Tag: Deficit

Census Poverty Figures Show Things are Worse Than We Knew

Trish

PovertyChartThe American poverty rate is even higher than we knew, according to a new method used by the U.S. Census Bureau. The more realistic calculation puts about 16 percent of Americans at or below poverty level, compared with 15.2 percent under the standard model.

Acting on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, the Census Bureau designed the new measure to capture the impact of many forms of non-cash public assistance, such as food stamps, housing subsidies and energy assistance…The alternative calculation also takes into account geographic differences in prices.

Not all groups are affected equally. Those with fewest means to improve their incomes are in the most trouble. I’m talking about your grandparents or parents.

The new measure had a major impact on poverty rates among the elderly, in part because they have large medical expenses. While Social Security keeps many of them just over the poverty line, health care costs can easily pull them under, Short said. Some 15.9% of senior citizens are considered poor, up from 9% under the official rate.

Things would be even worse without the assistance.

Six temporary safety net programs that originated in the 2009 stimulus act helped keep 7 million people out of poverty, said Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, citing the new Census report. These include three new or expanded tax credits, two enhancements of unemployment insurance, and expanded food stamp benefits.

These programs are all facing cuts in the ginned up deficit crisis.

Borrow and Spend Policies of Bush, GOP Caused Employment’s Downward Slide

Jon Ponder
Click to see original
Click to see original

As we noted here last week, a new Quinnipiac poll found that voters blame George Bush over Pres. Obama for the economic crisis by 54 to 27 percent. Another 8 percent said they blamed neither president, 7 percent said they blamed both and 3 percent said they did not know or had no answer.

On a political level, what the chart above shows is the result of the Republicans’ strategy of “starving the beast” — or, as their cult leader du jour Grover Norquist put it, shrinking the government until it is small enough to drown in a bathtub.

It should not be surprising that only about half of Americans can remember who was responsible for the economic downturn, which happened way back in history, you know, three or four years ago. We are living in what Gore Vidal has called the “United States of Amnesia,” after all.

Sadly, what is surprising is that the percentage of Americans who remember Bush’s mishandling of the economy remains so high.

Since Bush left office in January 2009, two factors have been scrubbing away in tandem at the record of failure that was the Bush presidency, glossing it over and spiffing it up.

[…]

Most Lawmakers’ Votes Contributed to the Federal Deficit

Buck Banks

75%

Of lawmakers currently serving in Congress voted for at least one — and in most cases more than one — of three policies that contributed to one-third of the $12.7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to real debt: President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and President Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill, according to the Washington Post.

GOP’s Ryan Budget Would Add Up to $6 Trillion to Debt – And Yet GOP Won’t Raise Debt Limit?

Jon Ponder

In what Democrats called a political stunt, House Republicans voted in lockstep to oppose raising the U.S. debt ceiling last night.

“Let’s just increase the debt limit by the amount of debt it would take to accommodate Paul Ryan’s budget in the next decade. We can fight about the details later. No spooking the markets over this insanity.”
– What Pres. Obama should suggest to the GOP, according Matt Miller

Republican have done a masterful spin job on the debt-ceiling issue. Polls show that a majority of Americans say they oppose raising it, but it appears they have reached this conclusion based on misperception of the facts.

For one thing, raising the debt limit has nothing to do with future spending. It covers the indebtedness incurred in the current budget, the same budget that Congress — including the Republicans in the House — voted for.

That’s right. Republicans voted to raise the national debt a few months ago, now these same Republicans are demanding that the U.S. Treasury welch on the debt they charged to the national credit card.

Worse, not only have Republicans snookered the public into believe that raising the debt ceiling is tied to future spending, the GOP’s own budget for future spending — the budget bill that includes the the Ryan “Kill Medicare” proposal, the budget that Republicans in the House and Senate vote for — would raise the national debt by as much as $6 trillion.

[…]

Hey Paul Ryan, How’s That Ax-y Medicare-y Thing Workin’ Out for Ya?

Trish

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s constituents showed they are much smarter than he thinks they are. They aren’t buying the latest iteration of trickle-down, voodoo economics. And when he persisted in trying to get them to see it his way, they booed him. Let this be a warning to other tea bag Republicans who underestimate us. You need to throw out new red meat. We aren’t swallowing the old stuff.

Sen. Sanders’ Bill to Tax Millionaires Has Surprising Precedent

Jon Ponder

One of the first things Ronald Reagan did upon becoming governor of California in 1967 was ram a $1 billion tax increase — about $5.5 billion today — through the state legislature. The additional revenue was needed to balance Reagan’s first state budget, which included a deficit as well as a huge increase in government spending.

chart-at-risk-programs-vs-tax-breaksAt the time, Reagan’s tax increase was the largest ever levied by a state — and it hit Californians right in the middle class:

Reagan campaigned in 1966 on cutting government, but his first budget exceeded [his predecessor Democratic Gov.] Pat Brown’s by half a billion dollars. “Taxes should hurt,” Reagan said, and they certainly did – especially for the middle class. The billion dollar tax increase to pay for that big increase in government spending was sweeping: the sales tax jumped from three cents to five; bank, corporation and inheritance taxes went up half a percentage point to six percent; liquor taxes rose from $1.50 a gallon to $2; cigarette taxes leaped from three cents a pack to 10; and the maximum income tax rose from seven to 10 percent.

In 1968, Democrats were able to stop another Reagan tax increase — this one on food, utility bills and services like haircuts. In 1971, he raised taxes on banks and corporations.

Despite the current mythology about Reagan, he was even more tax happy as president, raising taxes at least seven times during his eight years in office, including the largest corporate tax hike then to date.

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Verbatim

Trish

Anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat and give them the green weenie.

— Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, declaring that people who claim they will cut the deficit without attacking entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) or defense aren’t serious. Simpson added, “If you have a career politician get up and say, ‘I know we can get this done; we’re going to get rid of all earmarks, all waste, fraud, and abuse, all foreign aid, Air Force one, all congressional pensions,’ that’s a sparrow’s belch in the midst of a typhoon.”

Millionaires Against Extending Their Tax Cuts

Trish

Millionaires

It’s not just those lazy poor people on welfare and former ACORN workers calling for an end to the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. A group of millionaires is actually petitioning Congress to raise their taxes.

Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength are asking that the line be drawn at the $1,000,000 mark, which is probably where it should have been put all along. It’s much easier politically for Democrats to defend restoring taxes for the 375,000 true millionaires than for the “wealthiest Americans.” Just ask these folks.

We have done very well over the last several years…We don’t need more tax cuts, and we understand that cutting our taxes will increase the deficit and the debt burden carried by other taxpayers.

Even more interesting is this recap of the tax rate for millionaires. You won’t hear these numbers quoted in Republican arguments for keeping the Bush tax cuts.

During the Great Depression, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 68%

In 1963, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 91%

In 1976, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 70%

Today, millionaires have a top marginal tax rate of 35%

The group of about 50 original signers of the petition contains some of the usual suspects, like ambient musician Moby, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s fame. Less well-known are Peter Norvig, an artificial intelligence and computer scientist; Rochelle Kaplan, former president of the National Council of Jewish Women Utah Section; and Robert S. Bowditch Jr., a real estate property manager.

You don’t have to be a millionaire to sign the letter.

Hey Tea Party: Deficit Would Be ZERO Now If Bush, GOP Hadn’t Put Two Wars on Credit Cards, Crashed the Economy

Jon Ponder

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What U.S. deficit would be today if George Bush, with blind obedience from his rubberstamp Republicans in the House and and Senate (including Rep. John Boehner, Sen. Mitch McConnnell and others who are still there today), had not drained the Treasury by waging two wars using unfunded supplementals while simultaneously giving tax cuts to his millionaire “base” — and then crashed the economy by defanging financial regulations, defunding financial regulators and mismanaging the country’s finances through fiscal irresponsibility and recklessness.