Jumping Into Politics

With all the claims that are being made in political ads this year, lets look at some facts. First lets take a look back to 2008 when the stock market collapsed.

Bush seeks support for bailout; Paulson gives in on executive pay

New York Times
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David M. Herszenhorn
Published: Thursday, September 25, 2008

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush appealed to the United States on Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a financial meltdown on Wall Street, and he invited both major presidential candidates to join him and Congressional leaders at the White House on Thursday to forge a bipartisan compromise.

Warning that "a long and painful recession" could occur if Congress does not act quickly, Bush said the consequences could play out in "a distressing scenario," including potential bank failures, job losses and inability for ordinary Americans to borrow money to buy cars or send their children to college.

Gee, so it wasn’t President Obama who bailed out the banks and Wall Street but President Bush. How quickly we forget or maybe it just that the Republicans want us to forget.

Next, let’s look at the budget deficit. President Obama inherited a 2009 budget deficit of 1.41 trillion dollars from President Bush and President Obama first budget (2010) reduced the deficit to 1.29 trillion dollars and the projected 2011 reduces the budget to around 1.07 trillion dollars and the projected 2012 budget reduces it even more to $600 billion dollars.

Fiscal 2010 deficit thins to $1.29 trillion
Reuters
By Donna Smith
Sat Oct 16, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The budget deficit for fiscal 2010 narrowed to $1.294 trillion from last year's record $1.416 trillion as tax collections started to recover and bailout spending fell sharply.
[…]
The Congressional Budget Office in August forecast a deficit of $1.07 trillion for fiscal 2011, which started October 1. An Obama administration budget commission is scheduled to make recommendations for deeper cuts when it convenes in December.

That means that in two years President Obama will have cut the budget by over 300 billion dollars.

My question for the Tea Party is where was your indignation when President Bush went from a $200 billion surplus to a record $1.4 trillion deficit, the largest in US history?

Lastly, let’s take a look at President Obama’s stimulus program…

Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2
Reuters
By Andy Sullivan
Tue Aug 24, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The massive U.S. stimulus package put millions of people to work and boosted national output by hundreds of billions of dollars in the second quarter, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

CBO's latest estimate indicates that the stimulus effort, which remains a political hot potato ahead of the November congressional elections, may have prevented the sluggish U.S. economy from contracting between April and June.

CBO said President Barack Obama's stimulus boosted real GDP in the quarter by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent, adding at least $200 billion in economic activity.

So it sounds like the stimulus program is working. Just take a look at the stimulus funds that saved teaching jobs. Take a look at what is happen to Jacksonville school system and all over the country…

Stimulus Runs Out; Schools Look Ahead
Duval County Schools Received $103M Last Year, Expects $25.8M This Year
WJAX
Thursday, October 21, 2010

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Last year, as educators across the country were talking about laying off teachers and eliminating programs, the Barack Obama administration and Congress came up with $10 billion in stimulus funding to help school districts avoid the cuts.

Duval County received $103 million in extra federal funds, money that school officials said was mostly used to save 777 jobs. Neighboring counties also received funds and avoided layoffs.

But that one-time money is disappearing fast, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was not hopeful about getting approval for that much education stimulus funding again.

Why do they not think they are going to get the funding next year? Because the Republican’s oppose the stimulus.

The Republicans have been fighting to keep the tax cuts for the rich,

Rich-poor difference is ominous reality
The Eastern Echo
By Clement Daly |
October 20, 2010

Census data released last month gives a glimpse of the extreme social polarization that exists in the United States. According to the Associated Press, the income gap between the rich and the poor “grew last year to its widest amount on record.” Moreover, the U.S was found to have the greatest income disparity of the world’s advanced capitalist nations.

Median income in the U.S dropped for its second consecutive year and was down 4 percent since its peak in December 2007. The 2009 American Community Survey showed a median income decrease of nearly 3 percent – from $51,726 to $50,221 – between 2008 and 2009. In Michigan alone, median income decreased by more than 6 percent over the same period.

The Census Bureau reported “thirty-one states saw increases in both the number and percentage of people in poverty between 2008 and 2009.” Furthermore, no state saw a “significant decline in either the number in poverty or the poverty rate.” According to the AP, 44 million Americans live below the official poverty line, having received only 3.4 percent of all the income generated in 2009.

However, the impoverishment of the majority of the population is only half the equation. The AP also reported that nearly 50 percent of all income generated in 2009 went to the top 20 percent of the population – those making more than $100,000 a year.

Just take a look at what is happening on Wall Street,

Wall Street bonuses to rise this year: report
Reuters
By Jonathan Spicer
Aug 12, 2010

(Reuters) - Wall Street bonuses likely will rise this year, despite the regulatory cloud hanging over compensation, as the financial sector recovers from recession faster than the broader U.S. economy, according to a published report.

Newsweek reported that “In congressional testimony last week, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Doug Elmendorf warned that extending the Bush tax cuts would ultimately take more money out of the economy than it would inject into it, because increased deficits will eventually slow growth.” There are reports that keeping the Bush era tax cuts will add $36 billion to the deficit each year. The Republicans say that the tax cut will stimulate the economy, it that was true then we should never have gone into this depression because the Bush tax cut should have kept us out of the depression if it was true.