revered as a god. I agree Obama is smart. I also think he puts bankers ahead of people. He's a corporatist.