President-elect Barack Obama’s team is considering a plan to boost the recession-hit U.S. economy that could be far larger than previous estimates and might reach $1 trillion over two years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Obama aides, who were considering a half-trillion dollar package two weeks ago, now consider $600 billion over two years “a very low-end estimate,” the newspaper said, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter.
The final size of the stimulus was expected to be significantly higher, possibly between $700 billion and $1 trillion over that period, it said, given the deteriorating state of the U.S. economy.
The question to ask is where is this money coming from? My guess is more bonds will be issued and more money printed by the Federal Reserve.
Sounds like typical tax and spend liberal theology, but where is the cash coming from? I won’t live long enough to pay it so I guess he is mortgaging my children’s and grandchildren’s souls to make himself look good.
Actually, I think this is more like the typical GOP theology of don’t tax but spend anyways. I care for neither policy. But the only thing worse than reckless spending, is reckless spending that is not paid for. I don’t like taxes. But “debt” is a four letter word. No variation on the word “tax” comes out that way.
For eight years we have been living under the governance of the most fiscally irresponsible administration in modern American history. It has been running two wars, major disaster relief, the largest expansion of the American Federal bureaucracy since World War II, and bailing out incompetent Wall Street bankers almost entirely on the national credit card while simultaneously cutting taxes, mainly for the very wealthy.
Well the credit card is now maxxed out and the bills are coming due.
You can only print trillions of dollars in IOU’s and paper money backed by nothing more than good intentions and wishful thinking for so long without consequences. Now Obama is coming into office with trillions more in promised spending and inheriting a bankrupt treasury. Given the present economic crisis raising taxes is obviously not an option. Which means more IOUs and printing more money.
After eight years of running our finances with a level of responsibility that would make most banana republics blush with embarrassment I think we had best brace ourselves for a very hard landing as our country prepares for its long overdue reality check in the laws of economics.
You can not build a nation or an economy on a pile of debt.
It will come from the same place used to finance our wars.
It is a fair point that during times of great emergency (wars and during the Great Depression come to mind) a certain amount of deficit spending is to be expected and indeed is acceptable. However every effort should be made to keep the debt to as low a figure as possible.
The current administration is the first in our nation’s history to cut taxes during war time. No other administration has done that. Normally during wars, cash starved governments levy taxes on anything they can think of in an effort to raise money. The idea of slashing taxes in a way that mainly benefits those in the top 1% of income while our country is fighting two wars and our sons and daughters are dying in foreign lands is so morally repulsive that it shocks the conscience.
You are aware, #5, aren’t you, that the percentage of total income taxes paid by the highest brackets went UP after the Bush tax cuts?
Domestic spending should have been cut during the past eight years, and Bush’s failure to veto spending bills is his greatest failure. Obama’s planned spending increases dwarf the amounts to be realized by the expiration of the tax rate cuts. That expiration alone will cause “middle class” people to see their taxes go up significantly.
One trillion dollars is reckless.
We need to not only pay attention to the amount spent, but also to how it’s being spent. The thrust of this planned spending is to add immense power to the government. It’s nothing more than the New Deal and the Great Society writ large. I don’t believe America can sustain this and stay even relatively free. We will be a Socialist country pure and simple.
1) This was mentioned as the case during the campaign. Most news outlets either ignored it or downplayed it preferring to focus on McCain’s planned spending.
2) My lower middle income taxes went down when Bush put his tax cuts into place. Thank goodness They did NOT only benefit the rich, who pay a large majority of all the taxes in America anyway!
3) Conservatives blasted Bush and the Congressional Republicans for their spending habits (“acting like Democrats”). We were ignored.
[i] You are aware . . . that the percentage of total income taxes paid by the highest brackets went UP after the Bush tax cuts? [/i]
Yes, because the wealthiest taxpayers’ share of total household income rose. Economic trends favored the wealthy. Their incomes rose at a more rapid rate than those of the less affluent.
Usually after tax cuts, there is an initial increase in receipts. Unfortunately, this is not sustainable. If anything, sometimes taxes encourage investment. If people had been investing directly in their own businesses rather than in hedge funds, they would have been creating jobs and value, as there would have been less of an incentive to go for immediate personal wealth.
I doubt Bush could have vetoed anything. Since he comes from the “government is bad” school, there’s no reason to think that he would govern well. Instead, the government outsourced everything, which meant that people could be war profitteers and take advantage of the government’s largesse.
Although my taxes went down a bit, my local government and state government are struggling. They have to raise taxes.