I believe that the economy would have started back months ago (if not a year) instead of starting with the retaking of the House (and the forced end of the Obama agenda). Remember, I am a real world, old school guy, not a, this number means this, this number means that, student.
Fallacy number 1. Non-sequitor
This is fallacy number 2, a weak (very weak) strawman. I have not claimed that the government always needs to run deficits, only during periods of economic contraction. Your hero's Reagan and Bush II followed the same economic policy, they increased government spending during recessions while lowering taxes (as did Obama).
I can think of many things the government is good at: providing roads and bridges, national defense, providing police and fire rescue, etc....
When consumption and investment fall, so will aggregate income unless government runs a deficit. GDP still contracted by about 3%, even though deficit spending increased by more than $1 trillion. You take the deficit spending away, and total output falls by (at least) $1 trillion.
The economy is beginning to recover, and once private companies are capable of picking up the slack, the deficit will decrease by virtue of less unemployment benefits, food stamps, and welfare outlays.
For comedic relief, define socialism as you see it.
Learn how are roads are funded. Typical leftwing strawman.
Govt. provides funds from taxpayers to American workers who build the roads. Those taxes come from the gasoline and diesel that the American drivers pay. I am amazed at how little some understand about our tax payments.
The economy is beginning to recover but at what cost. It is the private sector economy that will grow the economy, not the Govt. spending. There are four components to GDP of which govt. spending is about 20%.
Ok mr real world
How much deeper would the economic contraction been without the government deficit spending.
If you say it would not have have been deeper then you are not a real word person, but a head in the clouds type
So the government can do something that isn't bad. Thank you for clarifying that since you claimed the opposite.
By the way, I had not commented on how they where funded, which makes your straw man comment particularly amusing.
I believe that the economy would have started back months ago (if not a year) instead of starting with the retaking of the House (and the forced end of the Obama agenda). Remember, I am a real world, old school guy, not a, this number means this, this number means that, student.
The 700 billion TARP fund saved the financial institutions. The 842 billion stimulus was a waste of dollars. TARP has been mostly repaid whereas the stimulus was money put down the rat hole. Had Obama cut taxes for the private sector instead of bailing out Unions the economy would have recovered a lot quicker at much lower costs.
So you are operating on the basis of good faith as opposed to tangible evidence? Good to know.
The 700 billion TARP fund saved the financial institutions. The 842 billion stimulus was a waste of dollars. TARP has been mostly repaid whereas the stimulus was money put down the rat hole. Had Obama cut taxes for the private sector instead of bailing out Unions the economy would have recovered a lot quicker at much lower costs.
What did the govt. do? Most of the tax money for the roads are collected and spent by the states. There are two types of Excise taxes on gasoline, state and Federal. State excise taxes fund local roads and bridges, federal excise taxes are to fund the interstate highway system.
Uhmm Obama did cut taxes:
Tax cut for 95 percent? The stimulus made it so
PolitiFact | Tax cut for 95 percent? The stimulus made it so
Which proves my point about government deficit spending does it not?
Here we go again, 95% of the people don't pay taxes thus couldn't get a tax cut. The stimulus wasn't sold as a tax cut and the Obama rebates did no good at all. Different day, same tired old argument. Liberals are like cult followers and nothing changes the mind of a cult follower including actual facts. Here again are the Obama vs Bush tax cuts.
Tax cuts
Total: $288 billion
[edit] Tax cuts for individuals
Total: $237 billion
• $116 billion: New payroll tax credit of $400 per worker and $800 per couple in 2009 and 2010. Phaseout begins at $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for joint filers.[29]
• $70 billion: Alternative minimum tax: a one year increase in AMT floor to $70,950 for joint filers for 2009.[29]
• $15 billion: Expansion of child tax credit: A $1,000 credit to more families (even those that do not make enough money to pay income taxes).
• $14 billion: Expanded college credit to provide a $2,500 expanded tax credit for college tuition and related expenses for 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $160,000.
• $6.6 billion: Homebuyer credit: $8,000 refundable credit for all homes bought between 1/1/2009 and 12/1/2009 and repayment provision repealed for homes purchased in 2009 and held more than three years. This only applies to first-time homebuyers.[41]
• $4.7 billion: Excluding from taxation the first $2,400 a person receives in unemployment compensation benefits in 2009.
• $4.7 billion: Expanded earned income tax credit to increase the earned income tax credit — which provides money to low income workers — for families with at least three children.
• $4.3 billion: Home energy credit to provide an expanded credit to homeowners who make their homes more energy-efficient in 2009 and 2010. Homeowners could recoup 30 percent of the cost up to $1,500 of numerous projects, such as installing energy-efficient windows, doors, furnaces and air conditioners.
• $1.7 billion: for deduction of sales tax from car purchases, not interest payments phased out for incomes above $250,000.
Bush Tax cuts
Between 2001 and 2003, the Bush administration instituted a federal tax cut for all taxpayers. Among other changes, the lowest income tax rate was lowered from 15% to 10%, the 27% rate went to 25%, the 30% rate went to 28%, the 35% rate went to 33%, and the top marginal tax rate went from 39.6% to 35%.[3] In addition, the child tax credit went from $500 to $1000, and the "marriage penalty" was reduced. Since the cuts were implemented as part of the annual congressional budget resolution, which protected the bill from filibusters, numerous amendments, and more than 20 hours of debate, it had to include a sunset clause. Unless congress passes legislation making the tax cuts permanent, they will expire in 2011.
Govt. provides funds from taxpayers to American workers who build the roads. Those taxes come from the gasoline and diesel that the American drivers pay. I am amazed at how little some understand about our tax payments.
The economy is beginning to recover but at what cost. It is the private sector economy that will grow the economy, not the Govt. spending. There are four components to GDP of which govt. spending is about 20%.
Here we go again, 95% of the people don't pay taxes
Another strawman. Nobody is debating the source of funds for the department of transportation.
I agree, and we are witnessing the private sector grow (it was shrinking)! Public jobs are dwindling, and oddly enough, the dollar is rallying during the Feds massive purchases of short term federal debt. The future of America is looking brighter day by day.
WOW that right is a pretty extreme statement on your behalf:lamo
Uhmm Obama did cut taxes:
Tax cut for 95 percent? The stimulus made it so
PolitiFact | Tax cut for 95 percent? The stimulus made it so
They instituted the tax, collected the money, hired the people to do the work. The issue is not how they collected the money, nothing I said had anything to do with that, but that the roads are a federal(and state) program that is good, despite your claim that the government is only good for creating debt. Roads are one example of something that the government does good with.
In 2010 67 billion dollars was collected by the FEDERAL GOVT in excise taxes for the interstate highway system. How much was spent on the interstate highway system. I will give you a hint, a lot less than 67 billion dollars. What did they do with the rest of the money?
Tell that to the 16 million plus unemployed Americans along with the employed Americans who now have to pay for another 3.5 trillion added to the debt.
Doesn't seem that that BEA got the same partisan memo that you got because GDP growth is meager at best and job creation is terrible.
1.3 million stopped looking for jobs in December. Looks like the American people aren't buying the rhetoric either and rightly so.
Your addiction to fallacies is more amusing to me, than it is embarrassing to you (lack of realization). The benefits of current policy do outweigh the cost. The United States has still maintained its AAA credit rating, while unemployment (u-3) has been contained.
Then your gripe is with the private sector, as we (private sector) are the engine of economic growth. But..., expansion (as opposed to short term asset accumulation) is quite risky given the slack in labor markets.
U-6 unemployment fell as well (which incorporates discouraged workers). The question remains; what did these people leave the labor force to do? My money is on upskilling.
Markets hoped that December’s payroll report would mark a breakthrough for the US economy’s recovery, with a surge in private job creation towards 200,000 – a level that would finally put a dent in the unemployment rate.
Instead they got a murky mixture of a report, prompting one economist, Rob Carnell of ING Bank, to call it an “utter mess” and question why markets focus so much on payrolls at all.
The problem is that the monthly payrolls report contains two different measures – a survey of households and a survey of employers – and in December they pointed in different directions.
The employment survey, the normal focus of attention, showed overall growth in payrolls of only 103,000. That was well below expectations, especially after a disappointing November report and a remarkably high estimate from private- sector payroll processor ADP earlier this week.
Yet the household survey, from which the unemployment rate is calculated, sent a completely different message. It showed an extra 297,000 people in jobs and 260,000 fewer people in the labour force. The combination of the two was enough to cause a drop in the unemployment rate from 9.8 to 9.4 per cent.
The reality – taking the trend in both measures and other recent data together – is likely to be somewhere in between. Jobs growth is picking up a bit to more than 100,000 a month but still shows no sign of a dramatic acceleration.
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, struck a similar note in testimony to Congress prepared before the release of the payrolls data. “Although recent indicators of spending and production have generally been encouraging, conditions in the labour market have improved only modestly at best,” Mr Bernanke said.
Most analysts attribute the fall in labour force participation and therefore the fall in the unemployment rate, to the expiry of long-term unemployment benefits in December.
If you no longer receive unemployment benefits, the theory goes, then you no longer have any reason to tell a survey you are actively looking for work. The number of “discouraged workers”, who say that they are no longer looking for a job because they do not think they can find one, was 1.3m in December.
Congress has since renewed long-term unemployment benefits. A likely consequence is that the size of the labour force will bounce back in January, reversing the fall in the unemployment rate.
A further disappointment was in the average duration of a spell of unemployment, which rose from 21.7 to 22.4 weeks, suggesting that those people who are finding jobs have not been out of work for long.
You and Krugman can have your little dream world. 1.3 million discouraged workers plus 14.5 million unemployed still make the reported unemployment close to 16 million, hardly a number anyone can be proud of. We generated these numbers by adding 3.5 trillion to the debt.
So let's see, trillions of dollars have been spent and things are getting better? Good Lord, I would hope so but at what cost? If you spent this much money in a business and generated these kind of results you would be fired.
Why the pressing need to use argumentive fallacies in every response? Hopefully this site can be of some assistance.
As far as your discouraged workers comment, you do understand that this is falling as well.
I agree! The private sector does not have the means to alleviate (make a depression a recession) because we focus on the bottom line in the short term.
So i must ask you a very basic and direct question, and i am hoping for a response. If the Federal Government did not increase the deficit by $1 trillion, would GDP (in 2009) have fallen by at least $1 trillion?
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