Sorry for the delay in posting, I know I have a lot to catch up on so let me dive right in with a rather lengthy piece which grew out of one particular sound bite:
“I don’t know how they've been bamboozling folks into thinking that they are the responsible, fiscally-disciplined party. They run up these wild debts and then when we take over we have to clean it up. And then they point and say, 'Look how irresponsible they are.' Look at facts, look at the numbers. And now I want to finish the job". -President Obama
The quote beginning my article today was spoken yesterday, Wednesday the 23rd, by the President in a campaign fundraising event in Denver. If you have been reading my articles for some time, now, you know that I approach my field with an unbiased starting point. Both parties are corrupt, both are wrong (in my opinion) on certain issues, both are correct on certain issues. But the fact remains that this story and quote caught my eye, not only because it is not true, but it is an admonishment of one the President's key champion "successes" in his first term.
To begin, the graph above is from the Congressional Budget Office, a bipartisan group who documents the extent to which Congress will spend in the coming and preceding years based on past spending and the President's current submitted budget. Keep in mind, the group, although bipartisan, is headed by a representative who is the same party as the majority of Congress (in this case, Democrats). The graph displays the curve at which it is estimated the country's budget will be a percentage of GDP all the way through 2035. Of course, the main cause of this debt is the expenditure of the government on various initiatives. Needless to say, the CBO predicts a large increase in this percentage in both scenarios it presents to the administration. I am letting the numbers speak for themselves. This is a CBO chart taken from a CBO report which also states the following:
Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path—meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run…
CBO’s long-term budget projections raise fundamental questions about economic sustainability…
If spending grew as projected and taxes were raised in tandem, tax rates would have to reach levels never seen in the United States.
Both parties spend money. And a lot of money. All the time. No party is more "fiscally responsible", they just have different ways in which they spend money. In the case of the President, spending for various bailout initiatives, social programs, welfare, and other Democratic talking and acting points, which is AWESOME if you believe the government should be spending money on such things. For the record, I do not, but that is an opinion and you are entitled to your own by all means. The crisis in 2008-2009 was a failure on behalf of both parties: the Democratic Clinton Congress in the early to mid 90s, and the Bush presidencies saw an increase in spending on the domestic and foreign fronts. If anything is a bipartisan venture in Washington, it is spending the tax payer dime.
They way in which I seek to approach this statement by the President is this: it is not an issue of whether or not it is "true" that the Democrats are "more fiscally responsible" and must "clean up the mess" of the Republicans. That is not the issue. The President, in his calculations, did not include either the cost of the bailouts of the banking and housing industries, or General Motors (American Recovery or Investment Act), nor did he include the costs that would be incurred if the Affordable Healthcare Act is upheld by the Supreme Court in June. In essence, he removed the spending amounts of the two signature moves of his first term in office. That is where I must interject. The following video was taken from a press conference in Denver a year after ARIA was passed:
"We acted because failure to do so would have needed in catastrophe...to do what is right for the US economy and the American people. One of the main reasons why the economy...growing...responsible for the jobs of 2 million Americans who would be unemployed".
It was only a year after the ARIA was passed that the President credited it for saving the economy from slipping into a Depression, and stressing the importance of the "bipartisan...tough political decision" it was. But: "We had a responsibility to the US economy and the American people". It would follow from this quote, that the President reasons that the decision was a tough one, but it was one he suffered political hardship for in order to better serve the American people. An admirable statement and action, because it was designed to be. Thats is not a shot at the President, it is good politics. You want the people to believe you incurred a cost to do them some favor.
I must then ask, why shun the responsibility for the ARIA now, 4 years later after its passage, by excluding it from the total number of expenditures the administration has incurred? If you believed, politically, that the stimulus was a bad decision, one taken to avoid making a worse one, done for the greater good of the economy and people of the United States, why shy away from that viewpoint and ostracize the action entirely? In my opinion , the administration should be less concerned with giving the stimulus up for adoption, but rather with hammering home the idea that the stimulus, although politically hurtful to the President, cause all the recovery we have experienced since the passage of the ARIA.
Why then has the administration shoved its greatest accomplishment and show of bipartisanship under the rug? Is it because they know the recovery has not been strong and, therefore, the stimulus must be distanced from their campaign, or are they merely citing the spending done before the stimulus was passed, and that the spending done which led us to pass the act was done (largely) by Republicans? That is your decision based on your political beliefs.
Like I said, both parties spend money and both are to blame for the crisis in 2008-2009.
And to suggest that one is more responsible is folly.
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