Sunday, April 14, 2013

Obama Proposes $900 Billion Surplus!

(UPDATE: The great wonk-maestro Ezra Klein kindly informed me that my numbers were off a bit, he reminds that the $1.8 trillion plan is over 10 years, not one, and even then the deficit never completely disappears. I admit to an extent I was purposefully somewhat hyperbolic and a tad facetious with this entry, but my bad for not closely studying all the details in Obama's proposal. And silly me to rely on simple math when it comes to Washington, tsk tsk. But apart from a lack of eventual surplus, despite close to a $2 trillion proposal, all of my remaining points below stand.)

Huh? Obama proposes a surplus?

Here’s the running tally on the federal deficit:



Note the $200+ billion Clinton surplus (in yellow), which Bush/Cheney quickly turned into years of deficits.

Also note that despite the year after year of deficits under Bush/Cheney, we never heard a peep from the Tea Party and/or Republicans. As a rule, deficits only matter when a "D" resides in the White House.

As you can see, the (inherited) deficit has come down under Obama by -35% ($1.4 trillion to $900 billion), one of if not the biggest and fastest deficit reductions ever, in our history. Yet, just as we never heard boo from the Tea Party/Republicans about the deficits during Bush/Cheney's reign, we never hear boo about the fact that the deficit has been declining since 2009. For that matter, just as we never hear much about how the stock market has more than doubled with a pinko socialist as President.

So this past week Obama proposed a $1.8 trillion deficit reduction package. Given the deficit is projected to be $900 billion by the end of this year, judging by my math, in effect he's proposing a plan to achieve a sizable ($900 billion) surplus. Let's please stop using "balance the budget" or "erase the deficit" and start using that "S" word more -- it has a huge impact on the public and always harkens back to the last time we had a surplus, the Clinton years. Ah yes, when times were better.

But again, we never hear a peep about any of this.... Oh, that liberal media.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Your math is a little off. The $1.8 trillion deficit reduction is over 10 years, or $180 billion per year. It reduces the deficit, but doesn't turn it into a surplus.

Josh.01 said...

Those were also projections coming out of the Clinton admin. We were in good shape, just not as good as shape as democrats would like you to feel.

Josh.01 said...

Also, what policies are we using to reduce the deficit? Tax code hasn't changed. So it sound like the reason that the republican party didn't cry boo under the Bush administration is because they knew the policies in place would work. Just an observation.

Gump said...

Interesting thoughts, I really enjoyed your blog