obama credibility +0.2 for effort and realizing what needs to be done

moron,
so obama is suddenly concerned about the inefficiencies of bureaucracy and is streamlining some shit and you are trying to call out how the republicans are going to argue against him???

LOL. nice trick there. he ALMOST had moron supporting a small govt for a minute. just admit it. good job on the trickery though buddy!

1/16/2012 12:36:28 PM

Oh wait. I gave credibility just a tad too soon.

He's downsizing "The Small Business Administration" lol. Literally the one part of govt that isn't interested in gov't at all and is actually pro- small business.










wow

1/16/2012 12:40:25 PM

-2 credibility for you for triple posting

[Edited on January 16, 2012 at 1:00 PM. Reason : fuck, a triple post]

1/16/2012 12:59:46 PM

that's cool, so what's your take on obama and his election year cycle economic 'change' ?



this is literally obamas last desperate attempt to build up his 'resume' of 'small govt' issues and economic reform to even be able to be in the same ball park with romney when the debates start soon

romney is going to be in a completely different mental league on economic issues. and now obama will have his 'ace' here to play every time he's in a jam during an exchange. at this point it's more than obvious.

i give him credit for trying though. he's finally figuring it out perhaps. but the guy is just in over his head at this point trying to do this at year 4 during an election.


[Edited on January 16, 2012 at 1:12 PM. Reason : ,]

1/16/2012 1:07:18 PM

Romney doesn't have a small government track record, either. Make no mistake, Romney will grow government. That's what he did as governor. Let's see who his top campaign contributors are:

Goldman Sachs $367,200
Credit Suisse Group $203,750
Morgan Stanley $199,800
HIG Capital $186,500
Barclays $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis $132,100
Bank of America $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250
EMC Corp $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250
The Villages $97,500
Vivint Inc $80,750
Marriott International $79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell $79,250
Bain Capital $74,500
UBS AG $73,750
Wells Fargo $61,500
Blackstone Group $59,800
Citigroup Inc $57,050
Bain & Co $52,500

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286

Well, hot damn! All the big investment banks really want to see Romney get elected! Probably because he wants to deal with the underlying issues with banking that have resulted in such a poor economy, right?

1/16/2012 1:25:10 PM

Obama top campaign contributors:

Goldman Sachs $1,013,091
Harvard University $878,164
Microsoft Corp $852,167
Google Inc $814,540
JPMorgan Chase & Co $808,799
Citigroup Inc $736,771
Time Warner $624,618
Sidley Austin LLP $600,298
Stanford University $595,716
National Amusements Inc $563,798
WilmerHale LLP $550,668
Columbia University $547,852
Skadden, Arps et al $543,539
UBS AG $532,674
IBM Corp $532,372
General Electric $529,855
US Government $513,308
Morgan Stanley $512,232
Latham & Watkins $503,295


haha.

I guess Obama wins. motherfucker if romney was even 0.01% as much in bed as obama was with dirtbags and their money some of your extremist OWS'ers would have already assassinated him

look at that shit. Fucking 1 million from goldman sachs. hell, obamas worst contributor here is eclipsing the shit out of anything on the other list.



[Edited on January 16, 2012 at 1:36 PM. Reason : ,]

1/16/2012 1:29:48 PM

You do realize the GOP nominees contributions will skyrocket once it is a 1 man race, right?

1/16/2012 1:41:29 PM

I was thinking the same thing. Once all of Ron Paul's 5 and 20 dollar contributors solidify behind Romney, it'll change everything

1/16/2012 1:59:08 PM

lol

1/16/2012 3:45:24 PM

the budget for a few hundred government employees
and
the cost of health care for 40 million Americans

Are you trying to make a point?

It's sad enough you changed the subject, but you changed it to something even more idiotic.

Baritt Robamney 2012

1/16/2012 4:43:33 PM

^you shouldn't be so ashamed to need a little extra big government help in your life.

if that's the kind of person you are, then come out and say that you need more government in order to pursue life and liberty. don't be embarrassed or feel the need to troll in order to feel more accepted with your opinions.

1/16/2012 4:48:39 PM

He has a point. That picture is kind of standard fodder retardedness that we've come to expect out of guys like you.

1/16/2012 4:50:13 PM

Quote :

"Hmm I see some weak arguments about abuse of power or checks and balance or constitution misinterpreted bullshit coming. Just guesses on the arguments. The plan seems like a good idea so chances it won't work."

did not guess change the subject or diminish the idea by saying it's not worth the 1trillion dollars.. man i was wrong on my straight ticket republican preloaded arguments.

1/16/2012 6:36:11 PM

TerdFergusson don't bother. They have no conception of time or historical perspective. The government is always too big. Taxes are always too high. Regulation is always too tight. There aren't shut-off valves for these positions, it's an ideology in itself to always believe these are problems no matter what.

1/18/2012 8:45:30 AM

Doesn't the government need to actually get smaller before we need to consider reevaluating our position that it is too big?

The government has grown dramatically. Have you re-evaluated your position that it was too small?

1/18/2012 12:06:10 PM

Quote :

"Doesn't the government need to actually get smaller before we need to consider reevaluating our position that it is too big?"

No, before we take your position seriously you have to provide some concrete metrics for "size" of the government, and actually explain how small it'd have to be before you're satisfied. At the very least, tell me the last time you think the government was an acceptable size (If this ends up being pre-20th century I will laugh at you so plz don't bother).

Quote :

"The government has grown dramatically. "

Since when, and by what metrics?

Quote :

"Have you re-evaluated your position that it was too small?"

When did I say it's too small?

[Edited on January 18, 2012 at 12:13 PM. Reason : .]

1/18/2012 12:13:30 PM

Just to head you off here, if you post a graph of the dollar-value of spending I will not take you seriously. Spending should rise over time, because of inflation, growing population, growing economy, etc. If you can make an argument about spending as a ratio to GDP, I might pay attention.

But, if you do go with the spending-to-GDP route, simply posting the graph wont be sufficient. The recession both lowered GDP and increased unemployment benefits and other income assistance , so the ratio will obviously begin spike around mid-2007. It's one thing to see an uptick in spending during a recession, on automatic social safety nets that have been long established, but if you can show we've had an increase in spending-to-GDP that *isn't* just a result of recession economics I'll be more amenable to the shrink-government hysteria.

If you really want to convince me government's too big, show me some expensive new agencies or a significant rise in non-income-assistance spending.

Oh yeah, and you might as well subtract DoD spending, since that is one area of government I *definitely* agree is too big.

[Edited on January 18, 2012 at 12:21 PM. Reason : .]

1/18/2012 12:17:04 PM

Your argument is sound if GDP had in fact fallen. But GDP has recovered completely from the downturn and is well into positive territory.

As for the larger question, it depends what we mean by "Government". Aspects of our government are in fact too small for my taste. They are being starved of resources to pay for all the crap I wish we would stop doing. This is not the case when it comes to the federal government, which needs to be a lot smaller in nearly every regard. Something less than 10% of GDP, not the current post WW2 record setting 25%.

As for the rest of government, the states need to grow a bit to fill the space. But the tax collection of the country is way too centralized, starving local governments and forcing city and local planners to lean too heavily upon their regulatory powers. As such, cities and counties need to have their regulatory power curtailed a bit, to be replaced with more direct spending in terms of local planning.

[Edited on January 18, 2012 at 6:53 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/18/2012 6:50:25 PM

Welp, here we go again. As the government shrinks, the economy grows.

Quote :

"Excluding government, real GDP grew at a robust 4.5% annual rate in Q4 and was up 2.6% for 2011 as a whole."

1/29/2012 8:24:16 PM

Quote :

"Your argument is sound if GDP had in fact fallen. "

GDP had in fact fallen, http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+usa

Bear in mind: GDP *includes* government spending.

Quote :

"But GDP has recovered completely from the downturn and is well into positive territory."

That doesn't mean jobs are back, which doesn't mean unemployment benefits have dropped, nor has tax revenue risen (Since our effective tax rates are, in fact, regressive). So the conditions I outlined above still apply.

Quote :

"Something less than 10% of GDP, not the current post WW2 record setting 25%. "

10%? It hasn't been that low since 19-fucking-29. http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/images/economics/u.S.%20Spending%20And%20Revenue%20In%20Relation%20To%20GDP.GIF

You're talking about destroying SS, Medicare, Medicaid, all of welfare and income security, and basically returning us to the age of robber barons.

Seriously though, quit retreating back to vagueness, I asked for some very specific things that would convince me that government has in fact grown, you've provided none and as promised I wont be taking your flailing henceforth seriously. Show me where government has grown, if it's not in the DoD or income security, and is actually substantial compared to the past, I'll concede the growth.

Quote :

"Welp, here we go again. As the government shrinks, the economy grows. "

And please, spare me the economic palm-reading like this as well.



[Edited on January 30, 2012 at 12:46 PM. Reason : .]

1/30/2012 12:39:58 PM

Alright, I got that for you. Let me know if you want to ignore this data too.

Quote :

"You're talking about destroying SS, Medicare, Medicaid, all of welfare and income security"

Quite right. The government should not be paying the medical bills and retirement of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

As the government shrinks, the economy grows. This is what my working economic theory predicts, and that is what the current numbers are showing. Forgive me for being all anti-Keynesian.

1/30/2012 3:51:14 PM

In what way has the government shrank?

1/30/2012 4:15:30 PM

Government spending fell 0.9% last quarter while the non-government economy grew 4.5%.

1/30/2012 4:35:26 PM

Quote :

"Alright, I got that for you."

No, you didn't. That chart just compares Federal to State and local Spending. It doesn't separate out income security or the DoD, as I requested. Try again.

Quote :

" Let me know if you want to ignore this data too. "

Let me know when you want to actually provide data that's relevant to the disagreement.

[Edited on January 31, 2012 at 10:19 AM. Reason : .]

1/31/2012 10:14:21 AM

Here, I'll help you

Here are the big ticket items, making up about 87% of the total federal budget



There's a lot to process, but here's one thing to note: Only 3 items are above their 20-year average:

-Medicare, which can be attributed to a growing and aging population. It's not outside it's long-term trendline, it's growth has had little to do with what the government's been up to for awhile now.

-Health is up slightly since the recession hit, but mostly in line with its trend as well.

-income security has the greatest spike of all, going from about 13% of Federal expenditures in 2007 to a peak of about 18% mid 2010.

Pretty clear what's going on here, once the recession hit there was an explosion of health and income security spending, exactly what you'd expect from mass unemployment, all other government expenditures remaining constant.



Here's the remainder of small ticket items, categorized roughly:



Energy, education, and veterans are the only ones that break trends. The first is minor and recovery/stimulus spending, the second may be tied to student loans being extended to unemployed going back to school, while "veterans" is probably tied to the business cycle (Veterans seek more benefits when they're unemployed).


So, in short, the idea that Obama has massively expanded government is total bunk, the hysteria is just partisan manufactured outrage. The surge in spending is almost entirely an automated response to mass unemployment based on programs that have been in place for fucking decades. If you disagree, please tell me where this new spending is.


If you want to get the deficit and debt down, we need to be spending money getting people to work, to both get these tax receipts up and income security outlays down. Income taxes account for 50% of incoming tax revenue, and right now tax receipts are at ~15% of GDP, below the long-term average of 18%. We need to put people to work, that's the only way to fix the recession and get the deficit down.


The only other alternative is to start cutting these benefits, damaging not only the unemployed but sapping even more consumer demand out of the economy. I don't know how the second option ends in anything except even fewer jobs as time goes on.

Quote :

"Quite right. The government should not be paying the medical bills and retirement of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett."

I'd have no problem with the government doing so if there wasn't a cap on their FICA contributions.

Quote :

"As the government shrinks, the economy grows. This is what my working economic theory predicts, and that is what the current numbers are showing. Forgive me for being all anti-Keynesian."

What the fuck. By this "theory", the New Deal, GI Bill, and Marshall Plan should have turned the country into Somalia, instead we saw the most substantial long-term economic expansion in the nation's entire history over 30 years following the establishment of those various social programs. Your "theory" is an ideologically-motivated hypothesis at best, the economic equivalent of reading tea leaves.

[Edited on January 31, 2012 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

1/31/2012 10:41:13 AM

This continues Obama's pattern of beating the GOP at their own game. Stimulus comes out, he puts like 40% of it as tax cuts. He wants an extension to the payroll tax cut. He wants to merge departments and make government more efficient. I love it.

1/31/2012 3:54:11 PM

Quote :

"all other government expenditures remaining constant. "

Bullshit. Your graphs can say no such thing, as expenditures are being scaled as percent of government spending, which did not remain constant during the period. A smaller share of a much larger pie is still an increase.

Quote :

"So, in short, the idea that Obama has massively expanded government is total bunk, the hysteria is just partisan manufactured outrage."

The "Stimulus" was $700 billion in new spending/tax cuts, not funding for the automatic stabilizers you are talking about. Which is ignoring the 5+% increase in spending during George Bush's disastrous term in office. Just go check projected spending into the future. Obama plans for currently unsustainable levels of spending to continue well into the future, after the recession is over. Allow me to quote the CBO: "Projected spending in CBO’s baseline averages 21.9 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period." 21.9% of GDP is dramatically more spending than America is used to. See my graph above showing spending has increased dramatically over the past 60 years from the post WW2 low.

Why can't we make do with the relative size of Government Bill Clinton gifted the country? It was in line with revenues for God's sake!

Quote :

"I'd have no problem with the government doing so if there wasn't a cap on their FICA contributions. "

Why? How the hell can you justify this? Eliminate the cap on FICA contributions AND means test the non-poor out of the program. You so love government spending, are so fearful of the government spending less, you don't care who it goes to?

Quote :

"By this "theory", the New Deal, GI Bill, and Marshall Plan should have turned the country into Somalia, instead we saw the most substantial long-term economic expansion in the nation's entire history over 30 years following the establishment of those various social programs."

Interesting choices. I guess your trying to make my position easy to make. The New Deal actually did dramatically increase government spending, it also wrecked the country, continuing the longest depression in American history. And the GI Bill and Marshall Plan were small increases compared to the massive cuts in government spending taking place at the same time. From 1945 to 1951 Federal spending collapsed in every sense imaginable, from 45% of GDP to around 15%, spawning the greatest economic expansion of our history. So thank you for that.

While I accept that the austerity theory of economics is not beyond doubt, it is well supported by history. Post WW2 everywhere. 1980's Britain. 1990's Canada. etc. It is difficult for Governments to shrink, but when they do it almost always improves the economy.

1/31/2012 4:40:06 PM

Post-1945 the United States had the only economy not decimated by war and an entire world to export goods to. It would have been almost impossible not to grow the economy by an unprecedented amount. What exactly did government scale back on other than military spending?

1/31/2012 5:57:13 PM

^ hahaha. I've heard liberals specifically argue against that point when I brought it up so that they could defend their "OMFG THE WELFARE STATE MADE US GREAT!!!!" funny to hear it used on the other side now

2/1/2012 5:19:22 PM

I think New Deal policies helped create a more stable society and a social safety net, but anyone who argues that that's what made America great is an idiot.

2/1/2012 9:09:00 PM

TerdFerguson I'd like to see those numbers including Military Personnel. That would be a more realistic graph. Lets see EVERYONE on the Federal payroll.

2/2/2012 11:19:14 AM

well the numbers in the military should always be looked at a little differently, IMO, especially when we are technically at war

but this is the best I could do (just up to 2006, sorry, I'll keep looking although others can look)



as a percentage of population the numbers are pretty much the lowest since WWII.

2/3/2012 8:04:55 AM