Health care talk, deficit talk, and more educational goodies.
Let the numbers speak for themselves. Here is my version of the CBO’s Federal Budget chart. I’ve added the year and colors for those that comprehend better visually. Redish hues stand for Republican numbers, blue for Democrat, and purple for the hybrid government of a Republican president with a Democratically controlled congress.
I would like to point out a few trends in the chart above.
- Yes, GWB inherited a surplus. Any president would have had a surplus after serving during the biggest economic and technological boom of the century. The internet boom was a wonderful thing. The bust, not so much.
- Notice that despite 9/11 and its obvious financial impact, the deficit was steadily decreasing beginning in 2004. Republican economic policies were working. We were on our way back toward budget surplus. PResident Bush decreased the budget every year starting in 2004,with the exception of 2008.
- What happened in 2008? A $300B tax credit has a way of skewing your averages. So does a Democratically controlled congress.
- What happened in 2009? Well, Obama took over and quickly embraced Rahm Emmanuel’s “take advantage of a crisis” mindset. Sadly, many of the proposed budget requests won’t impact us for several years. It was designed that way. Sure, the CBO projects that the deficit will decrease through 2012, but it will never “improve” to even the worst levels of the prior administration
Let’s look at another chart:
Do you see what I see? At the peak of the internet boom we were at virtual unemployment, a rate around 4%. Terrorists helped change that in 2001, but again — despite 9/11 — employment figures continually decreased under Republican leadership. Then the Democrats took over. The housing bubble, a bubble created by liberal policies, finally burst. Hank Paulson scared Congress into giving him $700 billion dollars, and to this day we still have no idea where all of that money went or whether or not it actually made a difference. Sure, we are told that it did, but there is zero data to back it up. Show me direct correlation between the bailout and any improvement in our financial markets.
How high will unemployment go? How low will our deficits drop? At what point does China say “No credit for you!” What will it take to teach people that you cannot help the unemployed by punishing the employer? The 2010 mid-term election could be the most important election America has ever faced. Our financial future depends on it. The scale of these problems is something America has never experienced. In one single year “trillion” has become the new “billion.” Once upon a time “trillion” was a massive number used to describe stars or micro-organisms. Now it is sadly a standard term of reference in the Obama administration.
UPDATE: The purpose of my post is to provide a comparison of the Bush and Obama administrations. I can (and probably will) provide additional charts with a longer time frame for those that feel it is important. But my point is to provide data to liberals that shows how much worse Obama is making things. Yes, GWB spent too much, but does that give Obama carte blanche to take it to an entirely new and previously unforeseen level? I don’t think so.
UPDATE 2: Here is the chart for US unemployment statistics back to 1948. The highest ever was under Reagan’s first term.The largest ever decrease in the unemployment rate was under Reagan’s presidency. However, it should be noted that he took measures to reduce the unemployment rate by lowering taxes and stimulating the economy. Obama is doing the exact opposite. Therefore I think it would be foolish to think that Obama can repeat Reagan’s legacy.
Here’s what the CBO Director said earlier this year:
According to our preliminary assessment, enacting the proposal would result in a net increase in federal budget deficits of about $1.0 trillion over the 2010-2019 period. When fully implemented, about 39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance exchanges. At the same time, the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured would be about 16 million or 17 million.
So, a net increase of 17 million newly insured people. Let’s run with the lie that the entire package will cost $900B over ten years. This equates to a taxpayer cost of $52,941 per newly insured American. If we use a more realistic $1.5T estimate the per person cost jumps to $88,235. Of course, we all know that the government always comes in at or under budget for massive projects, right?
Thanks to the visual imagery of Josh Dyess at WallStats.com I am happy to help educate the masses. Josh has a creative eye and can help you get a better understanding of complex (and not so complex) stuff via pictures. Check out his site when you have a moment. [update: Josh tells me he didn't create these images, he got it from a friend, who got it from a friend, etc. So, I don't know who actually created them. But still visit Josh's site, its pretty cool.]
So, how big is a trillion?
I talk to so many people that are politically apathetic or uninformed. Their opinions are the ones captured by sound bites, Letterman jokes and Saturday Night Live skits. Theirs are the votes that gave us President Obama. People make mistakes, but you cannot get too upset over mistakes caused by ignorance. Willful defiance is a different story though; there’s not much we can do to change those minds. My focus has been and will continue to be the education of the casual voter, the moderate, the soccer mom and over-worked, politically apathetic dad.
Last week we learned that just one section of the proposed Obama health care plan will cost $1 trillion over the next ten years. A different section will cost $1.6 trillion. Trillion. Sadly, the masses are becoming desensitized to the word. How much is a trillion exactly? One trillion is a million million. It is twelve zeros.
To help put this in perspective, the sum total of every product created, item sold and service performed in the US in 2006 totaled just over thirteen trillion dollars. Every business, every paperboy, every mechanic, doctor, bartender, computer programmer, teacher, athlete. Every local bar, street corner bakery, seamstress, doughnut shop, as well as every US-based big oil, big pharma, big retailer, et al… every penny that they generated in that year totaled $13,000,000,000,000. That’s thirteen million millions of dollars.
In that same year the IRS collected just over one trillion dollars in tax revenue from almost 136 million tax returns. (source: IRS) If you look at the evil “top 5%” that Barack-O loves to soak and complain about, this group generated more than 60% of that revenue while earning only 36% of the revenue in the US that year.
“So what. Why should I care?” Here’s why.
The projected defecit for 2009 is $1.85T. It will have to be restated because it is based on optimistic numbers, including a peak of 8% unemployment. We are way past that now and there is no sign of the trend slowing.
- The Top 1% of earners in 2006 contributed $408B to the IRS in 2006 (source).
- The hated Top 5% contributed $615B.
- The Top 25% contributed a total of $883B.
Folks, we are still a trillion short. Where will the rest come from? It will come from me and you. Do you think your income is too low to be snatched up by the Obama administration?
- The average salary of Americans in the Top 5% is $153,542.
- The average salary in the Top 25% of tax payers is $64,702.
Do you make more than $64,702? Hell, do you make less? This is your wake-up call. The government can’t pay the current deficit, never mind the massive debt that Obama has requested and is generating. This will hit your pocket, sooner than later. The math is plain for everyone to see, you just need to be willing to accept the reality of our situation and stand up for what is right.
Get over your hate or frustration with George Bush. He is no longer in office. Obama is the one driving us off the cliff, and the only thing we can do is let our representatives know that we do NOT want any more debt. TARP, Healthcare, Stimulus, auto bailouts and the like. Tell your representatives and senators that you have had enough!
