Obama: Debt, deficits were 'baked into the cake'

[kpete]

Source: Politico

Obama: Debt, deficits were 'baked into the cake'

.....................

"We signed two trillion dollars in spending cuts into law," Obama said. "Spending under my administration has grown more slowly than under any president in 60 years."

Obama said that the country's budget deficits and big debt were the result of the George W. Bush's two tax cuts, as well as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

"They baked all this stuff into the cake with those tax cuts... and the war," Obama said.

"It's like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, a martini and all that stuff, then just as you're sitting down they leave and accuse you of running up the tab," Obama said.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/06/obama-debt-deficits-were-baked-into-the-cake-125978.html

[FirstLight]

1. perfect analogy...

but he needs to say it louder to drown out all the BS on the airwaves... :/

[lsewpershad]

3. Indeed

Like Bashir would say.

[FirstLight]

7. sorry

who?

I haven't had TV for a long time, sorry if this is a stupid question

[elleng]

20. Martin Bashir, MSNBC.

ONE example, from Video&:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101734024

[dkf]

2. If the Bush tax cuts were so bad why isn't he in favor of letting them all lapse?

I can see extending them perhaps until we save Europe, but they all need to go and I've never heard him support an eventual lapse of the entire Bush cut. He needs to realize taxing the top 2% isnt going to cut it.

[qazplm]

8. because anyone who campaigns on getting rid of all of the tax cuts

will not be elected President. So if you want him to be pure and unemployed, then he should campaign against all of the tax cuts.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. He wants you and I to have tax cuts but not the richer ones

[dkf]

36. That isn't enough.

Believe me I do not want to have to pay more taxes, but I will do it to keep this country solvent.

And no I am not in the top whatever percent. Maybe I am in the top half since I do pay taxes now.

[Sirveri]

52. That is a nice sentiment, however the country is nowhere near insolvency.

Half the debt we owe to ourselves (closer to 60%), kind of hard to go bankrupt that way. The debt ceiling is just a political tool the Republicans created to force policy.

[dkf]

53. Are you arguing we owe no debt to the social security system?

[Sirveri]

62. No, I'm saying that Social Security (and other government held) debt doesn't/shouldn't count.

It's like opening a savings account, and then spending the money from that account and saying that that puts you into debt.

It's great if you want to pay shell games with your accounts and claim that you're deep in debt when in reality you are hardly in debt at all.

[girl gone mad]

27. We can't save Europe.

I don't know how I can make it any clearer.

Europe's crisis ultimately stems from a lack of available euro in their economy to pay down debts. You can blame this on whatever you choose, Germany's surplus, lazy Greeks, yadda, yadda.

The US doesn't have the legal authority to create euro.

Please don't reply with "IMF loans". More debt will not save Europe.

[dkf]

37. Believe me I am not in favor of us having to save Europe.

My point is that with the anxiety over Europe at distressing levels I can see postponing a tax increase til things stabilize.

[DallasNE]

44. European Central Bank

Needs to engage in a round of quantitative easing. I have been saying that for at least a year now. The tools are available -- they just need the leadership to put it all in place.

[Kolesar]

40. It's because people like you "do not want to have to pay more taxes"

See post 36

[dkf]

43. Saving money for retirement isn't fun either but you just have to do it.

To me paying taxes means paying down debt. My worst nightmare is it gets so large it is unmanageable.

[siligut]

4. Obama has to make sure this is clear to people.

I know it is near impossible with the right-wing doing their best to blame him, but he can do it.

I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago with W's smiling face and the caption, "Miss me yet?".

[Skittles]

6. NOW he's going to let them know???

how about when they first realized the true wreckage left by the last misadministration? Before he decided we all had to LOOK FORWARD and NOT BACKWARDS? NOW it just looks like a pitiful cry for votes.

[siligut]

12. He did say it in his speeches and Bernanke and Giethner touched on it

But they were always drowned out or over shadowed. Just a few weeks ago Mitt wanted to directly attack Obama on the economy but was told to back off as it would allow Obama to rebuke head on and make it clear whose mess he was cleaning up after.

[Skittles]

14. much of the country seems to have forgotten dubya was ever president

remember those ridiculous "tax refund" checks he sent out? It should be pointed out exactly what everyone ended up paying for THAT travesty

[siligut]

30. And that is what the GOP wants, W made them look bad even with all their tricks.

It was a nightmare people want to forget.

[demwing]

15. Even if we don't like the motivation

it's still the right message.

Would we rather he not say it at all, just because it's late in the game?

[Skittles]

18. "baked into the cake"?

THEY FUCKING DESTROYED THE ECONOMY

[demwing]

22. Ok, have a good night... /nt

[Skittles]

32. awwwwwwwww

[demwing]

45. Were you itching for a fight?

I can't, because I agree with you, mostly.

Tone. That's all...tone.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

28. Repub congress and their Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999

Republicans lit the fuse for our downfall and took the rest the world with us.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. He has been saying it all along except our media do not highlight it

[tanyev]

5. Oh, dear. Now I've got MacArthur Park running through my head.

[bossy22]

9. AND that is why we have such an anemic recovery

This is the time when we need government to spend. Stop listening to Alan Greenspan

[ErikJ]

11. As businessmen always say, "Youve got to spend money to make money"

I thought the Cons were so business saavy.

[bossy22]

17. your spending=my income

and vice versa

it's strange that the repubs can't get this simple idea

[lastlib]

13. and his wife.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. You're doing all the wrong things, hoping to get credit for it.

Cutting government payrolls, thinking that it'd score you points with the teabagger crowd, is stupid. It is stupid because a) facts don't matter to these assholes. You're still a "tax and spend socialist Kenyan". 2) the economy is suffering from is a lack of consumers - a liquidity trap. The more people you fire, the bigger the problem gets.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. You might find this funny

I was at a party a few months ago and there was a full blow Teabagger there who used the term "Keynesian Economics" so I ask him if he knew what that was and he said defiantly it was "Some commie thing from Kenya".

I lost it at that point and couldn't stop laughing.

[Skinner]

24. That is hilarious.

Because you can't spell "Keynesian" without "Kenya".

[lumberjack_jeff]

33. That's hysterical. n/t

[Mojorabbit]

41. LOL nt

[Wilms]

48. OK. OK. So he misspoke.

He meant to say Kenycia.

[sendero]

64. It's funny because ..

.... all the Libertarian money sites yak on endlessly about Keynesians ruining the economy. If you point out that :

Alan Greenspan is a fucking libertarian and he used libertarian ideas to justify packing the economy with money in the early 2000s, a major contributing factor to our current economic malaise.

Keynes NEVER said deficit spending was to be used in all situations, it's only supposed to be used during downturns. When things are good you are supposed to replenish the Treasury. But REPUBLICANS like Reagan and BushShrub went FULL BORE KEYNESIAN during their administrations, running up huge debt to finance wars and tax cuts.

if you point these obvious and irrefutable facts out, you just get your post deleted.

And while I'm at it, almost as many people go around spouting the words Marxist and Socialist without having the slightest fucking clue what those words mean.

Face it, America is largely populated by idiot cows that believe whatever they hear on talk radio. I'm lost all sympathy for them and will enjoy vindictive pleasure when they get theirs.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

67. On top off everything else

Everyone has been talking forever about the baby boomers reaching retirement age so we know there's going to be a large percentage of people that are going to be supported by the government. This Teabagger was one of them.

[woo me with science]

16. He acts like someone else has been President for the past four years. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

23. Takes a long time to undo the damage of the Bush years

[woo me with science]

29. Especially when you extend so many of his policies. nt

[Kolesar]

39. Do you want a tissue?

[woo me with science]

42. No, I'd like not to be patronized

and assumed to have no attention span or memory of the past four years.

You will know them by their ACTIONS, not their words.

[librechik]

49. it couldn't be because he has gotten absolutely zero cooperation with Congress

even when he supposedly had a super majority. Which included 12 dyed-in-the-wool Repub-voting Blue Dogs--and Lieberman. Yeah, why didn't he just fix everything? What is the matter with Obama???? It's obviously his fault!

[woo me with science]

50. His choices are a matter of record.

From the people he chose to keep and hire for his administration, to the battles he chose and those he didn't, to the military policies he has backed and continues to back....All these things are recent history and current reality.

No Republican forced him keep on Geithner, or push for bank settlements, or propose and speak stirringly of austerity budgets while extending the Bush/Obama tax cuts. No Republican made him escalate the drone wars or expand the MIC into multiple new countries. No, Republican votes don't tell the whole story, and it is flatly inconsistent with reality to claim that they do.

You are entitled to your own opinions about this Presidency, and of course you can point out, rightly, that he is better than the alternative. But you are not entitled to rewrite history and claim that his many corporate choices were solely and wholly the result of being overwhelmed by Republicans.

We have been here watching the whole time, remember?

Have you seen this yet?: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002803945

[librechik]

51. perhaps--I don't think we were watching the same thing, however. n/t

[woo me with science]

65. Here's a post of interest.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002806354#post277

[Igel]

54. Yeah, but you have to remember that there was a sharp increase in spending levels.

The baseline was raised rather nicely during *'s last budget year when the budget allocations were finally approved.

That happened in months 5 and 6 (and also 7) of that budget year.

Very easy to forget that and misassign the "blame" (or credit) for those spending increases.

[otherone]

56. kick

for your awesome sig line

[harun]

59. Some how B*sh got Congress to let him go in to two uneeded wars. If Obama

really wanted to get Congress to play along, they'd play.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. Excellent!

[liberal N proud]

31. Love the way he put that.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

34. Sounds suspicious.

[ErikJ]

35. Better analogy? 3 Repubs trash a bar and walk out when Obama walks in and say, "Put it on his tab"

Better analogy? 3 Repubs trash a bar and walk out when Obama walks in and say "Put it on his tab"

I heard another joke about the banksters trashing a bar and walking out saying put it on their tab. Something like that.

[JDPriestly]

38. Great to hear Obama saying this in that way.

[LiberalEsto]

46. "Someone left the cake out in the rain..."

"and I think that I can't take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it,
and I'll never have that recipe again,
oh nooooooooooooo"*

Somehow it seems weirdly appropriate.



*song "MacArthur Park" by Jimmy Webb, first recorded by Richard Harris, 1968.

[geardaddy]

47. Damn! That was my first thought!

[BlueIris]

55. I am just so tired of hearing people say that.

It won't change the fact that no one in government has managed to provide adequate solutions.

[woo me with science]

57. If only they had been special brownies instead of cake.

He would have been all over them to stop it.

[KamaAina]

58. The cake?

I thought Boosh** was trying to make the pie higher.

[woo me with science]

60. We have moved on to

"Let them eat cake."

[high density]

61. So tax cuts lead to less revenue?

The GOP has been telling us for decades that lower taxes bring in more money. And the media has been repeating it for decades even though we have tons of firm proof now that this never is the case.

[sofa king]

63. Hmm. Sounds like the President skipped lunch.

[wordpix]

66. Good! Glad O said this but why is he even considering more guaranteed taxpayer loans for new nukes?

Latest news is his admin. is considering $8.3 billion for just two new nukes in GA. If the corpos can't pay US back, we taxpayers will have to bail them out AND possibly pay more billions to complete the job.

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9662

It's absurd the O admin is even considering giving this loan. This comes on top of other news that we already spent at least $88 million to help out another private nuke corp, US Enrichment Corp, which wants $190 million more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/science/earth/energy-department-steps-in-to-help-uranium-enrichment-company.html?_r=1&smid=tw-share

"The federal government will own the centrifuges and lease them back to USEC. The Energy Department said that arrangement did not amount to the renationalization of the uranium enrichment project because it could become the basis for a commercial business.

The USEC plant could enrich uranium for ordinary civilian-style fuel for Watts Bar 1, a reactor built by the Tennessee Valley Authority that generates electricity but is also used to produce tritium, the form of hydrogen used in the hydrogen bomb. snip

"The department is taking control of tons of uranium left over from USEC’s enrichment operations that is considered to be waste and is thus listed by the company as a liability. That will in effect add $88 million to the company’s balance sheet, officials said. The aid was granted in anticipation of approval of the deal in Congress, where the nuclear weapons argument resonates. The administration hopes that lawmakers will grant its request for substantially more aid to the company, perhaps an additional $190 million or so, department officials said. snip

"But critics say that USEC, which started its life in 1998 with technology dating from the wartime Manhattan Project and has been working ever since to develop an alternate technology, is unlikely to come up with one that can compete with mature designs built by Urenco, a European consortium, and Areva of France. Urenco recently opened a centrifuge plant near Eunice, N.M.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized the rescue plan. “The real risks of this nuclear bailout is for taxpayers, who will be on the hook for questionable government handouts that are worth more than the entire company,” he said.

USEC has been seeking a $2 billion loan guarantee to build a full-scale enrichment plant, but the Energy Department has said that it was not certain that the technology was ready." more

The "free" nuclear energy is NOT free AT ALL!