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Opening Arguments

Yikes

Federal deficit for the month of February:

The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February, a $223 billion shortfall that put a sharp point on the current fight on Capitol Hill about how deeply to cut this year's spending.

Federal deficit for 2007 -- the entire year: $160.7 billion. Looking at the chart is pretty depressing. It goes back to 1971, when the deficit was "only" $23 billion. The simple row of numbers in the deficit column shows what a breathtaking leap it was in 2009, when it went from $458.6 billion to $1.412.7 trillion. Only four non-deficit years, in the late Clinton-early GWB years 1998-2001.

Comments

Tim Zank
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 10:25am

Hope & Change. Better fill the printers with more ink.

Bob G.
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 12:40pm

Yeah, Tim...whoever said that INTAGLIO printing was EVER going out of style?

;)

littlejohn
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 2:30pm

Cute how you sneaked Dubya in there with Clinton's surplus. It figures you'd pull a Full Bachmann and saddle Obama with Dubya's deficit spending.

Tim Zank
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 4:33pm

LittleJohn, all the artful accounting in the world will not cover up this problem. All the half hearted finger pointing will not solve this problem. In fact all the misguided animosity at all things NOT Obama will not cure what ails this nations finances.

You know what will? Stop spending. Cut spending. Period.

No constitutional scholar necessary, just old fashioned common sense.

littlejohn
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 5:52pm

Good thing no scholars are needed.

Harl Delos
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 6:07pm

If you adjust for the changing value of the dollar and the increased population, the 1967 budget deficit would have grown to $188 billion.

If we had allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire when they were supposed to, that $223 billion deficit would be $198 billion.

Not a whole lot of difference. But yeah, it needs to be reduced. The cost of fighting wars, future and past, amounts to 62% of the federal budget. Defense alone is costing us twice as much as it did in 2001. The last time a sovereign country tried to invade was in 1812 (although an amateur named Pancho Villa conducted some raids shortly before WWI).

How about we go back to the Monroe Doctrine, so that instead of providing free military welfare to every country in the world, we only do that for the western hemisphere?

Tim Zank
Tue, 03/08/2011 - 6:23pm

littlejohn Says:

March 8th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Good thing no scholars are needed.

Does it require a college degree or a constitutional scholar to balance the budget in your household? Here's a newsflash ace, math ain't that hard.

2+2=4 is still valid, unlike Obamamath where $500 billion can effectively be spent twice and reproduced by unicorns, just ask Kathleen Sebelius.

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