i've said the same thing numerous times. i think we're blinded by politics & the media. we see something written or spoken & suddenly it's gospel. we are a lazy society who has decided that haiti needs our help more than the people of our own country. there are thousands of children in this country who don't have food or proper medical care but where's the outpouring of emotions/money for them? i know that might not be a popular viewpoint right now but it's how i feel. when will we EVER take care of 'our own' & stop going into countries & telling them what to do??

"4PackGirl" wrote:

Karl Roves Hypocritical Call for Fiscal Rectitude 

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

Even though Ive been in Washington for almost 25 years, I still get shocked by the deceit and double-talk that characterizes this town. A perfect example can be found in todays Wall Street Journal, which features a column by Karl Rove attacking President Obama for fiscal incontinence. Im a big fan of condemning Obamas big-government schemes, but Rove is the last person in the world who should be complaining about too much wasteful spending. After all, he was the top adviser to President Bush and the federal budget exploded during Bushs eight years, climbing from $1.8 trillion to more than $3.5 trillion. More specifically, Rove was a leading proponent of the proposals that dramatically expanded the size and scope of the federal government, including the no-bureaucrat-left-behind education bill, the two corrupt farm bills, the two pork-filled transportation bills, and the grossly irresponsible new Medicare entitlement program.

Not surprisingly, Rove even tries to blame Obama for some of Bushs overspending, writing that discretionary domestic spending now stands at $536 billion, up nearly 24% from President George W. Bushs last full year budget in fiscal 2008 of $433.6 billion. Thats a huge spending surge, even for a profligate liberal like Mr. Obama. This passage leads the reader to assume that Obama should be blamed for what happened in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, but as Ive already explained, the 2009 fiscal year started about four months before Obama took office and 96 percent of the spending can be attributed to Bushs fiscal profligacy. Yes, Obama is now making a bad situation worse by further increasing spending, but he should be criticized for continuing Bushs mistakes.

Rove then has the gall to complain that Obama is growing the federal governments share of GDP from its historic post-World War II average of roughly 20% to the target Mr. Obama laid out in his budget blueprint last February of 24%. Yet a quick look at the budget data shows that the burden of federal spending jumped from 18.4 percent of GDP when Bush took office to more than 25 percent of economic output when he left office. Even if the (hopefully) temporary bailout costs are not counted, Bush and Rove are the ones who deserve most of the blame for todays much larger burden of government. It should be noted, by the way, that none of the new spending under Bush was imposed over his objection. He did not veto any legislation because of excessive spending.

Finally, Rove concludes by writing that, After a year of living in his fiscal fantasy world, Americans realize they have a record deficit-setting, budget-busting spender on their hands. Im almost at a loss for words after reading this sentence. All during the Bush years, I would complain to people in the Administration about wasteful spending. It didnt matter whether I was talking to people at the Office of Management and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Treasury Department, or the National Economic Council. They almost always expressed sympathy for what I was saying, and then complained that the decisions were being made by the White House political people.

Theres an old joke about chutzpah and it features a guy who murders his parents and then asks the court for mercy because hes an orphan. Karl Rove has taken the joke to the next level, but theres nothing funny about the consequences for America.

ECONOMIC SCENE
Americas Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making 

By DAVID LEONHARDT

Published: June 9, 2009

There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.

The first is that President Obamas agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II. This debt will constrain the countrys choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

The story of todays deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bushs policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category the business cycle accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. Its a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obamas main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obamas agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

How can that be? Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, dont cost the government any money. Others would be partly offset by proposed tax increases on the affluent and spending cuts. Congressional and White House aides agree that no large new programs, like an expansion of health insurance, are likely to pass unless they are paid for.

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, hes not fixing it.

And, he added, not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse.

When challenged about the deficit, Mr. Obama and his advisers generally start talking about health care. There is no way you can put the nation on a sound fiscal course without wringing inefficiencies out of health care, Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, told me.

Outside economists agree. The Medicare budget really is the linchpin of deficit reduction. But there are two problems with leaving the discussion there.

First, even if a health overhaul does pass, it may not include the tough measures needed to bring down spending. Ultimately, the only way to do so is to take money from doctors, drug makers and insurers, and it isnt clear whether Mr. Obama and Congress have the stomach for that fight. So far, they have focused on ideas like preventive care that would do little to cut costs.

Second, even serious health care reform wont be enough. Obama advisers acknowledge as much. They say that changes to the system would probably have a big effect on health spending starting in five or 10 years. The national debt, however, will grow dangerously large much sooner.

Mr. Orszag says the president is committed to a deficit equal to no more than 3 percent of gross domestic product within five to 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of at least 4 percent for most of the next decade. Even that may turn out to be optimistic, since the government usually ends up spending more than it says it will. So Mr. Obama isnt on course to meet his target.

But Congressional Republicans arent, either. Judd Gregg recently held up a chart on the Senate floor showing that Mr. Obama would increase the deficit but failed to mention that much of the increase stemmed from extending Bush policies. In fact, unlike Mr. Obama, Republicans favor extending all the Bush tax cuts, which will send the deficit higher.

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, announced a plan last week to cut spending by $75 billion a year. But they made specific suggestions adding up to meager $5 billion. The remaining $70 billion was left vague. The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending, the conservative Cato Institute concluded.

What, then, will happen?

Things will get worse gradually, Mr. Auerbach predicts, unless they get worse quickly. Either a solution will be put off, or foreign lenders, spooked by the rising debt, will send interest rates higher and create a crisis.

The solution, though, is no mystery. It will involve some combination of tax increases and spending cuts. And it wont be limited to pay-as-you-go rules, tax increases on somebody else, or a crackdown on waste, fraud and abuse. Your taxes will probably go up, and some government programs you favor will become less generous.

That is the legacy of our trillion-dollar deficits. Erasing them will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade.

E-mail: Leonhardt@nytimes.com

NEWS ANALYSIS
Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power 

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: February 1, 2010

WASHINGTON In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.

The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the countrys entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.

But the second number, buried deeper in the budgets projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obamas own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.

For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that countrys influence around the world eroded.

Or, as Mr. Obamas chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, used to ask before he entered government a year ago, How long can the worlds biggest borrower remain the worlds biggest power?

The Chinese leadership, which is lending much of the money to finance the American governments spending, and which asked pointed questions about Mr. Obamas budget when members visited Washington last summer, says it thinks the long-term answer to Mr. Summerss question is self-evident. The Europeans will also tell you that this is a big worry about the next decade.

Mr. Obama himself hinted at his own concern when he announced in early December that he planned to send 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, but insisted that the United States could not afford to stay for long.

Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power, he told cadets at West Point. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry.

And then he explained why even a war of necessity, as he called Afghanistan last summer, could not last for long.

Thats why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended, he said then, because the nation that Im most interested in building is our own.

Mr. Obamas budget deserves credit for its candor. It does not sugarcoat, at least excessively, the potential magnitude of the problem. President George W. Bush kept claiming, until near the end of his presidency, that he would leave office with a balanced budget. He never got close; in fact, the deficits soared in his last years.

Mr. Obama has published the 10-year numbers in part, it seems, to make the point that the political gridlock of the past few years, in which most Republicans refuse to talk about tax increases and Democrats refuse to talk about cutting entitlement programs, is unsustainable. His prescription is that the problem has to be made worse, with intense deficit spending to lower the unemployment rate, before the deficits can come down.

Mr. Summers, in an interview on Monday afternoon, said, The budget recognizes the imperatives of job creation and growth in the short run, and takes significant measures to increase confidence in the medium term.

He was referring to the freeze on domestic, non-national-security-related spending, the troubled effort to cut health care costs, and the decision to let expire Bush-era tax cuts for corporations and families earning more than $250,000.

But Mr. Summers said that through the budget and fiscal commission, the president has sought to provide maximum room for making further adjustments as necessary before any kind of crisis arrives.

Turning that thought into political action, however, has proved harder and harder for the Washington establishment. Republicans stayed largely silent about the debt during the Bush years. Democrats have described it as a necessary evil during the economic crisis that defined Mr. Obamas first year. Interest in a long-term solution seems limited. Or, as Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution put it Monday on MSNBC, The problem here is not honesty, but political will.

One source of that absence of will is that the political warnings are contradicted by the market signals. The Treasury has borrowed money to finance the governments deficits at remarkably low rates, the strongest indicator that the markets believe they will be paid back on time and in full.

The absence of political will is also facilitated by the fact that, as Prof. James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas puts it, Forecasts 10 years out have no credibility.

He is right. In the early years of the Clinton administration, government projections indicated huge deficits over the sustainable level of 3 percent by 2000. But by then, Mr. Clinton was running a modest surplus of about $200 billion, a point Mr. Obama made Monday as he tried anew to remind the country that the moment was squandered when the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it.

But with this budget, Mr. Obama now owns this deficit. And as Mr. Galbraith pointed out, it is possible that the gloomy projections for 2020 are equally flawed.

Simply projecting that health care costs will rise unabated is dangerous business.

Much may depend on whether we put in place the financial reforms that can rebuild a functional financial system, Mr. Galbraith said, to finance growth in the private sector the kind of growth that ultimately saved Mr. Clinton from his own deficit projections.

His greatest hope, Mr. Galbraith said, was Steins law, named for Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.

Steins law has been recited in many different versions. But all have a common theme: If a trend cannot continue, it will stop.

Obama Budget Freezes Much Domestic Spending 

By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 30, 2010

WASHINGTON President Obama will send a $3.8 trillion budget to Congress on Monday for the coming fiscal year that would increase financing for education and for civilian research programs by more than 6 percent and provide $25 billion for cash-starved states, even as he seeks to freeze much domestic spending for the rest of his term.

The budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins in October, will identify the winners and losers behind Mr. Obamas proposal for a three-year freeze of a portion of the budget. Many programs at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department are in line for increases, along with the Census Bureau.

Among the losers would be some public works projects of the Army Corps of Engineers, two historic preservation programs and NASAs mission to return to the Moon, which would be ended as the administration seeks to reorient the space program to use private companies for launchings. Mr. Obama is recycling some proposals from last year, including one to end redundant payments for land restoration at abandoned coal mines; Western lawmakers blocked it in 2009. Mr. Obama will propose a total of $20 billion in such savings for the coming fiscal year.

Exempted from the cuts, however, are national security, veterans programs, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security the most expensive and fastest-growing areas of the budget.

By filling in the details behind the freeze, the administration hopes to show critics that it used a scalpel rather than an ax to keep spending for the targeted domestic agencies to $447 billion through 2013.

The three-year freeze would save $250 billion over the coming decade, assuming the overall spending on the domestic programs is permitted to rise no more than the inflation rate for the remainder of the decade an austerity that neither party has ever achieved in Washington. Even so, the $250 billion in savings would be less than 3 percent of the total deficits projected through 2020.

Criticism of the spending plan has ranged from arguments among liberals in Mr. Obamas party and some economists that he should not be cutting spending when the economy needs hundreds of billions of dollars more in stimulus money, to complaints from Republicans that the savings are too paltry when annual trillion-dollar deficits are the largest since World War II.

The debate reflects the conflicting imperatives underlying the administrations fiscal policies between the demands to help a struggling economy create jobs and the need for long-term efforts to address the huge buildup of debt that threatens the nations future prosperity.

There is a huge tension between the goals, said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Mr. Obama addressed the dueling challenges in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.

As we work to create jobs, he said, it is critical that we rein in the budget deficits weve been accumulating for far too long deficits that wont just burden our children and grandchildren, but could damage our markets, drive up our interest rates and jeopardize our recovery right now.

For the current fiscal year, the administration is working with Congressional Democrats for up to $150 billion more on top of roughly $1 trillion in stimulus measures to date to spur job creation through more business tax cuts and money for construction projects and provide relief for the long-term unemployed.

At the same time, to hold down annual deficits, the president has proposed the freeze as well as a pay-as-you-go law to require offsetting savings for new spending and tax cuts. He is also calling for new revenue sources, like a proposed tax on big banks to recover any losses from the financial bailout program, and proposing some old ones that Congress has not accepted, including selling emission permits to businesses to reduce pollution.

And for the long term, Mr. Obama will soon issue an executive order for a bipartisan commission to propose a debt reduction plan by December. Democratic leaders have committed in writing that Congress will vote on the panels package.

As the administration was completing its budget plans in December, Mr. Obama said at a White House economic forum that weve got about as difficult an economic play as is possible in adding to the current deficit while simultaneously planning to slash future shortfalls. He compared it to pressing the accelerator while being poised to hit the brakes.

Because deficits would be even worse if the economy relapsed, he said then, the single most important thing we could do right now for deficit reduction is to spark strong economic growth so that people have jobs, businesses make profits and the government collects more taxes.

But he acknowledged, as his support in the polls continued to slip, Were going to have to do a better job of educating the public on that.

The worse-than-expected recession, which has led to even smaller tax collections and higher stimulus spending than planned, has doomed Mr. Obamas promise a year ago to reduce annual deficits by the end of his term to a size equal to 3 percent of the gross domestic product, a level most economists consider sustainable. The projected $1.3 trillion deficit for this year is more than 9 percent of the gross domestic product.

Mr. Obamas budget director, Peter R. Orszag, told business leaders in November that he was now dedicated to getting the deficit to 3 percent by the 2015 fiscal year. But he has also told people that success is contingent on a bipartisan debt commission forcing Congress to increase revenues and reduce future spending on entitlement program benefits an outcome that is far from certain at this point, given Republican leaders resistance to even participating in a commission.

The presidents budget also assumes approval of his ambitious plan, now stalled in Congress, to remake the nations health care system. That would mean significant reductions in the growth of Medicare spending. The White House and Congressional Budget Office agree that the health bill would reduce projected deficits in the long term. But the reductions are relatively small compared with the total deficits projected over the coming decade.

Mr. Obamas 2011 budget would provide more for the Pentagons Special Operations forces, the Armys Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Mr. Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders have said they will extend most of the Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire on Dec. 31. The president wants Congress to let the tax cuts lapse for high-income people, so that couples making more than $250,000 would see their taxes rise. But some centrist Democrats are urging Mr. Obama to spare wealthy taxpayers as well, to avoid raising their taxes before the economy is fully recovered.