As I've said before. Boehner's problem isn't with the president (they probably did have a deal in place). It's dealing with the crazies of his own party.
There were very little job or budget losses as a result of the dot-com bubble bursting. It was a tiny 6-month recession. Nice try, though.
And real wages that increased across the board in the 1990's and stayed that way. Unlike 2000 onwards, in which they stagnated.
This plan right? http://www.cmhda.org/breaking_news/...Medicare Part D report house of reps 7-08.pdf And who voted for this UNFUNDED plan that allows Big Pharma to charge 30% higher under Medicare for the same drugs that Medicaid covers? http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/roll669.xml Oh that's right, Republicans on both sides, and signed by Bush. Keep fighting against the lies my fellow libs. No amount of right wing BS can hide these facts!
Every budget that has created a surplus in the last 40 years has been created by a Republican Congress (there has only been 4). Clinton did not write those budget surpluses, he signed them, which he should still get some credit for doing.
So it was the Republican Congress who favored raising taxes? Imagine though - how Clinton raised taxes and yet the economy grew better than it ever had. Maybe taxing the rich doesn't change their habits much after all.
I was referencing the explosion of growth in tech that helped build surplus. Until the next internet type game changer comes around don't expect those growth rates again.
The sad fact is that the republicans truly believe that their ideas are what won them seats in the last election, when in reality the American people were using republicans to slow down obama on ideological issues. It's also sad that the American people have to resort to a gridlock washington to stop the madness that is American politics. I hope in the next election the American people see how truly haybrained and dangerous it is to let republicans run the show. It will be disastrous to give the control of both the house, senate and the presidency to them people and let them fearmonger you into another burden on this nation. It is not our system, but our greed that is the problem with American and that's why China will always be ahead of us.
It's funny how tallanvor uses that same period of time to bring up his shtick about the Republican Congresses balancing budgets four times out of forty years. hilarious, when you realize he just about excludes the Eisenhower years, when Democratic-controlled Congresses were cranking out surpluses, and marginal tax rates were sky-high. i really don't get why he keeps on bringing it up. it's like grasping at small, and out-of-context straws to define this debt debate.
Who said this? The fact that we're here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means 'The buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.
I think there's a point where raising taxes starts affecting people spending habits but the Bush tax cuts did not incentive people to spend more. It just gave them more money to invest oversees That's the problem with using tax cuts as an inventive - the rich no longer invest back into the U.S. They are investing in China often without realizing it. That's because that is where the growth is occurring. U.S. companies are just sitting on the cash, they aren't spending it in the U.S. markets. At this point, you might as well increase the tax rate to pay off debt. Think about extremes. If you were taxed 99% and your tax rate dropped to 98% you will spend that free money. That's why Regan tax cuts worked - because they were absurdly high. But if you have a tax rate at 2% - raising or decreasing that won't really affect spend. Especially amongst the wealthy. It's just a difference between by 1% more bonds or not, or a slight more expensive beach house in the carribean. Doesn't do much for the economy. The rich losing a few percentage points will not greatly impact spend. But the Bush tax cut was the biggest contributor to the deficit. here's a graphic: You can see how the Bush tax cuts exceed ALL of Obama's deficit spending. That's pretty significant. Take away the Bush tax cuts and we'd be running a SURPLUS! Amazing huh?
I wish that graphic had a breakdown that showed what the expenditures were for the war we had to fight, Afghanistan, and the war Bush pulled out of Cheney's arse, Iraq. I suspect that Iraq cost (and yes, it is still is costing us plenty) far more than we've spent in Afghanistan.
How do you figure that? Not very good at math? Also when the tax cut expiration thing was happening Obama said it has cost us 1 trillion, not the 1.8 your chart says. Whatever the number is though, tax cuts won't make us surplus.
If it did that it would have to separate defense out of the budget also. Here is a good site http://costofwar.com/en/
