Great, he's improved on his own dismal record, but...
First, we're still worse off than when he took office. Brilliant strategy: make something worse, then promise to make it less worse. Then claim credit for improvement. I think the one step forward, two steps back sums up this presidency pretty well.
Second, several expenses, most notably the wars have not been included or have been deferred for the election. And excluding war expenditures does not simply restore the budget to what it would be if we didn't have a war, because the huge gov't spending on the war dumps money directly into the economy which contributes indirectly to tax revenue. To exclude war expenditures is to pay to pump money into the economy and then to claim a gain by not counting the expense of pumping the money in.
Third, the debt is still growing, just slightly more slowly now.
Finally, I really do hope that the underlying effect holds and the deficit continues to shrink, but I see reason not to applaud too much just yet.
ScottH...You really need an Econ101 bitch slapping.
If Nazi Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker due to the stupidity of the American voters, then watch the deficit climb out of control after she tries to raise taxes. Why? If you don't know than I'm not going to waste time explaining it to you.
Don't forget the mantra of the Left:
"We have everything it takes to take everything you have."
Is no one going to respond to this prattle?
The guy made the argument last month that the deficit was really not the real deficit.
Using Dem fuzzy math he poohed poohed the deficit reduction as made up by the CBO.
Now he backs off that and admits that the deficit is actually shrinking.
Hey genius, this is the same methodology used by your hero B.J. Clinton.
Hard to swallow isn't it?
No thats not a quote by Monica beret.
Sorry Asian Badger, I didn't know you had bitch slapped him.
No stepping on feet here.
Asian Badger, I said nothing about big tax raises being the solution did I? Spending is a big part of the equation.
Also, perhaps you should have also taken Econ 102. I certainly don't deny that high taxes can strangle an economy and reduce tax revenue, but tax-rate/revenue is not a linear relationship. I don't know where on the curve the current level of US taxation is, so I don't know the effect. I also don't know that all taxes necessarily hurt the economy. For instance, the so called death tax may not be that harmful.
Chedhed, I don't recall whatever prior post of mine you think you are talking about, but "Second, several expenses, most notably the wars have not been included or have been deferred for the election." doesn't seem all that inconsistent with what you seem to suggest I said then.
Perhaps you should be less worried about stepping on each other's feet and should start trying to figure out how many more BadgerBloggers it would take to piece together an intelligent argument.
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