Greenspan: US has "Lost Control" of its budget

[Balta1701]

Man, thanks for telling us now, Mr. Chairman...only 4 years after you endorsed the tax cuts which created over 1/2 of the current hole in our budget deficit.

 

CNN

 

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told France's Finance Minister Thierry Breton the United States has "lost control" of its budget deficit, the French minister said Saturday.

 

"'We have lost control,' that was his expression," Breton told reporters after a bilateral meeting with Greenspan.

 

"The United States has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorized without any control (from Congress)," Breton said.

 

"We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today," he added.

 

Ministers from the Group of Seven rich nations on Friday called for vigorous action around the world to curb rising imbalances in international trade and investment accounts.

 

A decrease in the U.S. budget deficit were cited by the G7 as one way to ease those imbalances. Treasury Secretary John Snow said the U.S. administration was still committed to halving its budget deficit by 2009.

 

Breton spoke as International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo Rato said U.S. plans to cut its government expenditures now looked ambitious in the light of huge reconstruction costs to be borne in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

 

Breton said: "The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market ... is clearly the American deficit."

 

The United States needed to address its budget deficit, he said, adding: "It seems to me that my counterpart John Snow is completely aware of this, he wants to harness the problem, but it seems to me he doesn't have the room for maneuver."

 

Breton added that after hearing Greenspan talk about inflation: "One has the feeling -- though he didn't say so -- that interest rates will probably continue to rise slightly until his departure."

 

Greenspan is due to step down as Fed chairman in January after 18 years in the post.

[Texsox]

[Balance]

Sure, now he tells us.

 

:banghead

[kapkomet]

*sigh*

 

I'm not even going to argue because you don't even want to hear the other side of it.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

*sigh*

 

I'm not even going to argue because you don't even want to hear the other side of it.

 

 

I'll bite. Revenues brought into the treasury are some 265 billion more annually than they were prior to the tax cuts. But why let a little detail like that get in the way of rich people bashing?

 

 

:rolly

[KipWellsFan]

I'll bite.  Revenues brought into the treasury are some 265 billion more annually than they were prior to the tax cuts.  But why let a little detail like that get in the way of rich people bashing?

:rolly

 

During his first term Bush sought and obtained Congressional approval for three major tax cuts, which increased the standard income tax deduction for married couples, eliminated the estate tax, and reduced marginal tax rates, and are scheduled to expire a decade after passage. Bush has asked Congress to make the tax cuts permanent. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, by 2003 these tax cuts had reduced total federal revenue, as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to the lowest level since 1959. [30]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush

http://www.cbpp.org/10-21-03tax.htm

 

Can someone point to an article that is not heavily conservatively biased that talks about this 265 billion dollar increase, I can't bloody find one.

 

I can't get much of any relevance with searches on google news

Edited September 27, 2005 by KipWellsFan

[Texsox]

I'll bite.  Revenues brought into the treasury are some 265 billion more annually than they were prior to the tax cuts.  But why let a little detail like that get in the way of rich people bashing?

:rolly

 

Who is paying those taxes?

 

We are borrrowing billions from foreign countries and paying all that interest.

 

And I'm not bashing rich people, I'm bashing our government spending way more than we send them. Eventually we have to pay off the deficit plus interest.

[Mercy!]

I'll bite.  Revenues brought into the treasury are some 265 billion more annually than they were prior to the tax cuts.  But why let a little detail like that get in the way of rich people bashing?

:rolly

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Currently, Asian banks own 2 TRILLION of US debt, with those nice Communists in China leading the pack. Think about that "little detail" for a bit.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush

http://www.cbpp.org/10-21-03tax.htm

 

Can someone point to an article that is not heavily conservatively biased that talks about this 265 billion dollar increase, I can't bloody find one.

 

I can't get much of any relevance with searches on google news

 

 

Watch CNBC. I heard several commentators cite that figure from the CBO when compared to the year 2000.

 

Here's an article to help out for now though.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5070101926.html

 

It should be clear to one and all that runaway spending is what is making the defecit a chronic problem not tax cuts. The same thing happened in the 1980's when spending increases far outpaced increasing revenue from increased economic activity which was spurred, you guessed it, by tax cuts.

Edited September 27, 2005 by NUKE_CLEVELAND

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Man, thanks for telling us now, Mr. Chairman...only 4 years after you endorsed the tax cuts which created over 1/2 of the current hole in our budget deficit.

 

CNN

 

 

Thats simply not the case. Runaway spending is the cause of our problems. Cut and dried.

 

Id like to see Congress grow some stones and slash away at spending before I hear anything about hiking taxes on anybody.

 

They could......

 

-Cut billions in pork barrel bulls*** out of the latest highway bill

 

-Freeze entitlement spending at previous years levels

 

-Have Rummy do a full and complete audit of the Defense Department, which is a notorious cesspool for wasteful spending.

 

-( I'll toss the lefties a bone with this one ) Reduce our troop presence in Iraq. (No I did NOT say pull out )

Edited September 27, 2005 by NUKE_CLEVELAND

[Balta1701]

I'll bite.  Revenues brought into the treasury are some 265 billion more annually than they were prior to the tax cuts.  But why let a little detail like that get in the way of rich people bashing?

:rolly

Link

...revenue remains far lower than anyone would have predicted before the tax cuts began. In January 2001 the budget office forecast revenues of $2.57 trillion in fiscal 2005... the actual number will be at least $400 billion less.... Ed McKelvey of Goldman Sachs believe that even the limited good news on the budget is a temporary blip.... Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the director of the Congressional Budget Office... declares that... "[for] 2008, 2009 or 2010, that vision is the same today as it was two months ago."...

 

[T]he upside surprise in tax receipts is coming from... tax payments from corporations, up both because last year corporate profits grew much more rapidly than the rest of the economy and because... a temporary tax break... expired. Both are one-time events. The other source of increased revenue is nonwithheld income taxes... capital gains on stocks and real estate... bonuses.... Again, this revenue boost looks like a temporary blip....

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Of all the people you picked for an article on this you pick one by Paul Krugman. Holy s***.

[southsider2k5]

Man, thanks for telling us now, Mr. Chairman...only 4 years after you endorsed the tax cuts which created over 1/2 of the current hole in our budget deficit.

 

CNN

 

Actually if you sited his full comments from that time, Greenspan was clear, and has always been clear, that the US economy shouldn't be deficit spending a huge percentage of the GDP yearly. He felt that the tax cuts were a needed stimulous coming out of the Clinton recession, which had been greatly magnified by the September 11th attacks, and the spending cuts that went with that. He has ALWAYS been for smaller deficits, and even stated in his support of tax cuts that they should NOT be permanent, and should only run as an economic stimulous was needed for recovery.

[southsider2k5]

Of all the people you picked for an article on this you pick one by Paul Krugman.  Holy s***.

 

Speaking of exaggerators and flat out liars... I don't know how this guy keeps his job.

[Texsox]

Cutting voters taxes and going into debt is a great way to get elected.

 

Why not cut taxes and spending? Because our leaders want to buy us stuff with our money. One thing I always respected about the GOP was fiscal responsibility. Now they are the leaders in deficit spending and the DEMs are right there at the trough as well. FREE LUNCH! FREE LUNCH! Elect us and others down the road will pay your taxes and interets. FREE LUNCH!

 

Eventually we have to pay all this back, with interest. Our leaders avoid that issue and try and convince us that someone else is going to pay it back.

 

I don't mind cutting taxes, but you have to cut spending also. Come back to us after trimming the budget and give us the surplus. Don't borrow money from China, and give it to me, and try to convince me it's a free lunch.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Cutting voters taxes and going into debt is a great way to get elected.

 

Why not cut taxes and spending? Because our leaders want to buy us stuff with our money. One thing I always respected about the GOP was fiscal responsibility. Now they are the leaders in deficit spending and the DEMs are right there at the trough as well. FREE LUNCH! FREE LUNCH! Elect us and others down the road will pay your taxes and interets. FREE LUNCH!

 

Eventually we have to pay all this back, with interest. Our leaders avoid that issue and try and convince us that someone else is going to pay it back.

 

I don't mind cutting taxes, but you have to cut spending also. Come back to us after trimming the budget and give us the surplus. Don't borrow money from China, and give it to me, and try to convince me it's a free lunch.

 

 

I totally agree with you. Totally and completely. This is a first.

[Texsox]

I totally agree with you.  Totally and completely. This is a first.

 

Maybe a first in SL&P

[Balta1701]

Of all the people you picked for an article on this you pick one by Paul Krugman.  Holy s***.

Well, here's a bit of a backup point from the Economist

 

[T]he latest projections from the legislature's non-partisan budget-watcher have excited a few of Mr Laffer's fans. The federal budget deficit, the CBO reckons, will narrow to $331 billion this fiscal year (which ends on September 30th), from $412 billion the year before. Tom DeLay, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, was quick to offer a Laffer-like explanation: "Lower taxes and spending discipline spur economic growth, which in turn cuts the deficit," he opined.

 

In fact, spending discipline is still rather lacking. Government outlays will increase by $181 billion (or 8%) this year, a figure that does not include the cost of the pork-stuffed highway bill, signed by the president on August 10th....

 

Is Mr DeLay right to attribute any of these gains to the seductive curves of supply-side economics? In December, Gregory Mankiw, who used to be chairman of Mr Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and Matthew Weinzierl, a colleague at Harvard University, published a "back-of-the-envelope guide" to tax rates and revenues.... y their reckoning cutting taxes on labour would generate enough growth to recoup about 17 cents on the dollar, and a tax cut on capital could pay for more than half of itself. The government would take a thinner slice of a bigger pie.

 

Left out of these calculations is any guide to what happens when taxes are cut but spending is not. The budget deficits that ensue will tend to "crowd out" investment, slowing growth. The CBO calculates that every extra dollar of federal borrowing reduces investment in the economy by 36 cents.

 

The White House['s]... latest forecast... assumes (absurdly) that Congress will not add a single dollar to its discretionary spending on anything except defence and homeland security from 2006 to 2010. It also leaves out of its projections any extra money for Iraq, Afghanistan or the war on terror...

[YASNY]

Cutting voters taxes and going into debt is a great way to get elected.

 

Why not cut taxes and spending? Because our leaders want to buy us stuff with our money. One thing I always respected about the GOP was fiscal responsibility. Now they are the leaders in deficit spending and the DEMs are right there at the trough as well. FREE LUNCH! FREE LUNCH! Elect us and others down the road will pay your taxes and interets. FREE LUNCH!

 

Eventually we have to pay all this back, with interest. Our leaders avoid that issue and try and convince us that someone else is going to pay it back.

 

I don't mind cutting taxes, but you have to cut spending also. Come back to us after trimming the budget and give us the surplus. Don't borrow money from China, and give it to me, and try to convince me it's a free lunch.

 

The ONLY one that's ever had the balls to say this while running for president is Ross Perot.

[kapkomet]

If Perot ran for president today, he'd win in a landslide. Scary thought, isn't it?

 

The reason is because he's no-nonsense.

 

Problem is, the "new rules" set by congress will not allow for ANY outside party to ever win unless you're Bill Gates, because you can't get any government money. Here's a big to Congress for that. Bastards.

[Texsox]

The ONLY one that's ever had the balls to say this while running for president is Ross Perot.

 

I'm hoping to run with The Hammer in '08

 

I wonder how much support government programs would get if they came with a price tag? My fellow Americans, we are going to bomb the s*** out of Iraq and then rebuild it, blah blah blah, beginnning next month, send us an additional $85 per person, per month. Thank You. If you would prefer substitute whatever program you like.

[kapkomet]

:puke :puke :puke

 

I'm about to rename the pukey smilie "DeLay"

[Texsox]

:puke :puke :puke

 

I'm about to rename the pukey smilie "DeLay"

 

He's the next Reagan 08

 

He just needs to good running mate to round out the ticket.

[kapkomet]

He's the next Reagan  08

 

He just needs to good running mate to round out the ticket.

Yea, maybe Hillary Clinton to round out both of their extremeisms. Now there's a dream ticket.

 

The Hammer/Hillary. Talk about the need for Preparation 'HH' - what a pain in the ass that ticket would be.

[Texsox]

Yea, maybe Hillary Clinton to round out both of their extremeisms.  Now there's a dream ticket.

 

The Hammer/Hillary.  Talk about the need for Preparation 'HH' - what a pain in the ass that ticket would  be.

 

She is a lawyer, and it seems as if he's going to need a whole herd of them . . .

 

Sugarland will never be the same without Hammer :headshake