Misreporting of the economy

[TheBigotBasher]

We all know that the Republican Party knocked the finances of the US out for six. So to hear House Republican Leader John Boehner complaining about the growing deficit is laughable. He told a presser, "Today's deficit numbers are yet another troubling reminder that our nation is on a dangerous and unsustainable fiscal path,", arguing that the the Democratic Congress and White House was being "irresponsible".

Funny how the Bush deficits were not considered irresponsible.

Listening to the Republicons you would have expected that the deficit data was a horror story. It is not.

The Government collected US$2.10 trillion in revenues, a 16.6 per cent drop from 2008. This was the biggest drop in revenues for over 70 years. Republicans can not escape the blame for this as it was their crash that caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs and of those that kept their jobs, many saw very real pay cuts.

Corporate taxes have also plummeted as the recession wrecked profit margins.

So whatever happened, this tax year was never going to be "deficit neutral".

Government spending jumped to US$3.52 trillion, an increase of 18.2 per cent over 2008. The largest percentage increase since 1975. This reflected increases in unemployment related expenditures as well as the $700 billion cost of the bank bail outs (the cost of Republican failure) and initial costs of the economic stimulus package.

The White House had however estimated that the deficit would be $1.8 trillion. Congress pared back some White House Programmes, including the make work pay tax cut promised by Barack Obama during the election. After cutting back on his programmes the deficit was still expected to top $1.6 trillion. It came in at $1.4 trillion.

If this was a Republican administration they would be singing the praises of the President delivering a reduced deficit, 23% lower than expected.

So what will the media do? Report this as bad news and blame the President or ignore it? You can bet that they will not report it as a success.

[Kdillard]

1. The obvious attempts to try to make the deficit something that

was created under this President is pretty pathetic. Shameless doesn't even begin to describe Sen Bonehead.

[TomClash]

2. Spot on

Might I add that the yield on most Treasuries has dropped in the last year by 40-85 basis points?

Gee, the US is borrowing cheaply during a time when it should borrow cheaply. How awful. :sarcasm:

Oh, and by the way, ask Suntan Boner this question - given the financial crisis, what would have been the short-term effects if Treasury failed to borrow, but instead had covered by cutting funds for services and raised taxes?

Here's the answer: YOU would have a 1 in 3 chance of being unemployed. In other words, we'd have a complete economic collapse.

[TheBigotBasher]

3. It should give real Democratic Senators

a good run on affordability, when it comes down to having a strong public opption in the health care bill. Hopefully will quieten some blue dogs.