Recent US Federal Deficit Numbers
| Obama Deficits | Bush Deficits |
| FY 2012: $1,101 billion | FY 2009: $1,413 billion |
| FY 2011: $1,299 billion | FY 2008: $248 billion |
| FY 2010: $1,293 billion | FY 2007: $161 billion |
And remember, Obamacare costs aren't yet included above.
Was all this caused by the Iraq War? Not if these charts on defense spending are correct.
Welfare and other programs for the poor?
We're in deep kimchee.
Actually, the cost of the Iraq War by itself would pay off almost all of those deficits http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/new-economy/2011/1025/Iraq-war-will-cost-more-than-World-War-II and if we paid the same per person healthcare costs as the rest of the civilized world, we would be running a surplus right now. What was your point again?
ReplyDeleteThat socialism isn't spelled out in the constitution, that military expenditures are, and that much of the civilized world piggybacks off our medical technology and drugs (just like they do our military) so what they spend now isn't their "actual cost".
ReplyDeleteSo my point is you should do a better job of homework.
BTY Bill, the CS Monitor is wrong.
ReplyDeleteInflation adjusted dollars put the outlays for WWII at 4,104 billion (2010 dollars)
Iraq and Afghanistan/Other 2001-2010 at 1,147 billion (2010 dollars).
Source, Congressional Budget Office http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22926.pdf
Also the Constitution says …provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare… I don’t see “provide the general welfare” in it but at the end of the Preamble I do see …secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity …. Socialism is not part of the plan.
Actually, the CS Monitor is correct, if you read the actual articles. That is the actual spending to date of the Wars, not the continued cost of paying off the borrowed money and benefits of the soldiers wounded and killed in the conflict, which brings the total to the $4Trillion figure.
ReplyDeleteJustifying the war in Iraq as "Common Defense" is another story entirely. You're seriously suggesting that the war in Iraq made us safer?
As far as the US paying for the world's defense (and research, medical and otherwise) I completely agree, unfortunately "for profit" medicine is one of the worst possible ways to do medical research since the interest is in making a profit rather than improving anyone's quality of life.
We're the world's richest nation, yet have horrible poverty, life expectancy, infant mortality, highest incarceration rate, highest medical cost, and lowest medical coverage rate of any First World country, and you think that that's A-OK since doing something about that is not specifically spelled out in the Constitution as a Federal responsibility? Better hope that you never end up on the wrong end of your ideals there...
Those things are bad, but giving up freedoms to fix them is worse.
ReplyDeleteCubans have great literacy rates, but what can they read?
Well, I'd be a hell of a lot more concerned about the US government ignoring the Constitution in terms of illegally detaining US Citizens (Jose Padilla), and warrantless wiretaps and GPS surveillance, and executive execution, orders than Tax Codes if you're concerned about the US becoming like Cuba or other dictatorships. Funny thing that... you complain a lot about taxes and health care legislation on this blog, but not about the obvious abuses to the Constitution. Odd set of priorities you have there...
ReplyDeleteActually Bill, it is wrong. The author is speculating on the future cost of VA expenses plus the rebuilding of the military we will need among other costs. But again it is only speculation, aka assumption. You put out as fact the expenses of the last ten years will eclipse the expenses of the Second World War with your support an opinion piece backed by two leftists professors. The article I referenced was actual outlays from the budget during the WWII years and the Iraqi and Afghanistan operations. You and the people in CS article cannot tell me how much will be spent on future Defense Department expenses or how they will be spent, or for that matter on VA expenses. They are throwing out something not supported by facts.
ReplyDeleteOh I admit one mistake, it was not the CBO but the Congressional Research Service. My bad.
Apparently you missed another thing. The Preamble of the Constitution set forth the basic explaination of why the document was written. I was not using it to justify Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya or World War II. The point is unlike the seizure of health care or multiple industries in this country by the Obama regime, outlays for defense of the nation are specifically authorized by the document, aka consent of the governed. You may wanna check out some other parts of the document before future comment.
Article 1, Section 8 aka Powers of Congress
...To raise and support Armies...To provide and maintain a Navy;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States...
Article 2, aka Executive Branch
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;
If you can show me in the Constitution where providing welfare to illegal aliens, requiring states to do it, providing medical treatment to the general population is please let me know. It is probably right next to abortion and the ban on capital punishment.
Bill your rant on poverty and medicine makes me wonder. I’ve spent a day or two overseas. Korea, Mexico, Japan, Europe, Kuwait. This country doesn’t know what poverty is. Poverty in the US means having a roof over their head, a phone, TV, cars, an opportunity for eduction. In Mexico it’s living in a shack with no electricity. Try South America or Africa. That is poverty. Also are critical of the profit motive in medicine (I would presume in other things from your other points). Excuse me, you think there would be first rate medicine without the profit motive? I have a chronic illness and the treatment for it cost over a billion (yes, I said that right, a billion) to develop over more than a decade. That is one treatment of one disease. You think a government bureaucrat will develop these treatments in a more efficient or humane method that Biogen Medical Technology? If you really think so get to the Occupy protest with your iPhone to complain about capitalism please.
Oh from a right wing rag sometimes know as the New York Puke, aka Times an article on the great health care in the socialist nation of Greece (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/europe/greeks-reeling-from-health-care-cutbacks.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&nr_email_referer=1). After reading the article please let me know if you really want that for your or your children
I guess it comes to a basic issue. You seem to see no limit to federal power and I have this weird idea that the Constitution says what the federal government can do. And if it’s not written out it’s left to the states or the people. Where did I read that?
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
To suggest that I'm not concerned about constitutional issues is to make an ass out of yourself, Bill. Yes, you provoked me. Feel good?
ReplyDeleteI've got about 7500 posts on this blog. If there's not enough evidence in there demonstrating my respect for the constitution, then you have an impossibly high standard.
Or you're just a troll.
Funny, I just did a quick Google of this blog, and of all your posts, I'm the only one who mentioned Jose Padilla, who was denied pretty much all of his Constitutional rights (I'm not sure if they housed soldiers in his domicile or not) which you never commented on beyond "We have laws to deal with traitors." Would you say that those laws or our Constitution were followed?
ReplyDeleteYou get all worked up about Obama signing the Health Care bill, but not one that allows indefinite detention of US citizens?
Yes, I'd say that all you seem to care about in terms of "freedom" is about MONEY and not actual rights and liberties. A Police State is fine... so long as they don't ask you to contribute to the public good!
Bill I will go where angles feel to tread....what the hell do you mean by executive execution?
ReplyDeleteSo if I don't write about what you want me to write about, I support a police state? A caution, Bill: Grabbing the machete of stupid does not make for a clear path.
ReplyDeletePadilla was an unlawful enemy combatant *and* a traitor as defined under the constitution. As an enemy combatant he can be held, without trial, until the cessation of hostilities. Why do I need to write about that?
As for Obama's signing the law about detention, I have nothing to *add* to the conversation that's taking place all over the blogosphere.
Happy now? Good. Now crawl back under your rock.