hundreds of billions = 0 ?
Robert Waldmann
The www.washington.com Headline and abstract person has outdone himself or herself writing
CBO sees debt estimates soar
Analysts say health law has not improved budget and Obama’s tax agenda will make things worse.
Lori Montgomery
As Kevin Drum says always click the link. Lori Montgomery actually wrote
President Obama’s overhaul of the health-care system has done little to improve the nation’s budget outlook, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.
So “little” has become none. The abstract contradicts the actual story.
Finally well down in the story we get to what Doug Elmendorf said
The health-care overhaul made “steps in the direction of a sustainable fiscal policy. But they are small steps relative to the journey that will be needed for fiscal sustainability,” CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said Wednesday in testimony before Obama’s bipartisan commission on the deficit.
small “relative to the journey that will be needed for fiscal sustainability” is not small. We do not normally measure sums of money “relative to the journey that will be needed for fiscal sustainability”. Another way of putting that would be “unimagninable huge immense and gigantic but nowhere near as colossal as the long term budget shortfall”.
So in the hands of the Washington Post small “relative to the journey that will be needed for fiscal sustainability” becomes “small” and then none. Too the Post hundreds of billions of dollars are zero.
Clearly that organization is not qualified to report the news. Even the simplest most cut and dried gigantic numbers are too subtle for them.
This is the end of my short punchy post. A general rant follows after the jump.
Beyond this, the CBO report isn’t news. All we learn is that the CBO headline number must be based on what Congress claims it will do, so it is based on the the assumption of no more alternative minimum tax fixes and no more doc fixed and, especially, all Bush tax cuts expire.
Pretending it is news is hyping a fact. It fits the panic about the deficit agenda. This is part of the agenda of the Washington Post opinion pages. It is not good that the news staff is hyping non news about how the long run deficit picture is grim.
Also Montgomery’s next sentence miss-allocates blame
They also said the president’s tax agenda — including a pledge to extend an array of tax cuts for the middle class — would only make things worse.
This is only true if one interprets “the president” to be George W Bush. Obama is reversing some but not all of the Bush tax cuts. The silly trick of saying they would sunset makes the change in law a tax cut, but the change in policy is a tax increase. Montgomery is blaming Obama for not undoing all of the damage that Bush did.
This is the general slant. Obama is blamed for the long run budgetary shortfall, because the huge gigantic improvements that he has achieved plus the huge gigantic and popular improvements which he has proposed are not huge and gigantic enough to undo the damage the Republicans did when they were in control.
He’s been Posted.
Obviosly we bought a couple war that we couldn’t afford. Wars are non-returnable, no? Do we default on the mortgage? Declare bankruptcy? Ah ha, why not charge it all to the working class?
Two years ago this month the CBO had this to say:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday estimated that a government plan to stabilize mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost government coffers an average of $25 billion.
The CBO said it thinks there is probably a better than 50% chance that the Treasury would not need to step in. It also said there is a 5% chance that Freddie and Fannie’s losses would cost the government $100 billion.
This paved the way for a policy to transfer hundred of billions of dollars (still going strong) to Fannie/Freddie bondholders who otherwise would have taken well deserved haircuts. Has the CBO cleaned house of the people that grossly mislead, quite purposely I am convinced, the nation two summers ago to the benefit of the connected few? Not that I am aware of. The scandal that is the CBO is before our eyes but we continue to analyze what they have to say as if they might be an honest source of information. They are not.
Robert said: “Obama is blamed for the long run budgetary shortfall, because the huge gigantic improvements that he has achieved…”
Achieved???? How much higher do the deficits need to reach and the CBO pronouncments of unsustainable need to be repeated, before you realize and admit Obama is a disaster? BTW, today’s DOL unemployment annoucement was: “In the week ending June 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 472,000, an increase of 13,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 459,000. The 4-week moving average was 466,500, an increase of 3,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 463,250.” From here: http://247wallst.com/2010/07/01/unemployment-another-nail-in-the-coffin/
Don’t rea anything into my link. I just picked the first reference with the numbers.
Want short and punchy?
Lori Montgomery is a stenographer for AEI (Kevin Hasset) and the various Peterson front groups (David Walker).
When you see her by-line you are almost guaranteed to see a quote from one or the other and she was the prime conduit for the ‘surplus vanishing years ahead of schedule’ message about Social Security that has been gaining currency since her WaPo article to that effect in Mar 2009. But beyond that she is a reliable water carrier for the uber-deficit hawks, every piece she writes as ostensible ‘news’ would be better placed on the Op-Ed pages. Her name should be a red flag in the same way that ‘Charles Krauthammer says–” is on neo-con projects.
CoRev
I agree that the deficit is worrisome, but by itself it is not sufficient evidence of ‘disaster.’ in the first place you don’t know what it would be without the Obama initiatives. In the second place, it does not look (yet) really unsustainable. An interest chage of 1% of GDP is payable. In the third place, it can be paid down once we understand that we need to pay for what we bought… under the Reagan arms buildup and Bush wars, and, oh yes, the recession created by biparisan deregulation of the banking industry.
Deficits do matter to the folks holding the T- bills and bonds, in a good way.
It is what the deficits paid for. Long war equal perpetual deficits. If the 8% of GDP going to perpetual war profits were spent on health, education and infrastructure.
End the wars cut the war machine back.
In the UK they spend 44B Sterling on the ministry of defence which is much less offensive than the US Dept of Defense. Barry Ritholtz had a chart on UK government outlays.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Factfile-UK-public-spendi-003.jpg
While the UK spends almost nothing on anything else in terms the US calls discretionary, code for corporate welfare.
ilsm will not change
While we’re at it, anybody catch the Greenspan show today?
At this point it is pretty striaght forward!
Democrat Politicians, after the many, many years of whinning, complaining and lieing, have been given the opportunity to fix the evil Republicans mistakes and they clearly have dropped the ball and exposed that their agenda is totally off base from the majority views of the population.
They own it!
If they bring us back from the brink, they will be rewarded, and if they can’t, they will be punished and the we won’t hear from them till 2016.
The smart kids said they had all the answers, and the knuckle dragging republicans were evil and stupid. The American people did not put Democrats in unlimited power because they felt sorry for them, they put them in power to solve problems, and if they can’t do that they have no one to blame but themselves….
Oh, my, that Jimi is so persuasive! (Not to mention original!) After 8 years of GOP rule, Obama has been handed the worst economy in 70 years, and having failed to put it back on its feet in the first half of his term, is completely responsible for everything.
And, since we all know that Jimi never, ever, ever whines, complains or lies, well that must be the absolute, RNC and fairy-dusted truth.
Yes, the Democrats are messing up more than we can afford for them to mess up. But seriously, this competence-equivalences story you have going here, Jimi, is utter crap. And the newly popular “they own it” thing? You do realize that’s how propaganda is done, right? Not reality?
K,
Ha! So your explaination of why Democrats are going to be run out on a rail for many years to come is because “The Republicans made me do it?”
That’s Rich!
Hell if your gonna sell that…..why not just claim Bush is still in power…..we have a country dumb enough to put Obama and the Democrats in power…they probably will bellieve it!
Hey what happend to:
“We are the one’s we have been waiting for.” or
“Yes we Can.” or my all time favorite
“Change we can believe in?”
My favorite is,”Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
But let’s be nice. Give Obama his due, he’s consolidated Bush’s victory in Iraq, preserved all of the wartime legislation, and escallated to win in Afghanistan (the Good War). Plus, he reformed Gen Betray-us, oops Petraous, and placed him in charge in Afghanistan after McChrystal’s self-immolation. He’s even got widely pro-war sites like MoveOn.org behind him.
Not much change but we can beleive in it, BTW I was pointing out the Dems would own it all in the fall of 2008…
Islam will change
‘he’s consolidated Bush’s victory in Iraq,’
The Big O is enjoying the diversionary thrashing about in Afghanistan and the lull in killings between the genocidal Shi’a and homicidal Sunni to declare victory and leave a Shi’a government which nods to Iran. Let that waste be done before it collapses, too.
‘preserved all of the wartime legislation’
Big O is pandering to militarism, sad!!
‘escallated to win in Afghanistan (the Good War).’
Big O is pandering to militarism, sad!! Failed to sack Mc C in Oct 09.
‘he reformed Gen Betray-us, oops Petraous’
Big O took that Betray-us guy from Unified command to a small country command, with a couple percent contributed by NATO.
If you were a wing commander if the boss fired one of your Sq CC’s and gave you his job you woud consider that a promotion or rehab???
Just wondrin’
ilsm will not change
KH, your sarcasm is showing! Sayng this: “Yes, the Democrats are messing up more than we can afford for them to mess up. ” Is an OMG moment.
Jimi, Buff and all the other conservaives visiting here, when KHarris and others of their ilk begin to admit things are going poorly, we know the Dems are lost.
Good On’Ya, KH.