xracer wrote:



An amazingly, but typical, blind comparison. Bush took a budget surplus and turned it into an additional $6 trillion in debt and he did this during a time of economic growth when he should have been paying down the debt in preparation for the next recession and the entitlement crisis. His last fiscal year saw the largest deficit since before rock and roll - 9.4% of GDP. Obama has reduced the deficit every year he has been in office despite the need for stimulus spending to ameliorate the recession impact. CBO projection says the budget is on a path to be reduced by two thirds in 2013 - 3.2% of GDP.

Obama, has in two years done more to reduce future energy prices than Bush did in 8 years.

At the risk of being redundant-

Bush and Obama have very little influence on the budget and the deficit. Congress has by far the greatest influence. Congress sets tax policy. Congress decides what pork they are going to fund this year. Congress controls the purse.

The president controls foreign policy and the president controls the military. Yes, he can set the tone or say what he wants Congress to do, but in the end it's our blood-sucking congress that is responsible for our huge debt and unpaid-for entitlements.

jdeere5220 wrote:


Presidents, at least when their party controls congress, can have a big influence on the budget. They have the Bully Pulpit, are the party leader, can come into office with a mandate from the people, their VP can cast a deciding vote in the Senate (as Gore did to pass the Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993) and they have the veto. The 3 biggest budget legislations in the last 40 years that changed the direction of the deficits/surpluses were spearheaded by Presidents and they managed it with compromise and the political tools mentioned above: but two of the three times (Clinton's surpluses and Bush deficits) happened only because their party controlled congress.

Obama now has little influence on the budget because he lost his mandate after the 2010 election and his party no longer controls congress. Add in a large contigent in the opposing party that are basically economic suicide bombers with no interest in compromise and you have our budget chaos.

Obama came into office with a mandate to stop the death spiral in the economy, not to balance the budget. Done.

I expect in the next election the dichotomous mandate will be balance the budget and grow jobs, but beyond increasing taxes on the wealthy and decreasing defense spending I doubt the mandate will include a basic workable formula. We will have to see what the candidates say over the next year and if any plausable solutions gain traction with the public.

Occam wrote:


TARP was supposed to stop the "Great Depression". Obama's policies was no different than any other Progressive: spend, spend, spend and make as many dependent on government as possible. Free this, free that...we're broke. What part of that don't you understand?

What you Obama zombies can't come to grips with is his economic policies have completely 100% failed. Period. End of story. Do you like the taste of double dip?

Go ahead Occam, go back two plus years ago in the old forum and see exactly what I said would happen. It wasn't hard to visualize the insanity.

As for Clinton, he was dragged kicking and screaming. It's all easily found for those interested. My how history revisionists are working overtime. But at least Clinton was smart enough to know when to budge. Obama is a rigid ideologue, pure and simple, and will go down with the ship (the U.S. economy).

Next you'll say Buffet had no political connection to Obama with his $5 billion "investment" of BoA.

Obama “Stimulus” Protected 450,000 Government Jobs, Destroyed One Million Private Jobs


Jennifer Granholm claimed she left Michigan with a surplus when in reality it was bailout money from the Federal Government.

It's funny as heck to read this bit of wisdom now, isn't it?


steveg wrote:

Occam wrote:


Now I know why I avoid this particular forum! What have you been smoking to make a statement like that? By appointing a radical leftist to the EPA, Obummer has by proxy and his own executive orders effectively killed oil exploration and the coal industry through overregulations thereby fulfilling his promise to give us 'skyrocketing energy prices'. Gasoline prices remain twice what they were two years ago despite the fact that oil crude prices have dropped dramatically.
His equally totalitarian EPA has passed so many regulations that it is impossible to create new industries and is also crippling existing industries from being effective. You are living in a delusional dream world!
Back to more sane forums where I don't get whiplash from shaking my head in disbelief at your statements.

tjnamtiw wrote:


The difference between my statement and yours is I made a well reasoned argument based on accepted facts, you just made baseless claims. You can, however, thank deregulation for low gas prices two years ago - deregulation of the financial industry. The banks destroyed the economy, industrial activity and consumer travel which reduced demand for oil, so of course prices dropped. Nice strategy

While gas prices sored under Bush and fuel economy made no improvments, Obama's increase in fuel economy standards and investment in R&D of alternate energy will reduce demand for oil in the future and this will have more impact on energy costs than drilling in environmentaly sensitve areas.

Occam wrote:


Having said this, even if we let the oil industry drill whereever they want, assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, we can expect OPEC to neutralize any potential price impact of oil production by reducing its oil exports by an equal amount.

As for Obama killing oil exploration, the same areas are open to exploration and drilling that were available under Bush.

Occam wrote:


Didn't know Obama was an automotive engineer. Wow, what a guy!


Occam wrote:


And an incredible philanthropist too? Oh... wait... it's NOT HIS MONEY.

Occam wrote:




Still making things up Occam?

obama administration cancels oil leases

ExxonMobil Sues Gov't for Canceling Deepwater Well Worth ‘Billions of Barrels’