Lets look into some of these claims.
Posted by Joy Juice:
1. "President Obama Cut Your Taxes"
Here is an interesting article written before the cuts went into effect:
Why Obamas Tax Cuts Wont Work
We know that tax cuts are comingthe only question is what kind. Obama advisers have begun outlining a temporary $500 per worker tax credit. Aside from being temporary, this Obama policy seems nearly identical to the Making Work Pay tax credit he supported during the campaign.
However, a refundable income tax credit is still an outlay and not truly a tax cut. Furthermore, the federal government already provides a tax credit to offset the payroll tax for low-income workers. Its called the earned income tax credit (EITC). As former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Al Ullman said of the EITC in 1975, we are in effect rebating to the low-income groups below $6,000 most of the payroll tax they have already paid.
Finally, while the objective of the tax cuts is to boost consumer demand and rejuvenate the economy, how likely is it that these tax cuts will be temporary? When it becomes clear that an economic recovery has begun, will Democrats really raise taxes on low- and moderate-income Americans? Its doubtful. Therefore, the true cost of this proposal is likely much greater than the advertised cost, yet the near-term economic benefits are small at best.
End Quote. Link: http://www.american.com/archive/2009...-won2019t-work
This from MSNBC, written just a few weeks later.
Obama: Tax cuts will be felt by April 1
Quote:
Obama says his signature "Making Work Pay" tax break will affect 95 percent of working families.
The $400 credit for individuals is to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples are slated to get up to $800. Most workers are to see about a $13 per week increase in their take-home pay. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.
End Quote. Link: Obama: Tax cuts will be felt by April 1 - White House- msnbc.com
$7.70 a week. I guess this qualifies as reason to trumpet that Obama gave us all a tax cut.
2. The Stimulus is Working
You could make this claim if the stimulus made a single dollar. However:
TARP Scorecard: Paybacks Have Yielded Total Return of 10.16%
Quote:
By Stephen Grocer
Critics of the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the government was simply giving away taxpayer funds when it invested in all those financial institutions last fall.
The government insisted the investments would show a profit.
Who was right?
So far, it seems the government was right, according to a report from data provider SNL Financial.
As of this month, 22 banks have paid back TARP and redeemed warrants. Those firms were recipients of $40.6 billion in government money. Including warrants and dividends, government has received $44.7 billion from those banks. The total rate of return to the Treasury for all companies that have repaid TARP funds and redeemed their warrants has been 10.16%, according to SNL data. The warrant repurchases have accounted for a large portion of the returns7.15%. On an annualized basis, the Treasurys investment in the 22 banks that have redeemed the preferred shares and warrants yielded 12.74%.
Since last Oct. 13, when the government told nine banks it would be injecting billions of dollars into them, the DJIA has had a total return of 4.82%.
The biggest returns are chalked up from Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and American Express, which yielded returns to Uncle Sam of 14.18%, 12.68% and 12.23%, respectively, according to SNL data.
End Quote. Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/08/2...eturn-of-1016/
So maybe the government might turn a profit here. But now the bad news:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Defends Planned Reuse of TARP Funds
Treasury Secretary Defends Plan to Reuse Taxpayer Money Repaid to the Gov't to Help Ailing Local Banks
By MATTHEW JAFFe
May 21, 2009
Quote:
Back on Capitol Hill Thursday for his second hearing in two days, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner continued to defend his department's plan to take taxpayer money repaid to the government by bailed-out banks and then use it to help struggling community banks.
On Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee Republicans like Jim DeMint, R-S.C., had expressed concerns that Geithner might use the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program "permanently." The ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services echoed those worries on Thursday.
"Is the TARP going to go on forever?" asked Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., wondering if the recycling of TARP funds could eventually lead to the nationalization of banks.
End Quote. Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Polit...7648241&page=1
Apparently the government is going to keep recycling the funds. Was TARP supposed to be a revolving credit line for industrial nationalization?
3. First Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
Congress controlled the purse strings. Reagan cut the budget time and again:
Quote:
President Reagan is the only president to have cut the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in one of his terms (a total of 40.1 percent during his second term).
President Reagan is the only president to have cut the budget of the Department of Transportation. He cut it by 10.5 percent during his first term and by 7.5 percent during his second term.
During his first term in office, President Reagan cut the real budget of the Department of Education by 18.6 percent, while President Nixon increased it (that is the education part of what was then the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) by 19.1 percent. That budget increased by 22.2 percent under Bush 41 and by 38.5 percent under Carter. Our current president has increased it by a whooping 67.6 percent.
Reagan managed to cut the budget of the Department of Commerce by 29 percent in constant dollars during his first term and by 3 percent during his second one. President Clinton by contrast increased the departments budget by 24 percent in his first term and then by 96.7 percent in his second term.
President Reagan cut the real budget of the Department of Agriculture by 24 percent during his second term in office.
President Reagan never cut the budgets of the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, or State.
End Quote. Link: AEI - Papers
Funny how currently any deficit spending Obama has engaged in is Bushs fault, but during the Reagan years it all falls in the lap of the President.
4. ...Then George W. Bush Doubled It Again
Yeah, well, you guys have already gone round and round on this. But at least Bush was trying to fight the war on terror.
5. Republican States Have the Worst Health Care
Hyperbole. Health care in this country is the best in the world.
6. Medicare is a Government Program
Thanks Captain Obvious. Medicare is also bankrupt.
Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs
Quote:
As we reported last year, Medicare's financial difficulties come soonerand are much more severethan those confronting Social Security. While both programs face demographic challenges, rapidly growing health care costs also affect Medicare. Underlying health care costs per enrollee are projected to rise faster than the earnings per worker on which payroll taxes and Social Security benefits are based. As a result, while Medicare's annual costs were 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008, or about three quarters of Social Security's, they are projected to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028 and reach 11.4 percent of GDP in 2083.
The projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now 3.88 percent of taxable payroll, up from 3.54 percent projected in last year's report. The fund again fails our test of short-range financial adequacy, as projected annual assets drop below projected annual expenditures within 10 yearsby 2012. The fund also continues to fail our long range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. The projected date of HI Trust Fund exhaustion is 2017, two years earlier than in last year's report, when dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 81 percent of HI costs. Projected HI dedicated revenues fall short of outlays by rapidly increasing margins in all future years. The Medicare Report shows that the HI Trust Fund could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years by changes equivalent to an immediate 134 percent increase in the payroll tax (from a rate of 2.9 percent to 6.78 percent), or an immediate 53 percent reduction in program outlays, or some combination of the two. Larger changes would be required to make the program solvent beyond the 75-year horizon.
The projected exhaustion of the HI Trust Fund within the next eight years is an urgent concern.
End Quote. Link: Trustees Report Summary
And yet so many are so convinced that the federal government can manage nationalized health care without flushing it down the same black hole.
7. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim
The American people did not march on DC because they thought Obama was a Muslim. They do not attend Tea Parties because they think Obama is a Muslim. This is a weak attempt to cast dispersion on a group of protestors exercising their right to protest.
8. Barack Obama was Born in the United States
So? You are trying to imply that everyone who attends a protest rally believes that Obama wasn't born in the US. Try again.
9. 70,000 Does Not Equal 2,000,000
Thank you Captain Obvious. However, your point here is to debate numbers, your objective is to deter debate on why those people went to DC to begin with.
10. The Economy Almost Always Does Better Under Democrats
That remains to be seen. With unemployment higher than at any other time history, I wouldnt be so quick to jump on the recovery has worked band-wagon. And then there was Jimmy Carter.
11. Spam email and talk radio is a short sighted source for hysteria.
Who goes to talk radio looking for hysteria? You post a thread championing TEN lessons for people to consider, but list ELEVEN. I suppose you didnt include this last one in your count because it makes no sense.
As for you continued juvenile use of terms such as tea-baggers and rim-jobbers, only a liberal would take an everyday term, assign it a disgusting meaning, and then use it in attempt to claim that someone else is a pervert.
Posted by Joy Juice:
1. "President Obama Cut Your Taxes"
Here is an interesting article written before the cuts went into effect:
Why Obamas Tax Cuts Wont Work
We know that tax cuts are comingthe only question is what kind. Obama advisers have begun outlining a temporary $500 per worker tax credit. Aside from being temporary, this Obama policy seems nearly identical to the Making Work Pay tax credit he supported during the campaign.
However, a refundable income tax credit is still an outlay and not truly a tax cut. Furthermore, the federal government already provides a tax credit to offset the payroll tax for low-income workers. Its called the earned income tax credit (EITC). As former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Al Ullman said of the EITC in 1975, we are in effect rebating to the low-income groups below $6,000 most of the payroll tax they have already paid.
Finally, while the objective of the tax cuts is to boost consumer demand and rejuvenate the economy, how likely is it that these tax cuts will be temporary? When it becomes clear that an economic recovery has begun, will Democrats really raise taxes on low- and moderate-income Americans? Its doubtful. Therefore, the true cost of this proposal is likely much greater than the advertised cost, yet the near-term economic benefits are small at best.
End Quote. Link: http://www.american.com/archive/2009...-won2019t-work
This from MSNBC, written just a few weeks later.
Obama: Tax cuts will be felt by April 1
Quote:
Obama says his signature "Making Work Pay" tax break will affect 95 percent of working families.
The $400 credit for individuals is to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples are slated to get up to $800. Most workers are to see about a $13 per week increase in their take-home pay. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.
End Quote. Link: Obama: Tax cuts will be felt by April 1 - White House- msnbc.com
$7.70 a week. I guess this qualifies as reason to trumpet that Obama gave us all a tax cut.
2. The Stimulus is Working
You could make this claim if the stimulus made a single dollar. However:
TARP Scorecard: Paybacks Have Yielded Total Return of 10.16%
Quote:
By Stephen Grocer
Critics of the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the government was simply giving away taxpayer funds when it invested in all those financial institutions last fall.
The government insisted the investments would show a profit.
Who was right?
So far, it seems the government was right, according to a report from data provider SNL Financial.
As of this month, 22 banks have paid back TARP and redeemed warrants. Those firms were recipients of $40.6 billion in government money. Including warrants and dividends, government has received $44.7 billion from those banks. The total rate of return to the Treasury for all companies that have repaid TARP funds and redeemed their warrants has been 10.16%, according to SNL data. The warrant repurchases have accounted for a large portion of the returns7.15%. On an annualized basis, the Treasurys investment in the 22 banks that have redeemed the preferred shares and warrants yielded 12.74%.
Since last Oct. 13, when the government told nine banks it would be injecting billions of dollars into them, the DJIA has had a total return of 4.82%.
The biggest returns are chalked up from Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and American Express, which yielded returns to Uncle Sam of 14.18%, 12.68% and 12.23%, respectively, according to SNL data.
End Quote. Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/08/2...eturn-of-1016/
So maybe the government might turn a profit here. But now the bad news:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Defends Planned Reuse of TARP Funds
Treasury Secretary Defends Plan to Reuse Taxpayer Money Repaid to the Gov't to Help Ailing Local Banks
By MATTHEW JAFFe
May 21, 2009
Quote:
Back on Capitol Hill Thursday for his second hearing in two days, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner continued to defend his department's plan to take taxpayer money repaid to the government by bailed-out banks and then use it to help struggling community banks.
On Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee Republicans like Jim DeMint, R-S.C., had expressed concerns that Geithner might use the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program "permanently." The ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services echoed those worries on Thursday.
"Is the TARP going to go on forever?" asked Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., wondering if the recycling of TARP funds could eventually lead to the nationalization of banks.
End Quote. Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Polit...7648241&page=1
Apparently the government is going to keep recycling the funds. Was TARP supposed to be a revolving credit line for industrial nationalization?
3. First Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
Congress controlled the purse strings. Reagan cut the budget time and again:
Quote:
President Reagan is the only president to have cut the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in one of his terms (a total of 40.1 percent during his second term).
President Reagan is the only president to have cut the budget of the Department of Transportation. He cut it by 10.5 percent during his first term and by 7.5 percent during his second term.
During his first term in office, President Reagan cut the real budget of the Department of Education by 18.6 percent, while President Nixon increased it (that is the education part of what was then the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) by 19.1 percent. That budget increased by 22.2 percent under Bush 41 and by 38.5 percent under Carter. Our current president has increased it by a whooping 67.6 percent.
Reagan managed to cut the budget of the Department of Commerce by 29 percent in constant dollars during his first term and by 3 percent during his second one. President Clinton by contrast increased the departments budget by 24 percent in his first term and then by 96.7 percent in his second term.
President Reagan cut the real budget of the Department of Agriculture by 24 percent during his second term in office.
President Reagan never cut the budgets of the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, or State.
End Quote. Link: AEI - Papers
Funny how currently any deficit spending Obama has engaged in is Bushs fault, but during the Reagan years it all falls in the lap of the President.
4. ...Then George W. Bush Doubled It Again
Yeah, well, you guys have already gone round and round on this. But at least Bush was trying to fight the war on terror.
5. Republican States Have the Worst Health Care
Hyperbole. Health care in this country is the best in the world.
6. Medicare is a Government Program
Thanks Captain Obvious. Medicare is also bankrupt.
Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs
Quote:
As we reported last year, Medicare's financial difficulties come soonerand are much more severethan those confronting Social Security. While both programs face demographic challenges, rapidly growing health care costs also affect Medicare. Underlying health care costs per enrollee are projected to rise faster than the earnings per worker on which payroll taxes and Social Security benefits are based. As a result, while Medicare's annual costs were 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008, or about three quarters of Social Security's, they are projected to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028 and reach 11.4 percent of GDP in 2083.
The projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now 3.88 percent of taxable payroll, up from 3.54 percent projected in last year's report. The fund again fails our test of short-range financial adequacy, as projected annual assets drop below projected annual expenditures within 10 yearsby 2012. The fund also continues to fail our long range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. The projected date of HI Trust Fund exhaustion is 2017, two years earlier than in last year's report, when dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 81 percent of HI costs. Projected HI dedicated revenues fall short of outlays by rapidly increasing margins in all future years. The Medicare Report shows that the HI Trust Fund could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years by changes equivalent to an immediate 134 percent increase in the payroll tax (from a rate of 2.9 percent to 6.78 percent), or an immediate 53 percent reduction in program outlays, or some combination of the two. Larger changes would be required to make the program solvent beyond the 75-year horizon.
The projected exhaustion of the HI Trust Fund within the next eight years is an urgent concern.
End Quote. Link: Trustees Report Summary
And yet so many are so convinced that the federal government can manage nationalized health care without flushing it down the same black hole.
7. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim
The American people did not march on DC because they thought Obama was a Muslim. They do not attend Tea Parties because they think Obama is a Muslim. This is a weak attempt to cast dispersion on a group of protestors exercising their right to protest.
8. Barack Obama was Born in the United States
So? You are trying to imply that everyone who attends a protest rally believes that Obama wasn't born in the US. Try again.
9. 70,000 Does Not Equal 2,000,000
Thank you Captain Obvious. However, your point here is to debate numbers, your objective is to deter debate on why those people went to DC to begin with.
10. The Economy Almost Always Does Better Under Democrats
That remains to be seen. With unemployment higher than at any other time history, I wouldnt be so quick to jump on the recovery has worked band-wagon. And then there was Jimmy Carter.
11. Spam email and talk radio is a short sighted source for hysteria.
Who goes to talk radio looking for hysteria? You post a thread championing TEN lessons for people to consider, but list ELEVEN. I suppose you didnt include this last one in your count because it makes no sense.
As for you continued juvenile use of terms such as tea-baggers and rim-jobbers, only a liberal would take an everyday term, assign it a disgusting meaning, and then use it in attempt to claim that someone else is a pervert.
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