Deficit Falls to Lowest Level in 4 Years

[Chadman]

Glad to see this bit of clarity from you, my friend...

Before this gets lost in the shuffle, you made your personal assessement very succinctly:

"However it would be untrue to suggest that either President caused the economy to recede."

To make sure we all have this clearly in mind, Wayne said that neither Bush nor Clinton caused the economy to recede.

Cheers.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Valid points Roger and sorry if I came on alittle strong--for the record I share your views considering bad timing on tax cuts with all that was going on--and economy would be clicking had we not had cuts--Post was basically for several hard core liberals here that swear Bill and Gore invented the internet--if you know what i mean.

Welcome to political forum--looking forward to your input.

 

[StevieD]

I guess I have to ask again, Wayne, do you count the cost of the Occupation Of Iraq in your deficit figures? Seems to me that if you don't then it is noit reallly a true figure.

 

[djv]

Steve those amounts are not counted. To be paid for later. However we do have to be thankful our economy has come back as well as it has. Now we have to hope it's not running on false reasons. I hope were not going to have a huge market correction. Our interest rate's will have much to do with that. And as other countries turn in there IOU's it can move that rate higher.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Not sure of answer Stevie --would be interested if someone could provide source and answer--only thing I can find out is vague areas like below--if they say war is finannced by deficeit and they include it in budget I would think it was included--but maybe wrong--heres two extremes--some where in middle is reality I'd say--

(Could only get one link to cut and paste--so deleted them both)

Dancs says that because the war in Iraq is being deficit-financed, she expects larger deficits, more debt, and the need for taxpayers to make interest payments on that debt. ?We?re borrowing to pay for this war,? she says. Others, including Bilmes and Stiglitz, say the war has raised oil prices, slowed the U.S. economy, and lowered global income. Yet Holtz-Eakin disagrees with these assessments. ?[W]ar spending may have accelerated the U.S. recovery and global growth,? he wrote in the Financial Times. ?Unfortunately, the net economic impact requires the analyst to predict the future: Would oil prices have risen the same, more, or less with Saddam Hussein in power and Iran rattling its proto-nuclear saber??

Experts agree that compared to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the annual cost of the war in Iraq remains small. ?Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is at historical lows,? Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the U.S. Army chief of staff, recently told reporters. Experts also say that even without the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military budget was on the rise, as a result of ?transformation? plans (i.e. Future Combat Systems), higher salaries for soldiers, and procurements of the latest versions of existing equipment.

 

[The Sponge]

Sponge Show just one economist from either prty affiliation that says this admin didn't inheirit a recession

Inventing the 'Clinton Recession'
White House move attacks arbiters of business cycle

COMMENTARY
By Christopher Farrell

Updated: 5:25 p.m. ET Feb 13, 2004
No one should be surprised when economic or budget forecasts coming out of Washington are influenced by politics, especially during an election year. But when economic history is rewritten -- with political consequences -- that's going too far.

President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, chaired by Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, is trying to get away with exactly such revisionist history. The CEA's Economic Report of the President, released Feb. 9, unilaterally changed the start date of the last recession to benefit Bush's re-election bid.

Instead of using the accepted start date of March 2001, the CEA announced that the recession really started in the fourth quarter of 2000 ? a shift that would make it much more credible for the Bush administration to term it the "Clinton Recession." In a subsequent press conference, Mankiw said that the CEA had looked at the available data and "made the call."

This simple statement masks an attack on one of the few remaining bastions of economic neutrality. For almost 75 years, the start and end dates of recessions have been set by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private non-partisan research group based in Cambridge, Mass.
While there have been complaints over the years, this arrangement has been accepted by economists, government agencies, and politicians ? until now.

"For the first time, the federal government is intervening in the process," says Robert Hall, an economist at Stanford University and the conservative Hoover Institution who since 1978 has chaired the NBER panel of seven prominent economists who make the actual decision.
The NBER's decisions have been dragged into the political arena before, but without impact.

Mankiw's tin ear
In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the NBER to combine the 1980 and 1981-82 recessions into a single downturn that could be called the "Carter Recession." During the '92 election season, the first Bush administration kept hoping that the NBER would announce that the recession of 1990-91 was over ? a statement that didn't come until December 1992.

To be fair, even if the latest recession did begin after Bush took office in January 2001, no one can say he caused it. And Mankiw is also under attack from Republicans for what they consider his overly tin ear on other subjects, most notably his statement that the outsourcing phenomenon is "a plus for the economy in the long run."


Still, his decision to fiddle with economic convention can't be seen as anything less than manipulation in an election year.

In his press conference, Mankiw justified his decision by saying, correctly, that the NBER panel was already considering moving the recession start date forward. Some key data that the NBER watch ? including industrial production and inflation-adjusted business sales ? peaked in mid-2000. On the other hand, the latest revisions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shifted the peak of non-farm employment slightly later, from February to March 2001. That's important, because the recessions of 1981-82 and 1990-91 both started in or after the month that employment fell.

But rather than waiting for the NBER's decision, Bush's CEA jumped the gun. And it made the biggest change possible, despite considerable debate within the NBER panel. The revised date is "very much up in the air," says Hall.

Adds Jeffrey Frankel, a member of the NBER panel, an economist at Harvard University, and a former member of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers: "The way I read the data, there isn't a strong case for moving the date up by more than one month." That puts the start date at February, 2001, after Bush took office. The lack of a clear picture has led the NBER to hold off making a final decision pending more accurate data.
There's "no sense of time pressure," says Hall. "We want to do this right."

Economists who go to Washington always struggle to maintain their objectivity against the political demands of the administration they work for. Based on its latest performance, the CEA seems to have lost the battle.

 

[smurphy]

Dogs - a deficit is still a deficit. It still means that every year we are spending more than taking in. A business would go under if it ran a deficit 5 straight years. But you are actually boasting because we are merely running a slightly less deficit than the worst of Bush's years. At this rate, the country will have to move back in with our parents soon. ....I guess that would be England....there's a funny image.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Spongebob-- I see you couldn't spin the facts on #'s on dow inflation-unemployment ect so you reverated back to opinions--which of course was your only alternative

 

[The Sponge]

Spongebob-- I see you couldn't spin the facts on #'s on dow inflation-unemployment ect so you reverated back to opinions--which of course was your only alternative

honestly i was to involved with handicapping to answer this question this weekend. You asked me for one economist and i think their are three in there. From day one this administration plays games with words "the clinton recession" "cut and run" "the terrorist surveillance program" "the patriot act" all to make people look bad. Donald Trump would be great for this administration. He is another one that when you call him out he attacks the messenger and not the message. The Bushies are classic at this and you will fall for it each and every time.

 

[The Sponge]

BUSH OR CLINTON RECESSION?

Ok, it has recently come to my attention that people actually believe this economy is Clinton's fault. I want to dispute this!
If you look at many key pieces of evidence and payed attemtion to the way the Bush Regime unfolded, you would know that reality does not hold that truth.

The first thing to head south was consumer confidents and the stock market. Both are provoked through perception. The 2000 election was a very devisive election. Right thru to the Supreme Court ruling it severed this nation and it's hope that we would continue on the same track as Clinton. Bush cleverly used peoples distrust of Clinton's personal short comings as well as came up with the term "Compassionate Conservative" Meaning, vote for me cause I will give you what you like in him. Throw in the fact that Bush and Cheney actually shouted out loud that a recession was coming! Why would they do that? Anyone knows that the market is based of speculation. Now those 2 reasons were the trigger for the down turn! The pulling of the trigger happened with Enron! Then came the daily corporate entities that where found to be exagerating their growth to keep their stocks at high levels. Each day the news rolled out about another company, you could corallate it to a drop in the market. FACT!

Which leaves us at how Bush has ran his government since his selection. His mass tax cuts, military spending and dual complicity on wanting to cause a recession.

Now just like the fake Weapons of Mass Destruction this man used to justify his war, you have to ask the question, "Why would they lie?" What would be the motive. I would say oil and military contracts.

Now I will ask, "why would Bush want a recession?"

Why Bush Wants A Recession:

Now that it looks as if a Second Bush Recession is
coming on, this is a message we need to work hard to get out to the media and as widely as possible, since Karl Rove and co. will try to spin it into a Democratic failure. Remember, we may have Issues with Ashcroft, but Americans vote their Pocketbooks.

There are a number of very good reasons why Bush wants a recession, which is why he has been
touting it, in hopes of bringing it on earlier.

A recession that is not too large will facilitate
many of his policies and make the people who put him in office richer still:

1) A tax cut for the rich will sail through since
Americans, terrified of recession, will buy the lie
that it will stimulate the economy. Even though
many recall that the big Reagan tax cut didn't cut
their taxes, and this one won't either. The right
wing press has already distorted Greenspan's
testimony so that most of the public thinks he
endorsed the $1.6T tax cut as a recession-buster,
When He Did Not.

2) With eight years of Democratic boom, workers
are beginning to ask for their fair share. A
recession will scare them back into accepting lower wages, fewer benefits, and decreased rights. This will again, benefit Bush's patrons.

3) Similarly, environmental regs can be destroyed as "holding back business." Bush has already tried to claim they are the cause of the California energy crisis, and not the foolhardy deregulation which he champions.

3) A recession actually helps the bond market, and
much of the old money behind Bush is in bonds.

4) During a crisis, the President has a broader
scope of powers, giving this un-mandated President a virtual mandate.

5) Many of the wealthy older families, such as the
Mellons, DuPonts, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts,
Carnegies, Astors, actually became wealthier during recessions and the Depression. Those who had lots of money could buy things dirt cheap and wait for an upswing, ending up owning everything. This is one reason Mellon Scaife is the shadowy power behind the Republican resurgence.

6) Government spending can help some during a
recession, but since Bush is against social
programs, this will justify spending billions on Son
of Star Wars, to enrich Cheney's defense buddies.

7) A recession, combined with big tax cuts, will
bring back the national debt. And yes, the very
wealthy want this. Who do you think owns all those recession-proof T-bills that will make them richer while the rest of us get poorer? And creating more wealth-disparity is all part of the GOP plan.

This is why it's no mystery that Republican
administrations busily set about creating recessions as soon as they take office. In the case of Shrub, he was so eager to get started he didn't even WAIT for that. He started talking up recession, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy, the day after Gore conceded.

And of course, it's easy for Bush to start a
recession. Recessions are a matter of Mass
Psychology. The buoyant optimism of Clinton
brought growth. The miserly meanness of Bush does not inspire confidence in the buying public. At some level they know they are in for it under a Bush administration. In fact, lots of Republicans who voted for Bush are now pulling out of stocks into safer investments, because they know what's in store. Historically, when a Republican takes over
after a period of expansion, he triggers a recession
or a depression.

Perhaps it should be George Hoover Bush.

 

[kosar]

Sponge,

That article is weak, at best.

While it gets tiring hearing Wayne repeatedly bleat about this 'recession' that W walked into, crap like you posted is just as bad.

You have a link for that 'piece?'

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Sponge If its any consolation--I am not blaming Bill or his admin for recession any more than I would give him credit for Dot.com boom--it was product of ecomomic environment at that time--would have happened regardless of who was in--flip side I believe this admin has little to do with current boom-- I just get tired of Pelosi and the liberal blogs trying to make their co-harts somehow believe that this is terrible economy--its absolute nonsense.

 

[The Sponge]

Sponge,

That article is weak, at best.

While it gets tiring hearing Wayne repeatedly bleat about this 'recession' that W walked into, crap like you posted is just as bad.

You have a link for that 'piece?'

lol i knew it was weak i was just breaking his balls. That is why i got ride of the link. I was gonna type in Fox news as a joke but i didn't.