My problem with Obama has never been about his spending, but I do have a couple questions about the figure. First, the blue piece on 2009 is much too small to account for the whole stimulus, so is that spread out across multiple years? Second, isn't that big jump from 2008 to 2009 supposed to be the extra spending in response to the crisis? You know, the spending that Larry Summers said should be "timely, temporary, and targeted." If the stimulus is spread out across multiple years in that figure, it doesn't seem particularly timely, when the crisis was in late 2008 and early 2009. And given that numbers have not returned to 2008 levels, I don't think the spending bump meets any reasonable definition of temporary either. From the figure, it looks to me like we've continued spending at crisis-response levels for three extra years now, and we're now using that baseline to hide the fact that spending jumped 20% in a single year and has remained there, when it was supposed to fall again after 2009. Also, I'm no economist, but are absolute dollars really the way spending should be looked at? Isn't spending as a percentage of GDP more typical?
Using that logic, Obama hasn't actually spend a single cent. The tax payers did. Thus, we should all be fired if we have a problem with spending, not Obama.
As a college student, Obama has put me under my parents' insurance plan until im 26, and does not plan on doubling student loan interest rates like Romney and Ryan.
America started with the deepest recession since the Great Depression, a broken financial system, a frozen credit system, two wars, someone called Osama hanging around... Now credit markets are unfrozen, growth will resume trend as soon as the risk hangover ends, the financial system is still broken, but mitigated somewhat by some regulation (even if it is still to be implemented properly), America is pretty much out of one war, and part-way out the other (to the point where the election has not, albeit sadly, focused on Afghanistan at all), and yes, Osama is dead. As a result, A-Q has been the weakest it has been in quite a while, and the number of significant attacks internationally has descended. There have been no successful domestic terrorism incidents involving A-Q. Yes, there have been faults; a surprising disregard towards certain rights, and a tendance towards economic concentration of power for example. But the stewardship of the Obama Administration in terms of what was probably one of the worst situations in American history has been imperfect, but nevertheless, very well executed.
ARRA was technically spread from 2009 to 2019, which makes sense if you know how long-term some of the infrastructure projects, science projects, and tax breaks were. According to my understanding, about $200B of the $831B finally passed appeared in 2009, and yes, I believe that's the blue bump to what was really a Bush budget for 2009. Here's another way to look at historic spending by president: You're correct that you can look at spending compared to GDP, but that penalizes whoever is president during a historically horrible recession. This is why the heritage foundation and similar ilk always compare federal spending to GDP.
What has Obama done? He got an elitist hypo-allergenic dog, he built a basketball court on White House property, built a brewery (so he's constantly drunk), and 'pander handled' everything else to the liberal media for positive spin. Unfortunately for Obama and his minions once something spins too fast it flies off the rails. Every liberal wants to make a big deal out of killing OBL, but they conveniently leave out the fact we lost a very expensive stealth helicopter in the raid due to Obama's rushed politically motivated planning. Our mortal enemies were able to study and copy the design so now there very well could be Chinese and Russian stealth helicopters flying over your neighborhood.
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correct. I find comments such ' Obama Provided travel expenses to families of fallen soldiers to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB' very annoying since it's an obvious attempt to give credit where it is not due. Obama did nothing. Tax payers footed the bill. Why would Obama get credit for giving someone else's money to a charitable(?) cause?
They did something. I just would never be so ignorant as to give them credit for something like this. It's no challenge spending someone else's money.
Nope. Gun bans, off shore drilling moratorium, etc.... I am amazed I need to explain this. You can give the president for making a tough, difficult, and correct choice (even if it involves spending tax payer money).
using enforcement which alrdy exists. You think it costs us more if we start enforcing a ban on assault rifles tomorrow? I am sure that cost will be staggering.... Don't forget Obamacare is not a tax.
At some point, student loan interest rates will have to increase. Maybe not by double, but e increase in interest on performing loans will work to offset the losses on the loans that will default once the student loan problem moves from problem to crisis. It is the next big economic problem. I think it is a good thing that students can remain on their parents' insurance. The problem that I have is that it (and other provisions of e law) have caused an increase in the rates for everybody. My health insurance now costs me about a third more than it did before Obamacare passed. It has unintentionally become a money grab for big insurance.
