This could happen, if enough people are jaded by the many exaggerations put out by the Republican Party machine, AND enough of us don't vote.
I don't expect that anyone is happy with the slowness of the recovery. We all wish we were much further along, beginning with President Obama. I'll concede he made campaign promises four years ago that he hasn't kept, but it's not for lack of giving it everything he had. There were huge, trillion-dollar factors literally beyond his control. I have absolutely no doubt he will continue to make progress, to make it faster as his policies continue to work, and that he is far and away the best candidate to get the job done. I hope the following information confirms that for you, and that you will share this with all of your friends and relatives. It's not too late. I've put together some very telling articles and charts below.
Let's look over recent quotes and headlines.
In a statement following the announcement, House Speaker John Boehner targeted President Obama's economic record, casting the news as "another sad reminder of President Obama's broken promise to cut the deficit in half."
"This debt is a drain on our economy and a crushing burden on our kids and grandkids, and it's yet another indication that the president's policies have made things worse," he argued.
"The past four years Barack Obama hasn't offered any serious solutions to get our spending under control and instead he has run 4 straight years of trillion dollar deficits," said Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee. "President Obama's budget got zero votes in Congress and we can only expect more of the same inaction in a second term."
National Debt Surpasses $16 Billion
In the above quotes, President Obama is blamed for the last four years of federal budget deficits and increasing the national debt. The fact that the budget of his first year in office was set by his predecessor is ignored, and he gets 'credit' for that. This is blatantly false, and tells me the extreme bias of those quoted, and they obviously knew better. It also tells me that the real numbers are not, by themselves, bad enough, in the minds of those quoted, so must be exaggerated. Again, a very telling factor.
Next is another quote, this from someone affiliated with the Wall Street Journal, a powerful media source that has never been included under the so-called 'liberal media' label, so can assumed to be no friend of Democrats or liberals. it points out very specifically that Obama has not wildly expanded federal spending, and in fact has barely expanded it:
Obama was referring to an analysis released this week by Rex Nutting, a reporter for CBS MarketWatch who is also affiliated with the Wall Street Journal. Nutting concluded that Obama has presided over the slowest growth in federal spending in decades.
“Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4 percent annualized pace – slower than at any time in nearly 60 years,” Nutting wrote, citing data from the Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget and an independent financial firm.
“The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat,” he wrote. “Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4 percent. There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”
President Obama Denounces Republican Wild Debts Claim
Okay, if you believe as I do that Obama has not expanded the federal budget, why are we in such a deficit hole, and growing the federal debt by leaps and bounds? The following article and chart answers these questions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/28/republican-national-convention-the-one-graph-you-need-to-see-before-watching/
Along with the above chart, the following story does a good job of explaining how we got to where we are, and cutting through the rhetoric. One huge fact that jumps out of this article is that President Bush was able to hide the huge war debt, keeping it 'off the books,' apparently. I, for one, very much appreciate and respect Obama's change in this respect, to disclose it, account for it properly, and, as ugly as it is, put it out there for all to see. Again, I have to ask, the real fiscal disaster we were in, and are coming out of slowly, is bad enough: why do the Republicans feel it necessary to grossly exaggerate the numbers?
Republican pundits love to say that the national debt has increased by $5 trillion because of President Obama. Factually, that statement is simply untrue. Let's examine the evidence.
Of the alleged $5 trillion, $1.6 trillion is related to costs of the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars. These were costs George W. Bush intentionally hid from the budget, and that President Obama allowed to be calculated when he assumed office.
Note that Obama could have continued to hide the bill as Bush did, passing it along to his successor.
President Bush was able to manipulate funding for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars using special emergency authorization bills. He did this because, as you recall, the Democrats were attempting to defund the war legislatively.
The overall point is simple: Obama, as president, authorized not one cent of that $1.6 trillion to be spent.
It has been previously reported by marketwatch.com that President Obama increased overall government spending by a smaller margin than any modern president, all the way to President Eisenhower.
Rex Nutting at marketwatch clarifies:
What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.
Over $1.4 trillion was spent on interest payments caused by the already standing debt.
Knowing that, let's examine the GOP's argument.
They say President Obama has spent too much, but 32% of the total amount they claim has been spent is a direct result of Republican presidential policies, and previous spending.
President Obama is stuck paying the bill for the previous GOP administrations of Reagan, H.W. Bush, and W. Bush. President Clinton left with a surplus if you recall, and added nothing to our debt. This point has been discussed constantly, and was even visited by President Obama's former Press Secretary Jay Carney during a press gaggle.
It is not disputed that the national debt was $10 trillion before President Obama took office.
The interest that is paid on the debt today was created by the very same people who now are attempting to blame the cost of that interest on the president. Do not allow yourself to be fooled,the GOP is attempting to blame the president for something they caused.
Now our journey of $5 trillion has been twiddled down to $2 trillion.
Another piece of the puzzle is that the CBO projected because of the Bush Era Tax Cuts, our government lost over $1.6 trillion in projected revenue. Of course, these unpaid taxes weresupposed to create jobs for the middle class. The tax cuts have been in place for over 10 years, one would think our nation would be swimming in jobs. Yet, friends, that is not the case.
If reasonable tax rates were in place that were similar to those used while President Clinton was in office -- America's fiscal outlook would be more optimistic.
This leaves only $400 billion to be unaccounted for, and surely the fervor about reckless spending can not be over that amount because in that regard there are many instances where the GOP is equally guilty, if not more culpable. For example, our nation is still paying for the wasteful Medicare part D plan. Passed in 2003 and enacted in 2006, it has been estimated to cost a staggering $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Others put a more conservative price of $8 trillion including former head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, David Walker.
$8 - $17 trillion in spending, and yet they say President Obama is the reckless spender? No matter how you look at the numbers, the GOP is guilty of at least one-and-a-half more spending, or three times as much spending. How can they claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility?
The overall premise of the argument has now been debunked, and the truth is quite clear; 88% of the debt which the GOP blames on President Obama was not created as a consequence of his policies.
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