Via Mankiw, Source: Congressional Budget Office
Stimulus and bailouts aside, Obama is doubling the gap between revenue and spending from its average during the Bush years. This is the opposite of Bill Clinton's fiscal responsibility (for which Newt Gingrich deserves significant credit). But wait, it's okay—Obama is getting on the case now with a 0.0029% budget cut!
I repeat my earlier advice: If this picture doesn't change by 2012 and you care about fiscal responsibility, you can't vote Democratic again. Can't do it. Or you shouldn't be allowed to call yourself fiscally responsible anymore.
I don't know whether Republicans will offer a compelling alternative—again, they might double down on an ignoramus like Palin or Huckabee—but in that case you should pick a third party or sit the election out.
you make a fair point, although you're not fully taking into account the revenue crater and profligate spending nightmare that Bush and the GOP left smoking on Obama's doorstep. Is this quote really 100% accurate: "If this picture doesn't change by 2012 and you care about fiscal responsibility, you can't vote Democratic again"? What is someone supposed to do? Vote Republican? If you have a viable third party out there, I'm willing to listen. :)
ReplyDeletein my view, at least 50-75% of the stuff Obama's done in his first day in office were necessary to keep the country from falling off the cliff's edge that Bush pushed us onto. Obama has pledged that his intent is to slash the deficit by half by the end of his first term. We can judge him at that time.
Obama has argued that the TARP and his stimulus were necessary to get the economy back on track, so I'm not going to give him credit for the end of those, and I'm not going to give him credit for slowly winding down Iraq war which was going to happen anyway.
ReplyDeleteIOW his pledge to "slash the deficit in half" is meaningless to me.
I'll stick to looking at the average gap between revenue and spending in post-recession years, and comparing that to Bush's and Clinton's average gaps pre-recession.
"I'll stick to looking at the average gap between revenue and spending in post-recession years, and comparing that to Bush's and Clinton's average gaps pre-recession." -- I think that's a good approach toward the end of Obama's first term.
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