W. sure was well versed in the fuzzy math for which he had ridiculed Al Gore back during the 1999 Presidential campaign cycle. Between the removal of all regulatory checks and balances, coupled with the failure to include all of the federal spending dollars in the national budget, the American people, yet again, have been misled, swindled and scammed by the Bush Administration and his Republican Party.
Thanks to the sources cited in my most recent diary on the make believe of trickle down nothing economic black magic, we are reminded that Phil Gramm, while serving in the U.S. Senate, had engineered the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. The Glass-Steagall Act had been passed in 1933 as a means to stem the wild and rampant speculation of banks that led to the Great Depression.
Fast forward from 1933 to 2008 and look at the outcome with a repealed Glass-Steagall Act. History has repeated itself by delivering one hell of a dire kick in the butt of an economic melt down. 20,000 workers a day are losing their jobs. Fourteen thousand Americans are losing their health insurance. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com...
Thousands have already lost their homes. Thousands of others struggle to get by on a day-to-day basis, living from paycheck to paycheck while there is a paycheck. The clock is running out on many collecting unemployment insurance. Duh. Who would have thought? The jackasses who voted to repeal Glass-Steagall didn't get it. Neither did many of the brilliant economists at the time concerning another deregulatory nightmare. I guess even a jackass can earn a Ph.D.
The conventional wisdom media pundits and know-it-alls residing within the D.C. bubble at the time were far too distracted talking among themselves in their self-absorbed manner about whatever it is they talk about that has nothing to do with anything of relevance or significance to present hard realities within the U.S. and outside D.C. Nothing has changed in that sphere, despite the recent election. The bubble dwellers don't know what is going on outside of their self-fixated bubble. Now I understand why President Obama leaves that nutty and toxic place when he wants to speak to real people.
Gramm left the Senate in 2002 and later became vice chairman for UBS, the Swiss bank. The U.S. Department of Justice and the IRS have recently smacked this bank down for assisting 52,000 wealthy Americans with evading their U.S. taxes. There is a lot more to Gramm's evil doing but this diary is not about him, except regarding his role as a precursor to the Bush Administration.
The Bush Administration further dismantled the checks, balances, transparency mechanisms as well as the regulatory agencies. A prime example: in the struggle between the DOJ and the IRS in its attempt to recoup unpaid tax revenues, it seems that the Bush Administration gave UBS, Gramm's former employer, the greenlight to protect the names of the U.S. 52,000 tax evaders.
Thanks, W., for allowing for the robbery of desperately needed tax revenues, in light of your spending sprees in Iraq and your tax cuts to your wealthy buddies. One would have thought a U.S. President would behave more responsibly.
As if this isn't bad enough, Bush left us with another rather unpleasant surprise. The U.S. is deeper in the red by a whopping $2.7 trillion. In his budget projections, W. failed to mention his inconvenient wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and responses to natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike. None of the above is exactly small dollar items.
Thanks again W. & Co. I am almost afraid to learn what other destructive and devastating tricks you stuck us with.
Fortunately, President Obama has banned four of W.'s old budget hoaxes.
For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget that is $2.7 trillion deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear, according to administration officials.
Not everyone is happy by President Obama's banning of budgetary gimmicks. Why? What the hell is their problem?
Mr. Obama's banishment of the gimmicks, which have been widely criticized, is in keeping with his promise to run a more transparent government.
I see, some politicians and their supporters have a problem with transparency. I wonder why? Might some get caught with their pants down around their ankles?
According to Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget;
Fiscal sleight of hand has long been a staple of federal budgets, giving rise to phrases like "rosy scenario" and "magic asterisks."
OK, so politicians have been putting freighter sized loads of lipstick on pigpens upon pigpens filled with bloated, filthy, stinking pigs.
The $2.7 trillion in additional deficit spending, Mr. Orszag said, is "a huge amount of money that would just be kind of a magic asterisk in previous budgets."
"The president prefers to tell the truth," he said, "rather than make the numbers look better by pretending."
Indeed. Even $55K worth of lipstick won't make a stinking, bloated pig anything other than a stinking, bloated pig. The American people aren't stupid, thank you.
Recent presidents and Congresses were complicit in the ploy involving the alternative minimum tax. While that tax was intended to hit the wealthiest taxpayers, it was not indexed for inflation. That fact and the tax breaks of the Bush years have meant that it could affect millions of middle-class taxpayers.
If they paid it, the government would get billions of dollars more in tax revenues, which is what past budgets have projected. But it would also probably mean a taxpayer revolt. So each year the White House and Congress agree to "patch" the alternative tax for inflation, and the extra revenues never materialize.
The federal government's usage of fuzzy math seems to have been the norm for some time. A tax payer revolt actually sounds cool to me. It sure would be nice if those 52,000 tax cheats paid their taxes just like the rest of us. I wonder what would happen to me if I refuse to turn in my IRS forms and pay my taxes until the 52,000 cheaters pay their fair share?
Earth to self: don't try it. According to Republican law there is one set of rules for the fat cats but quite a different and more sobering one for everyone else. Republican law, unfortunately, still rules in Texas.
As for war costs, Mr. Bush included little or none in his annual military budgets, instead routinely asking Congress for supplemental appropriations during the year. Mr. Obama will include cost projections for every year through the 2019 fiscal year to cover "overseas military contingencies" - nearly $500 billion over 10 years.
Yes, W. sure was the master of fuzzy math. With another election coming down the pike we voters need to be wary of Republicans who deride certain policies or methodologies. The more they heap scorn on something the more likely it could be that they intend to do the very thing they are ridiculing.
If they're not pulling this stunt, the Republicans will be saying one thing, but will turn around and do the opposite. This is pretty much what Kay Bailey Hutchison does. For example, in 2006 during the U.S. Senate debate KayBH said, in response to a question posed about Iraq, "Clay, if I knew then if I know now about Iraq, I would have never voted for the war." A few months later, after being re-elected Kay Bailey Hutchison voted for W's surge.
