Obama Added More to National Debt In First 19 Months Than All Presidents From George Washington Through Ronald Reagan Combined

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Sep 092010
 

Hell thats nothing, he’s just getting started! Didn’t he just ask for another 50 Billion?

In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

The U.S. Treasury Department divides the federal debt into two categories. One is “debt held by the public,” which includes U.S. government securities owned by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments and other entities outside the federal government itself. The other is “intragovernmental” debt, which includes I.O.U.s the federal government gives to itself when, for example, the Treasury borrows money out of the Social Security “trust fund” to pay for expenses other than Social Security.

At the end of fiscal year 1989, which ended eight months after President Reagan left office, the total federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan had accumulated only that much publicly held debt on behalf of American taxpayers. That is $335.3 billion less than the $2.5260 trillion that was added to the federal debt held by the public just between Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was inaugurated, and Aug. 20, 2010, the 19-month anniversary of Obama’s inauguration.

By contrast, President Reagan was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 1981 and left office eight years later on Jan. 20, 1989. At the end of fiscal 1980, four months before Reagan was inaugurated, the federal debt held by the public was $711.9 billion, according to CBO. At the end of fiscal 1989, eight months after Reagan left office, the federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion. That means that in the nine-fiscal-year period of 1980-89–which included all of Reagan’s eight years in office–the federal debt held by the public increased $1.4788 trillion. That is in excess of a trillion dollars less than the $2.5260 increase in the debt held by the public during Obama’s first 19 months.

When President Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt held by the public stood at 6.3073 trillion, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. As of Aug. 20, 2010, after the first nineteen months of President Obama’s 48-month term, the total federal debt held by the public had grown to a total of $8.8333 trillion, an increase of $2.5260 trillion.

In just the last four months (May through August), according to the CBO, the Obama administration has run cumulative deficits of $464 billion, more than the $458 billion deficit the Bush administration ran through the entirety of fiscal 2008.

The CBO predicted this week that the annual budget deficit for fiscal 2010, which ends on the last day of this month, will exceed $1.3 trillion.

The first two fiscal years in which Obama has served will see the two biggest federal deficits as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product since the end of World War II.

“CBO currently estimates that the deficit for 2010 will be about $70 billion below last year’s total but will still exceed $1.3 trillion,” said the CBO’s monthly budget review for September, which was released yesterday. “Relative to the size of the economy, this year’s deficit is expected to be the second-largest shortfall in the past 65 years: At 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), that deficit will be exceeded only by last year’s deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP.”

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I Want Your Money

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Aug 082010
 

I Want Your Money trailer…Set against the backdrop of today’s headline – 67% of Americans don’t approve of Obama’s economic policies, the film takes a provocative look at our deeply depressed economy using the words and actions of Presidents Reagan and Obama and shows the marked contrast between Reaganomics and Obamanomics. The film contrasts two views of the role that the federal government should play in our daily lives using the words and actions of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Two versions of the American dream now stand in sharp contrast. One views the money you earned as yours and best allocated by you; the other believes that the elite in Washington know how to best allocate your wealth. One champions the traditional American dream, which has played out millions of times through generations of Americans, of improving one’s lot in life and even daring to dream and build big. The other holds that there is no end to the “good” the government can do by taking and spending other peoples’ money in an ever-burgeoning list of programs. The documentary film I Want Your Money exposes the high cost in lost freedom and in lost opportunity to support a Leviathan-like bureaucratic state.

Why Was Ronald Reagan the Greatest President of the 20th Century?

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Aug 042010
 

This is a terrific piece. It is a few months old. It was published on Ronald Reagan’s birthday but it is still worth a read. The author nails the components of Reagan’s greatness as a leader and none of them include an elite Ivy League education. Ivy Leaguers have virtually wrecked this nation.

No president of the 20th century had a more positive and enduring influence than Ronald Reagan, who was born 99 years ago today. Other presidents, from Wilson to FDR, exceeded Reagan in their impact, but much of it was negative. Sure, they won wars, but they almost destroyed the American economy as well.

Reagan, by contrast, won the Cold War and also revived the American economy from decades of abuse. He was successful both at home and abroad.

Since President Reagan left the White House in 1989, the U. S. has stumbled, so it is wise to ponder why Reagan did so well. Was it natural intelligence or careful political training? Not really—and that fact both galls and baffles his critics. Reagan was a C student at lowly Eureka College and from there he went into small-town broadcasting, and then to Hollywood. He didn’t try to be governor of California until he was 55 years old.

Reagan had three parts to his genius. First, he was a visionary; he believed that people wanted freedom and would do well when more of it was given to them. Whether he was undermining the Soviets, challenging an unlawful union, or deregulating oil production he tried to move in a consistent direction of greater freedom and less government. According to Dinesh D’Souza, “Reagan’s greatness derives in large part from the fact that he was a visionary—a conceptualizer who was able to see the world differently from the way it was.” Reagan knew where he wanted to go: Jimmy Carter, by contrast, had multiple plans to create energy, to generate revenue, and to cut inflation. Often they were contradictory; all of them failed. Reagan was more consistent because he had vision: He knew where he wanted to go and how he wanted to get there.

Second, Reagan had character, and in the eyes of America’s Founders, character was a necessary ingredient for greatness. Reagan stood for a set of ideas, and when trouble came he looked not to polls, but instead he applied courage, kindness, and persistence to achieve his ends. At the end of his presidency, his critics—from Sam Donaldson to Ted Kennedy—admitted that Reagan had changed the world and had done so with candor and honesty.

Third, Reagan was teachable. That trait was essential. If one has vision and character, he must also be teachable to make his life flow in a constructive direction. Course corrections are needed because none of us has life figured out at age thirty. We have to believe in something and we have force of character, but we also have to be ready to modify.

When Reagan reached adulthood, he supported FDR for president. People (like those in his family) were hungry and FDR gave them jobs. Big government seemed to be an answer. But as he grew older and worked with the public he saw the tyranny of federal power. Also, he began to realize that no nation could spend its way into prosperity.

Reagan had lived through the 1920s and 1930s and he reconsidered the evidence for cutting tax rates. The Twenties were the prosperous decade of tax cuts and the Thirties were the depressed decade of tax hikes. He began to believe that connection was more than coincidence. When the U. S. economy went into to a tailspin in the 1970s, Reagan saw the price controls under Nixon and the restrictions on oil production under Carter as being a problem, not a solution.

Free up the economy, Reagan argued, by cutting tax rates. In the midst of the Carter fiasco, during a radio show on October 18, 1977, Reagan pointed to history to give his countrymen lessons. “We’ve tried spending our way to prosperity for more than four decades and it hasn’t worked. . . . Twice in this century, in the 1920’s and in the early 60’s we cut taxes substantially and the stimulant to the economy was substantial and immediate.”

Reagan was teachable. He had modified his ideas, and he would use his vision and character to implement these tax cuts when he became president. Sure enough, he brought rates down for all taxpayers and, as he predicted, revenue to the government actually increased when we gave more liberty to Americans to invest in their country. This dose of freedom was somewhat expanded by capital gains cuts under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. From 1982 to 2007, the U. S. economy more than doubled in economic growth, and we led the world with an ever increasing standard of living and relatively low unemployment.

We owe that freedom and prosperity that so many of us experienced during those years to the vision, the character, and the teachable qualities of President Ronald Reagan.

Source…

Hat tip Conservative Old Hippie

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