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That's what I remember
I do remember all the money Bush spent. And I also remember the Republicans crying foul when he did it. The Democrats did not object or complain one bit about the money being spent by Government. Have you ever heard a Democrat complain that government was not spending enough of the taxpayers money? And remember. The government does not earn one penny of the money they spend, it all comes from the citizens of the USA. It's like spending QD's money and complaining he is not making enough for you to live comfortably
That imaginary surplus again.
Remember this:
Clinton said in a bipartisan White House ceremony Tuesday afternoon.
"Trade with China will not only extend our nation's unprecedented economic growth, it offers us a chance to help shape the future of the world's most prosperous nation and to reaffirm our own global leadership for peace and prosperity."
The measure is considered the most important U.S. trade legislation since passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. But it faced a long campaign of opposition from labor, human rights and conservative groups who wanted to retain the annual review of trade relations with China.
The Senate passed the China trade bill in September after supporters won a bruising battle in the House of Representatives in May. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle joined Clinton on the South Lawn of the White House to watch him sign the measure, dubbed the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000.
http://premium.asia.cnn.com/20...nton.pntr/index.html
The manufacturing base that taxes and welfare parasitizes left in Bush's time. The only reason Clinton looks better is because the deal with China came at the end of Clinton's reign.
the repugs have ruined everything they touched studies show.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 6 – US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a raft of measures targeted at increasing trade between the US and sub-Saharan Africa.
The measures included his signing of an Executive Order for the formation of a President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
“Our entire trade with all of Africa is still only about equal to our trade with Brazil. One country. Of all the goods we export to the world only about one percent goes to sub-Saharan Africa,” he explained.
Obama also increased the number of households and businesses in Africa it was targeting to reach with electricity, through the Power Africa initiative he launched in 2013, to 60,000.
“We’ve now mobilised a total of USD 26 billion to Power Africa just since we announced it. So today we’re raising the bar, we’re tripling our goal,” he announced following a Sh440 billion commitment from World Bank.
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/bus...ost-us-africa-trade/
Let's see, Obama wants more free trade with Africa with free electricity for Africa. Sounds like more working Americans will be sharing their wealth and jobs when the power plants and factories are built. But that's OK, because another scapegoat Republican will probably be in office after Obama. With the education system as it is, people can't seem to differentiate between correlation and causation. And it will be done by the pen, phone, and printing press of Lord Obama.
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And, Obama, by the end of his eight years will add $10 trillion to the debt and the worse economy recovery since the depression. Which is what one gets from electing incompetent, anti-business neighborhood advisors and listening to socialists.
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And, Obama, by the end of his eight years will add $10 trillion to the debt and the worse economy recovery since the depression. Which is what one gets from electing incompetent, anti-business neighborhood advisors and listening to socialists.
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The simple fact that Obama had to del with all of Bush's incompetent blunders makes me want to cry like a Boner.
This is a decent article about some of the causes of the housing bubble although it doesn't go into great depth.
There are plenty of people to blame and contrary to what the kool aid drinkers from each party think it isn't solely a repub/dem thing.
I bolded some paragraphs that I think are good examples.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09...ewanted=all&_r=0
Bush can share the blame for financial crisis
By Mark Landler and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON — For his entire presidency, George W. Bush has tried to avoid the fate of his father: brought low by a feeble economy. Now, as the financial crisis radiates far beyond Wall Street, Bush faces an even grimmer prospect: being blamed, at least in part, for an economic breakdown.
"There will be ample opportunity to debate the origins of this problem," Bush said Friday in a televised address from the White House Rose Garden. "Now is the time to solve it."
But in Washington and on Wall Street, the debate has already begun. And while economists and other experts say there are plenty of culprits: Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the Federal Reserve, an overzealous home-lending industry, banks, and also Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton - they do agree that the Bush administration bears part of the blame.
These experts, from both political parties, say Bush's early personnel choices and overarching antipathy toward regulation created a climate that, if it did not trigger the turmoil, almost certainly aggravated it. The president's first two Treasury secretaries, for instance, lacked the kind of Wall Street expertise that might have helped them raise red flags about the use of complex financial instruments at the heart of the crisis.
To his credit, Bush accurately foresaw the danger posed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and began calling as early as 2002 for greater regulation of the mortgage giants. But experts say the administration could have done even more to curb excesses in the housing market, and much more to police Wall Street, which transmitted those problems around the world.
In retrospect, "it would have helped for the Bush administration to empower the folks at Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the comptroller of the currency and the FDIC to look at these issues more closely," said Vince Reinhardt, a former Federal Reserve economist now at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization here. Reinhardt said it would also have helped "for Congress to have held hearings."
Instead, voices inside the administration who favored tougher policing of Wall Street found themselves with few supporters. William Donaldson, a former Wall Street executive with respected Republican credentials who became chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Bush, quit in 2005 after facing resistance from the White House and Republican members of the panel, who criticized his support for stiffer regulations on mutual funds and hedge funds.
Today, even those sympathetic to Bush say he cannot disentangle himself from a home-lending industry run amok or a banking industry that mortgaged its future on toxic loans.
"The crisis definitely happened on their watch," said Kenneth Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University who advises the Republican presidential candidate John McCain. "This is eight years into the Bush administration. There was a lot of time to deal with it."
To some extent, Bush was simply following a deregulatory pattern set by Clinton. Perhaps the most significant recent deregulation of the banking industry - the landmark act that allowed commercial banks to expand into other financial activities, like investment banking and insurance - was signed into law by Clinton in 1999.
Bush also inherited a culture of borrowing and a frothy housing market that has become "deeply embedded in the American psyche," Rogoff said. And Reinhardt said the markets seemed to be doing so well that few analysts, either in government or the private sector, had a critical eye.
"When everybody is doing better," Rogoff said, "it is difficult to see the underlying weaknesses."
Still, the White House, in the view of critics, fostered a free-market hothouse in which these excesses were able to flower. It avoided regulation of banks and mortgage brokers, leaving much of that work to the Federal Reserve, which, under Alan Greenspan, showed little appetite for regulation. By the time Bush's current Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., proposed an overhaul of regulations governing the financial sector in April, the storm was already brewing.
The administration did push hard on Capitol Hill to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, only to find itself stymied by Congress. But the administration's intense focus on fending off what it foresaw as a looming housing crisis did not extend to the proliferation of fiendishly complex mortgage-backed securities, said Harvey Rosen, an economist who served on Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, briefly as its chairman.
"Maybe there should have been," Rosen said, "but we were focused more on the fact that if these entities just held plain-vanilla mortgage-backed securities, it was still a disaster in the making."
Beyond its deregulatory bent, some economists argue that the administration's fiscal and tax policies made the United States more dependent on foreign capital, which fueled the bubble in housing prices.
"A different Treasury would have taken a different approach," said Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. "I don't think the economy has been well-managed, and that has certainly been crucial for the problems we're facing."
The White House and Congress wanted to make housing affordable to more Americans, and freeing up the lending markets was a way to do that. As Rogoff said, "It was a market-based way to help poor people. There was an incredible belief in free markets."
For all that faith, Bush's first two Treasury secretaries, Paul O'Neill and John Snow, came from top jobs in industry, not Wall Street. They were viewed in Washington as advocating the interests of business, and being less comfortable with the mysteries of the markets.
Neither was seen as having much influence with the White House, and the Treasury lost some of the primacy in economic policy it had enjoyed under Summers and his predecessor, Robert Rubin. O'Neill and Snow declined to be interviewed for this article.
"The primary agency responsible for keeping an eye on these things is, and should be, the Treasury Department, and I think the president erred in the first place by appointing two secretaries who had no background in finance," said Bruce Bartlett, a Republican economist who was an adviser to President Ronald Reagan and an official in the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush.
"If we had had a Treasury that was fully supported by the White House," Bartlett said, "and a Treasury secretary such as Hank Paulson who was really attuned to what was going on in the financial markets, maybe some of these things could have been perceived in advance."
The White House did name people well-versed in the markets to other posts, not least the chairmanship of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But Bush's first SEC chairman - Harvey Pitt, a prominent securities lawyer - was brought down by political missteps. Pitt was replaced by Donaldson, who quit in 2005.
Critics, including McCain, say the SEC has been less active under its current chairman, Christopher Cox, a former Republican congressman from California. It has spent less on enforcement and levied less in fines on wrongdoers, according to the Government Accountability Office.
"You can't overestimate what happens when you encourage regulators to believe that the goal of regulation is not to regulate," said Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University.
In other areas, the Bush administration's failures seem more a case of inaction. The administration, economists said, did little to curb the practices of mortgage brokers, who are regulated by the states. But Democrats in Congress were equally to blame for this, these economists said.
"The Democrats pushed affordable housing goals, even in the face of evidence that people who got the loans shouldn't have gotten them," said Robert Litan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research organization in Washington. "The no-money-down loans of 2005 and 2006 were a key part of the problem."
"I blame the Democrats for demanding that Fannie Mae keep buying these loans," said Litan, who was a budget official in the Clinton administration. "I blame the administration for going along with it."
White House officials note that the administration did propose reforms of real estate settlement procedures and the Federal Housing Authority, two areas it had identified as posing the greatest systemic risk to markets. Democrats in Congress, they said, blocked these efforts.
When Bush named Paulson to replace Snow in 2006, the Treasury Department finally got an expert in markets. But early on, his focus was on improving the competitiveness of the U.S. financial sector, which he feared was losing ground to Europe and Asia.
Bush was correct with the tax cuts for the middle class and other hard working Americans.
However, he spent money like a drunken democrat at port.
Then, Obama showed up and made him look like a piker.
and according to your 'highlights'.. 8 years into boosh presidency... it's all clinton's fault.. and yet the battle cry of the republicans and the teaparty alike, 'this is obama's economy and all obama's fault'.
One of the primary tools enabling the economic boom of the Clinton years and the resultant years of budget surpluses was the presidential "line item veto"... The line item veto allowed the president (regardless of party) to pull the reins on a runaway congress... Congressmen/women are bought and sold by the lobbyist and depend on their contributions to gain re-election... They also need to bring home the pork to their individual districts... It allows the president to cut out wasteful spending on such projects as the bridge to nowhere, while maintaining the meat of the budget... The provision expired at the end of the Clinton administration and, of course, those in congress will likely never allow it again... I'm all for it, regardless of which party is in office... It's good for the country...
One of the primary tools enabling the economic boom of the Clinton years and the resultant years of budget surpluses was the presidential "line item veto"... The line item veto allowed the president (regardless of party) to pull the reins on a runaway congress... Congressmen/women are bought and sold by the lobbyist and depend on their contributions to gain re-election... They also need to bring home the pork to their individual districts... It allows the president to cut out wasteful spending on such projects as the bridge to nowhere, while maintaining the meat of the budget... The provision expired at the end of the Clinton administration and, of course, those in congress will likely never allow it again... I'm all for it, regardless of which party is in office... It's good for the country...
_______________________________________________________________________
"Congress attempted to grant this power to the president by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 to control "pork barrel spending", but in 1998 the US Supreme Court ruled the act to be unconstitutional in a 6-3 decision in Clinton v. City of New York."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...tem_Veto_Act_of_1996
The line item veto was in effect for about one year before SCOTUS shot it down.The dotcom boom was the main reason for the Clinton era boom. Followed by the dotcom bomb at the end of his and the beginning of the Bush administration.
One of the primary tools enabling the economic boom of the Clinton years and the resultant years of budget surpluses was the presidential "line item veto"... The line item veto allowed the president (regardless of party) to pull the reins on a runaway congress... Congressmen/women are bought and sold by the lobbyist and depend on their contributions to gain re-election... They also need to bring home the pork to their individual districts... It allows the president to cut out wasteful spending on such projects as the bridge to nowhere, while maintaining the meat of the budget... The provision expired at the end of the Clinton administration and, of course, those in congress will likely never allow it again... I'm all for it, regardless of which party is in office... It's good for the country...
_______________________________________________________________________
"Congress attempted to grant this power to the president by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 to control "pork barrel spending", but in 1998 the US Supreme Court ruled the act to be unconstitutional in a 6-3 decision in Clinton v. City of New York."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...tem_Veto_Act_of_1996
The line item veto was in effect for about one year before SCOTUS shot it down.The dotcom boom was the main reason for the Clinton era boom. Followed by the dotcom bomb at the end of his and the beginning of the Bush administration.
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So you are claiming that the dotcom boom allowed the Clinton administration to balance the budget and create surpluses? An interesting though fallacious premise...
Btw - you neglected to mention that President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times... An innocent oversight, I'm sure....
So you are claiming that the dotcom boom allowed the Clinton administration to balance the budget and create surpluses? An interesting though fallacious premise...
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The economic boom of the 90s' was more about being in the right place at the right time. The Soviet Union had collapsed and the Japanese economy as well as much of the rest of the world wasn't hitting on all cylinders. The U.S. had invested in technology research for "Star Wars" and other Cold War projects prior to the Soviet's collapse at both corporations and National Labs which wound up in commercial products. The resulting Tech Boom and Peace Dividend (military gutted) did greatly decrease the deficits. It also helped that we had divided government after the 1994 midterm election to mitigate spending.
Alas, all things must come to an end. To pay back the Buddhist bucks Al Gore picked up and from sleepovers at the White House in 1996, our technological monopoly ended. Also people were addicted to the tech stocks and people were investing in companies with no discernible products and services. Also jihadism was growing during the 90's at the same time we were gutting our military. The changing of millennia brought us cruel reality with a stock market crash, an unthinkable attack, and a hemorrhaging of jobs and money to the orient.
That imaginary surplus.
Clinton, much like Reagan, was the victim of a successful time in history. Little either one did had much affect on the immediate future, but policies of both have haunted us for decades, much like the current administrations policies will haunt us for decades. The period from 1980 to 1998 was a period that was propped up by one thing, the boon of the internet and the expanasion of international business. There was an untapped resource available in internet sales and the production of computers / software. Think how slack computers were in the average household up to 1980, now everyone walks around with more comuting power in their pocket than was available when we sent a man to the moon. You can order a product off of Ebay from China and have it in a few days to weeks. That was never the "norm". However, policies such as housing policies, and treatments of the unions, have backlashed and caused major problems today, just like Obam's failed policies will haunt us.
Teyates, that's pretty much a truthful, correct statement.
One of the primary tools enabling the economic boom of the Clinton years and the resultant years of budget surpluses was the presidential "line item veto"... The line item veto allowed the president (regardless of party) to pull the reins on a runaway congress... Congressmen/women are bought and sold by the lobbyist and depend on their contributions to gain re-election... They also need to bring home the pork to their individual districts... It allows the president to cut out wasteful spending on such projects as the bridge to nowhere, while maintaining the meat of the budget... The provision expired at the end of the Clinton administration and, of course, those in congress will likely never allow it again... I'm all for it, regardless of which party is in office... It's good for the country...
_______________________________________________________________________
"Congress attempted to grant this power to the president by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 to control "pork barrel spending", but in 1998 the US Supreme Court ruled the act to be unconstitutional in a 6-3 decision in Clinton v. City of New York."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...tem_Veto_Act_of_1996
The line item veto was in effect for about one year before SCOTUS shot it down.The dotcom boom was the main reason for the Clinton era boom. Followed by the dotcom bomb at the end of his and the beginning of the Bush administration.
-------------------------------
So you are claiming that the dotcom boom allowed the Clinton administration to balance the budget and create surpluses? An interesting though fallacious premise...
___________________________________________________
The dotcom boom before the bust yielded large revenue increases in taxes and FICA. That, especially, the FICA increase was important. That went away after the dotcom bomb. The other half of the equation was the spending budget agreed to by a Republican congress.
Once more the line item veto was used for 18 months only.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...stories/wp062698.htm
Progressive bumper sticker politics fit for low info voters.
Btw - you neglected to mention that President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times... An innocent oversight, I'm sure....
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Interesting... In all the responses denying the effectiveness of the line item veto, not one responder mentions the FACT that it was used by Clinton 82 times and it was during those years that we had our ONLY recent balanced budgets resulting in surplus... Nearly all unbiased economists agree that these surpluses were the result of the line item veto... And not one comment about two unfunded and unnecessary wars as a major contributing factor to the current massive debt...
Oh well, I suspect people will follow the party line...
S-I-G-H...
Btw - you neglected to mention that President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times... An innocent oversight, I'm sure....
-------------------------------
Interesting... In all the responses denying the effectiveness of the line item veto, not one responder mentions the FACT that it was used by Clinton 82 times and it was during those years that we had our ONLY recent balanced budgets resulting in surplus... Nearly all unbiased economists agree that these surpluses were the result of the line item veto... And not one comment about two unfunded and unnecessary wars as a major contributing factor to the current massive debt...
Oh well, I suspect people will follow the party line...
S-I-G-H...
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Dove,
Don't know which economists you are speaking off -- did they work for Bernie before he headed to the federal Grey Bar Hotel/ I'll explain once more.
First, the time line:
(federal fiscal year runs from 1 October to 30 September of the next year.)
Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on April 9, 1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...tem_Veto_Act_of_1996
This means that from 19 April to 30 September 1996 the law was in effect for FY 1996
Then, for all of FY1997 And, for part of FY 1998
the Supreme Court struck down the Line Item Veto Act in 1998,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..._v._City_of_New_York
Deficits and surpluses during Clinton administration
There were deficits in 1996 and 1997. Surpluses didn't start until 1998 and continued until 2000. The line item veto law was only in effect for part of 1998 and none of 1999 or 2000.
As an auditor, I've been accused of bayoneting the wounded and kicking kittens. However, its just pointing out inconvenient facts to true believers.
Attachments
For the record, the Republican House did vote on a bill that would have given Obama and succeeding presidents a line-item veto. It supposedly would have passed legal muster:
Supporters say the bill has been written to meet constitutional standards. They say that while the president can propose items for rescission, or elimination, Congress must vote on the revised spending package and then the president must sign what is in effect a new bill.
The House bill, offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and the top Democrat on the committee, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, stipulates that all savings from eliminated programs go to deficit reduction. House Republicans have included the bill as part of a package of measures to overhaul the budget process so as to save money.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...item-veto/53012614/1
Like all good ideas in the House, it died in the Senate.
Reid, the undertakers pin up boy, likes things dead, like him.
The line item vetoes did save $2 billion, but then again the post office will lose a couple of billion in a month or two.
Btw - you neglected to mention that President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times... An innocent oversight, I'm sure....
-------------------------------
Interesting... In all the responses denying the effectiveness of the line item veto, not one responder mentions the FACT that it was used by Clinton 82 times and it was during those years that we had our ONLY recent balanced budgets resulting in surplus... Nearly all unbiased economists agree that these surpluses were the result of the line item veto... And not one comment about two unfunded and unnecessary wars as a major contributing factor to the current massive debt...
Oh well, I suspect people will follow the party line...
S-I-G-H...
__________________________________________________________________
<Unnecessary verbiage snipped>
Dove,
First, the time line:
(federal fiscal year runs from 1 October to 30 September of the next year.)
Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on April 9, 1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...tem_Veto_Act_of_1996
This means that from 19 April to 30 September 1996 the law was in effect for FY 1996
Then, for all of FY1997 And, for part of FY 1998
the Supreme Court struck down the Line Item Veto Act in 1998,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..._v._City_of_New_York
There were deficits in 1996 and 1997. Surpluses didn't start until 1998 and continued until 2000. The line item veto law was only in effect for part of 1998 and none of 1999 or 2000.
----------------------------
Did you not consider that the minimal deficit of 1997 and the growing surpluses of the following three years were a direct result of the application of the line item veto prior to it being overruled? Of course not... A Democrat can not be good for the economy, can he? And, of course, the two unfunded and unnecessary wars had little to do with the massive deficits since, have they? Of course not... A Republican can do no wrong...
Btw - you neglected to mention that President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times... An innocent oversight, I'm sure....
-------------------------------
Interesting... In all the responses denying the effectiveness of the line item veto, not one responder mentions the FACT that it was used by Clinton 82 times and it was during those years that we had our ONLY recent balanced budgets resulting in surplus... Nearly all unbiased economists agree that these surpluses were the result of the line item veto... And not one comment about two unfunded and unnecessary wars as a major contributing factor to the current massive debt...
Oh well, I suspect people will follow the party line...
S-I-G-H...
__________________________________________________________________
<Unnecessary verbiage snipped>
Dove,
First, the time line:
(federal fiscal year runs from 1 October to 30 September of the next year.)
Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on April 9, 1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...tem_Veto_Act_of_1996
This means that from 19 April to 30 September 1996 the law was in effect for FY 1996
Then, for all of FY1997 And, for part of FY 1998
the Supreme Court struck down the Line Item Veto Act in 1998,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..._v._City_of_New_York
There were deficits in 1996 and 1997. Surpluses didn't start until 1998 and continued until 2000. The line item veto law was only in effect for part of 1998 and none of 1999 or 2000.
----------------------------
Did you not consider that the minimal deficit of 1997 and the growing surpluses of the following three years were a direct result of the application of the line item veto prior to it being overruled? Of course not... A Democrat can not be good for the economy, can he? And, of course, the two unfunded and unnecessary wars had little to do with the massive deficits since, have they? Of course not... A Republican can do no wrong...
_________________________________________________________
Since, I believe in cause and effect, the scientific process, of course, I don't have a belief in faith based economics. I save that for my religious life. How something that no longer existed could effect government spending is in the category of faith based. Instead, I see a Republican controlled House and Senate that completed appropriation bills that President Clinton could accept, combined with the increased revenue during the dotcom economy.
Perhaps, progressives can mount their unicorns and consult their Yeti psychics, I don't.
In 1996, a Republican-controlled Congress succeeded in giving line-item veto authority to another Democratic president, Bill Clinton. He exercised that authority 82 times, and although Congress overrode his veto in 38 instances,the moves saved the government almost $2billion.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...item-veto/53012614/1
Let me repeat myself. The savings were $2 Billion, T-W-O B-I-L-L-I-O-N D-O-L-L-A-R-S. As to the budget surplus, some claim that was also bogus.
It turns out the budget scored a surplus only because it borrowed money from the “trust” funds that secure entitlement payments, such as Social Security and Medicare. Since, in the real world, those funds would be considered obligated, those intergovernmental borrowings actually increase the federal debt. They are included in the debt figure that is published by the Bureau of Public Debt.
They sure got a lot of mileage out of that imaginary surplus.
funny how not one rt. wingnut can remember getting those TWO checks from boosh! i wonder where that money came from, before boosh decided to give it away?
funny....I did not get a check.....oh yeah that's right, I just paid into the system, I always make too much to get anything back.
But glad to hear "booosh" provided you with something worthwile, for the most part, the only way you ever find favor with an elected official is if he is giving you something . I on the other hand find favor with those who try to decrease what they take from me. Funny how perspective works isn't it??
teyates, i've haven't seen a 'refund' since i was 22 years old.. funny how the republicans always imply the democrats are 'takers'.. all while the states taking the MOST government money are REPUBLICAN RUN STATES. while the 'clinton surplus' was a budget projection.. it was based on factual budget numbers.. booosh did a LOT of damage, off the books.. yet, getting republicans to admit that is like pulling a hen's teeth.
We'll make a deal. I will admit Bush did damage to his country, when you admit that the clown in office now is doing just as much if not more. The problem is when you notice there is a problem, you need to try and remedy it. When you run out of money, you don't print more or spend more, you tighten up your belt and make some changes. For the past 8 years there have been no changes. he has continued to spend like a drunken sailor, just like his predecessor did in his final years. This country cannot support that type of behavior.
teyates, i agree we have to cut the 'bloat' out of our government. i , personally, don't believe we need 900 military bases in 100+ countries.. i don't think we need to spend as much on defense as the next 39 countries behind us.. 38 of which are our allies! but, lets start by cutting a few million from the programs to help the poor.. no reason to start with the largest chuck until you cut out those programs , first!
Teyates and Crash: I got two checks when Bush was in office. The only ones who didn't was the ones who got a refund bigger than what they paid in. Such as, a married couple with 4 kids and had an income of $30,000. When you figure their income tax owed and add earned income credit, they got back more than was held out. They didn't get a Bush check. The other that comes to mind was someone who made enough to hire enough tax experts to not owe any taxes.Again, if you didn't pay in any tax, you didn't get a Bush check.
Speaking of government checks, I'm not gonna hunt my tax returns, but, in 2009 and 2010, or 2010 and 2011, there was a block on tax returns called "making work pay". On 1040a it was about 32, on 1040, it was about 62. It gave a tax credit to couples making less than $150,000 or singles making less than $75,000 per year a credit of up to $1.000. After the second year, it stopped. There was nothing in the news about it. I contacted every elected federal official that I could have voted for and got zero response from any of them. Probably because this came out of the lower middle class and nobody cares about us. The tax system is made up for the upper incomes. They pay the news service to report on low income breaks.
jt,
In my case you are wrong on most counts.
#1. I certainly did not get a refund of any type, and paid way more than a "fair share".
#2. My taxes were done with either home tax prep, or two years with a local CPA, no big lawyers to help me find a loophole.
#3. I have a family, wife and two kids, and just like everyone else was trying to save money to put them thru school and fund their college education, while also trying to save enough to fund my self employed retirement (all those benefits you don't get when you run your own business). Yet I still did not qualify for that refund check. BTW did not get one from the current administration either.
#4 You are right, there are plenty of hidden taxes and you are about to see many more. The days of getting that tax rebate check are coming to a close for a large portion of Americans.