Snow: Rebounding Economy Expected to Help Cut Federal Deficit in Half (?)

[papau]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAE3Y0O5PD.html

Snow: Rebounding Economy Expected to Help Cut Federal Deficit in Half Within Five Years
By Martin Crutsinger
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - While concerned about soaring budget deficits, the Bush administration is confident that a rebounding economy will help cut the deficit in half within five years, Treasury Secretary John Snow said Wednesday. <snip>

Snow said that instead of rolling back the tax reductions, which Democrats contend have gone overwhelmingly to the wealthy, they should be made permanent. He said if the 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills had not been passed, 109 million taxpayers would face tax bills this April 15 that would be on average $1,544 higher.

"Let me be perfectly clear: Failure to make the tax relief permanent would be a huge mistake and would put our recovery in jeopardy," Snow said in prepared remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Snow said that the federal government does face a deficit "in the $500 billion range" in the current fiscal year, which would be a record in dollar terms. However, Snow said this deficit will represent roughly 4.5 percent of the total economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, compared with a modern-day peak of 6 percent set in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was president.
He said the $500 billion deficit "is not historically out of range and it is entirely manageable." <snip>

In the new budget the president will send Congress on Feb. 2, the administration is expected to propose limiting the growth of discretionary programs to 4 percent, perhaps excluding defense and domestic security.



<snip>But conservatives have complained about the 31.5 percent growth in discretionary spending since Bush took office. That is the one-third of the budget lawmakers approve annually for defense, domestic security, school aid and everything else except Social Security and other benefits. Such spending grew by an annual average of 3.4 percent during the Clinton administration's eight years in office. <snip>

[gasperc]

1. Yep, this guys on crack

Leaves out that the deficit has increased 500% since 2000, and has grown faster year to year than anytime in history even WWII

[StClone]

2. Double wammie

If you collect less tax you can not pay off debt as rapidly regardless if you spend less EVEN in an expansion.

[benfranklin1776]

7. Yep. VOODOO ECONOMICS has returned with a vengeance.

Deliberately create large budget deficits through permanent changes to the tax code and then pretend that magically "growth" will eliminate the structural deficit you created. Addition by subtraction. The new "fuzzie math."

[July]

6. If there was a surplus, how has the deficit increased 500%?

Snow tries to make the deficit look small by saying it's 4.5% of GDP (comparing it to 6% high). He leaves out that it was 0% when Clinton left office.

[cthrumatrix]

9. this is why Paul Oneil was fired - he had a $44 Trillion Gap Report

done by Fed Resrve Ban of Cleavland.

The present value revenue stream gap was "income received vs. payments to be made....

WH sheved the report and hired a moutpiece to lie.

[leftchick]

3. Calling john ashcroft ......Alert Alert!!!

Mr. snow must have gotten his hands on some fucking stong-ass MARIJUANA!!!!

[joefree1]

5. Snow must be partying with Rush

Somebody check his medication.

[JNelson6563]

4. These morans think the road to re-sElection

is paved with federal spending.

So it's all good and the deficit will just melt away eh? hahahahaha!!!

That Snow-job cracks me up. Though I envy his drug stash, must be really something!!

Julie

[demon67]

10. Moron . . . not moran

Why are more and more people at DU misspelling moron as m-o-r-a-n? It makes us look moronic.

[louis-t]

11. inside joke, somebody post the photo for demon67

I don't have it, but it's still funny.

[Sideways]

12. Because A Freeper Tard Had A Sign That Called Us Morans

We are just using his gaff as an insult to freeperville. Nobody here is misspelling moron it is just an ass kick in the pants to our friends at FR.:evilgrin:

[leftyandproud]

16. actually...that Freeper sign..

was misspelled intentionally...I lurk over there and saw the original post the pic was copied from...It was referring to a demo congressman named "Jim Moran" who the Freepers were temporarily pissed at for some reason. I guess they didn't suspect it would make them look like idiots by using "moran" in subsequent posts...Now it looks like it is having the same effect on DU'ers.

:(

[salin]

28. heh... if that were the case - why is it plural?

Morans... not Moran (in the name).

[truthisfreedom]

37. oh god...

unbelievable.

[louis-t]

13. okay dem67 here is why..

photo of a right-winger carrying a sign that said "grow a brain morans". eventually, you will see it someplace at DU.

[leftchick]

14. "get a brain morans"

It is on my fridge! :)

[Buns_of_Fire]

20. Okay... One more time...

[wellst0nev0ter]

32. Gotta Luv Those Flag-hugger Rallies Last Spring

Thousands of Minnesotans gathered Saturday to demonstrate two vastly different views that carried one common theme: concern for U.S. troops.
At the State Capitol, approximately 9,000-12,000 people — some estimates are as high as 20,000 — gathered at noon to show their support for U.S. troops involved in the Iraqi strike . . .

. . .the crowd didn’t take as kindly to N. Ruby Zigrino, a Muslim speaker from Minneapolis. Zigrino initially received cheers and clapping, but when she questioned the United States’ motives in past wars, she received some boos. And when she quoted the Quran, shouts erupted from the crowd such as “Read the Bible” and “We’ve had enough.” Eventually she was jeered from the microphone by cat calls and an unrelenting chant of “U-S-A.”

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2003/03/24/5289

Idiots, every one of them.

[davekriss]

31. You are kidding, right?

Surely you're aware of why it's sarcastically spelled "moran" in these parts?

[stevedeshazer]

40. This is why...

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. If you believe in trickle down

and thehy do, as a matter of religious faith, of course this is
gonig to happen.. never mind every economist with a sense of
what is going on, raelly, knows that we cannot grow ourselves out of this one... even if the economy was not in the crapper.

[priller]

15. Er, no

#1 -- We're not going to "grow" our way out of it.

#2 -- Even if it did get cut in half, the deficit would still be $250 billion a year, which is still TOO FREAKIN' HUGE!

[jokerman93]

17. The secret of Bushco. Voodoo

we've seen the strategy over and over, and few seem to get it. The Bush administration always says what they mean. They simply don't mean what we THINK they mean. My prediction is that the "deficit" will be reduced to a point at which it will be dismissed absently as an issue.

How, you ask?

Easy. Do what they have done consistently all along like the one-trick ponies that they are:

Redefine what the word "deficit" means by changing its measures, then make it go away under the new definition.

The citizen-consumers who take their orders from television will accept the new definition, because they never knew what the old one was.

If Bush stays in, the next couple of years will see the federal deficit simply go away as an issue. OK, now I'm on record with this.

[xxqqqzme]

18. "...cut the deficit in half within five years..."

ok, that's 2day's deficit in half in 5 yrs - 2009. So we add 250 to next years deficit 2 B cut in half in, I presume - 5 yrs - 2010? so now we're adding 250 2 next yrs deficit half? So in 2010 we have an automatic deficit halveez total, from 5 yrs previous, of 600??? Is that the way it works? Just trying 2 understand. My math skills R a little fuzzy.

[adamrsilva]

19. BREAKING NEWS! UP IS DOWN AND DOWN IS UP

Cutting taxes and increasing spending actually helps *cut* the deficit, not increase it!

Typical Republican logic...

This is was the previous treasury secretary found... before he was fired.

White House Shelved Deficit Report
By Peronet Despeignes
The Financial Times

Thursday 29 May 2003

Study commissioned by O’Neill sees $44 trillion in red ink

The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the U.S. currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totaling at least $44 trillion in current U.S. dollars.

The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the U.S. government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the “baby boom” generation’s future healthcare and retirement costs, was commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.

But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.

The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the U.S. is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 percent across-the-board income tax increase.

The study was being circulated as an independent working paper among Washington think-tanks as President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a 10-year, $350 billion tax-cut package he welcomed as a victory for hard-working Americans and the economy.

The analysis was spearheaded by Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury. Mr. Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal Reserve, said: “When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear . At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren’t part of the prospective budget.”

Mr. O’Neill, who was fired last December, refused to comment.

The study’s analysis of future deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of U.S. economic output or more than 94 percent of all U.S. household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned what he called Washington’s “deafening” silence about the future crunch.

President Bush signed into law a $350 billion tax-cut package on Wednesday saying:‘ ‘We can say loud and clear to the American people: You got more of your own money to spend so that this economy can get a good wind behind it.”

The estimates reflect the extent to which the annual deficit, the national debt and other widely reported, backward-looking data are becoming archaic and misleading as measures of the government’s solvency. Mr. Smetters, now a University of Pennsylvania finance professor, said tax cuts were only a fraction of the imbalance, and that the bigger problem “is the whole language we’re using.”

Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on long-term budget accounting, alleged in a recent Boston Globe editorial that the Bush administration suppressed the research to ease passage of the tax-cut plan.

An administration official said the study was designed as a thought-piece for internal discussion — one among many left every year on the cutting-room floor — and noted the budget’s extensive discussion of projected, 75-year Social Security and Medicare shortfalls.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

[jokerman93]

21. Either this Administration is raving mad or

they believe these issues aren't going to matter down the line. I don't know which scenario disturbs me more. At any rate this mind boggling.

I need to take a big breath.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. I'll Have Whatever Snow Is Drinking

This genius hasn't figured out yet, that the growth he's talking about is 80% due to the increased spending of borrowed money by the gov't. So, exactly how does one reduce the deficit by spending more borrowed money.

The logic is so convoluted that i can only infer that Snow is drinking some fine scotch in large quanitities.
The Professor

[BiggJawn]

25. I think he's been drinking Methanol.

Doesn't it make you go raving mad before the blindness takes you?

Sterno-Pops...Mmmmmm! pop the top, scoop out the jelly and suck it down!

[ProfessorGAC]

26. Yeah, It Would Definitely Do That!

And, i think you're right. He's certainly acting disconnected from the reality of a little thing like DATA!
The Professor

[PROGRESSIVE1]

23. Well if you keep on cutting taxes and increse spending at such....

horrific rates, the budget will be balanced??? Is that what you are saying Mr. Snow???

:wtf: is he smoking.

Next year the deficit is going to be $500 Billion Dollars plus!!!

Spin and lies, spin and lies!!!

:mad:

:kick:

[Yavin4]

24. Maybe Snow Is Awaiting A Miracle From SSJ?

SSJ is short for Supply Side Jesus.

[denverbill]

27. Lovely. So if things go REALLY well, we'll be running enormous

deficits forever. If things don't go quite so well, we're up a shit creek.

This whole administration is filled with dangerous morons.

The CEO President is doing to our country what dozens of other moron CEO's have done to their companies: run it into the ground.

[bvar22]

29. According to this logic:

Reducing Taxes stimulates the economy and this magical growth will reduce the deficit; ergo,Repeal ALL TAXES...Income, Sales, Inheritance, Capital Gains, ALL Corporate Taxes....every single one.

According to the Republicans, the economic growth would be HUGE!!!! Where would we put all the MONEY???

[ProfessorGAC]

30. Growth Rate = Infinity!!!

Boy, would that be great, huh? Now, why couldn't someone schooled in economics, like me, think of that? Darn it, all the good ideas are already taken. Zero taxation, infinite growth. Cool!
The Professor

[Sandpiper]

43. Like most everything in GWB's presidency

This is just more recycled crap from Ronald Reagan. That the GOP steadfastly clings to Reagan's thoroughly discredited voodoo economics gives credence to the saying that "there is none so blind as he who WILL not see."

For 8 years we were told by the Reaganites that cutting taxes would lead to a balanced budget. What did we get in reality? Red ink every single year, and a national debt that grew 187% in 8 years.

[are_we_united_yet]

33. Mr. Snow

How did you get your job?

[wabeewoman]

36. He promised....

(drum roll) a snow job.

[aquart]

34. They're developing new drugs all the time.

I'm sure Mr. Snow can be helped.

Unless he's just an idiot.

[Rex]

35. John Snow reaches way up in his ass and pulls out a

rebounding economy

[The_Casual_Observer]

38. They have kind of gone silent on the predictions about

Unemployment. It is doubtful we will see much of drop in the unemployment figures after the end of the shopping season.
Other than a few jobs opening up at the local defense contractor for jobs that NOBODY qualifies for, I don't see any new big areas for opportunities opening up.

[0rganism]

41. Eventually they will do away with UI altogether to get their 0% rate

"What do you mean, unemployment? No one has filed for benefits in at least six months!"

And the unemployed freepers will buy it, too.

[Norquist Nemesis]

39. Snow is just another

name for blow.

[0rganism]

42. Hah! Even if he's right, this claim is pathetic beyond belief

Look at what he's saying:

Eventually, probably after John Snow has left his current job, John Snow predicts that the incredible tax giveaways to the rich (valued at around $1.4 trillion in the original estimates, IIRC) will result in a $250 billion revenue increase. This would offset the current $500 billion defecit level by 50%, barring unforeseen adventures in fiscal stupidity. At the same time, the tax cut itself will cost the budget OVER $300 BILLIION.

EVEN IF JOHN SNOW IS 100% CORRECT, THE ADMINISTRATION'S TAX POLICY IS STILL LAUGHABLY IRRESPONSIBLE. IT DOESN'T EVEN BEGIN TO PAY FOR ITSELF IN FIVE YEARS BY JOHN SNOW'S OWN HOMESPUN OPTIMISTIC ESTIMATES!!!

What a maroon! ANYONE who thinks this is some kind of triumphal victory march for a fiscal policy has got some serious re-thinking to do. Also, the notorious "average" tax cut has reared its head, once again:

"109 million taxpayers would face tax bills ... that would be on average $1,544 higher"

In Other Words, ~$170 billion tax cut/109 million taxpayers = $1544.

Watch the numbers, people! The AVERAGE tax cut is $1544. The MEDIAN tax cut, which is received by HALF the 109 million taxpayers, is under $150! Where is the beef? The top 5% are getting $100000 tax cuts!

Conservatives rely on a public education system incapable of teaching the skills necessary to debunk their bullshit.