Bush vs Obama: The deficit

Thanks to Jim Hoft, who just loves economics, we are able to continually track “The One’s” progress on deficit spending vs the lies spread by the lefites. Miss him yet?

According to the WSJ … the deficit continues to grow at an astronomical rate:

Federal spending eclipsed revenue for the 22nd straight time, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. The $165.04 billion deficit, while a bit smaller than the $169.5 billion shortfall expected by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires, was the second highest for the month on record. The highest was $180.68 billion in July 2009.

But those are just the head popping numbers. Jim gives us the track back perspective:

Once again, the facts…
THE TRUTH – TAX CUTS GROW THE ECONOMY.

During the Bush years, despite the 2000 Recession, the attacks on 9-11, the stock market scandals, Hurricane Katrina, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration was able to reduce the budget deficit from 412 billion dollars in 2004 to 162 billion dollars in 2007a sixty percent drop.

In 2004 the federal budget deficit was 412 billion dollars. In 2005 it dropped to 318 billion dollars. In 2006 the deficit dipped to 248 billion dollars. And, in 2007 it fell below 200 billion to 162 billion dollars. During the Bush years the average unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, the economy saw the strongest productivity growth in four decades and there was robust GDP growth.

After an unheard of record deficit last year of $1.4 Trillion the economy is on track to experience a $1.47 Trillion deficit this year.

Once again, for old times sake:

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Jim Vicevich

Jim is a veteran broadcaster and conservative/libertarian blogger with more than 25 years experience in TV and radio. Jim's was the long-term host of The Jim Vicevich Show on WTIC 1080 in Hartford from 2004 through 2019. Prior to radio, Jim worked as a business and financial reporter for NBC30 - the NBC owned TV station in Hartford - and as business editor at WFSB-TV in Hartford for 14 years while earning six Emmy nominations and three Telly Awards.

19 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on August 12, 2010 at 5:15 am

    Yep.  On January 20, 2009, we replaced class with crass.



  2. scottm on August 12, 2010 at 5:50 am

    Bush was the worst president in my lifetime, even worse than Carter.  The 2000 recession was very mild and did not include the housing market but if it had the bubble would probably not have kept growing until it exploded in later years.  He started the wars, I agreed with Afghanistan but Iraq was idiotic, he claimed they had weapons of mass destruction, when that turned to be false the Rove team spun it into taking out a terrible dictator.  If that's the case why not go after half the worlds leaders.  Vicevich brings up Katrina, I think everyone remembers people dying because the National Guard was too busy in Iraq, but they used the excuse that it was hard to bring in troops because of logistics but all of the news crews managed to do it.  But he left on a great note, a collapsed economy,  but he took care of his cronies they were all getting rich by cutting jobs by getting Chinese goods.



    • Dimsdale on August 12, 2010 at 6:52 pm

      Nobody was worse than Carter.  I was there.

       

      I seem to recall that everyone else in the world, including Saddam himself and all the Democrats (who had  access to the same intelligence as Bush) thought Iraq had WMDs.

       

      Regarding Katrina: Bush had his issues, but maybe you forgot about all the buses Mayor Nagin "forgot" to use to evacuate residence, the levee building monies that were instead used for floating casinos (Landrieu), and Governor Blanco waited to order mandatory evacuations or request the National Guard, of which 60% of Louisiana's were NOT deployed to Iraq.  Lots of finger pointing and lots of blame to go around.

       

      Maybe it was just one big damn storm that was going to do what it was going to do.

       

      If you actually examine the state of the economy, things really tanked after 2007, when the Congress, and all the purse strings, were controlled by the Democrats.  For a nice summary with graphs, see http://www.agoyandhisblog.com/2010/03/26/every-pi



  3. scottm on August 12, 2010 at 12:01 pm

    The average unemployment may have been 5.2 percent but the average income fell because a lot of the decent paying jobs went to other countries while the ceo's were lining their pockets with bonuses they got for closing plants and divisions.  The gap between the top 10 percent and the rest of the population grew by leaps and bounds also.  Vicevich had a economic expert from fox news on recently, even though he was obviously biased he said some positive things about the economy but every time he did Vicevich would cut him off, this is the type of thing that will not help a consumer driven economy.  He and people like Rush and Glenn Beck didn't even wait till he was sworn in before blaming Obama for the recession he inherited.  Obama was criticized for propping up the American car industry but now they have paid back the money and are showing a profit but these people don't mention that.  If banks and insurance companies get helped up then why not companies that have played a huge role in the growth of America?



    • Dimsdale on August 12, 2010 at 7:01 pm

      Now the jobs AND the CEOs and anyone with money are fleeing to other countries.  People go where they will be taxed the least.  Ask Governor Patterson, who bailed on the hedge fund tax when he realized that all the hedge fund managers were going to take up Jodi Rell's invitation to come to Connecticut.

       

      "He and people like Rush and Glenn Beck didn’t even wait till he was sworn in before blaming Obama for the recession he inherited."  And Øbama hasn't stopped blaming Bush for everything since he was sworn in.  Rush and Beck saw Øbama for what he was, and what he proved to be, when he took the "recession he inherited" and is doing his best to triple or quadruple it (it is only 18 months after the inauguration after all!).

       

      The posters below address some of your other complaints…



  4. TomL on August 12, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    The car companies haven't paid us back. GM made a payment awhile back with borrowed stimulus money. Chrysler is still losing money and GM wants obama the major stockholder to sell so they can be free from his boot on the throat business attitude. My gut tells me that the volt is going to be a huge failure and thats why they want obama out of government motors.



  5. TomL on August 12, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    In 2000 the housing market was still in the tank from the Clinton years. I blame Hussein for our intervention in Iraq, for saying he had weapons of mass destruction and would use them, after all he gassed the Kurds killing tens of thousands to test the weapons and I always believe a man when he says he has them after he's done something like that. When Bush senior was President, Sadam did go into Kuwait and his army raped woman and killed innocents for the hell of it. As for attibuting the facts above to Jim Vicevich you had better go back and reread the comments because JimV quoted Jim Hoft and the WSJ both very reliable sources of information. As usual you lefties never research your info before shooting from the hip.



    • scottm on August 15, 2010 at 5:29 am

      The housing market was not in the tank in 2000, I bought my current house in 1998 and the market was on it's way up then.  The over inflated housing market in later years was one of the major factors in the collapse of the economy.  The collapse of the market seemed to start with the rising cost of oil due to the demand in China after taking American jobs while Bush's friends in the oil industry got filthy rich.  Our army and others (Blackwater) has also raped women and killed innocents for the hell of it.  The WSJ and Jim Hoft are reliable sources of information for right wing fanatics like Rush and Glenn Beck who are making a fortune stoking fear and promoting civil unrest.  I actually watched some of Glenn Beck's show, good god that man is an idiot.



    • TomL on August 16, 2010 at 8:52 am

      I'm going to have to disagree with you on the housing market in 2000 it finally hit bottom and by 2002 it was on the rise big time. I bought and sold a lot of properties between 1998 and saw the market beginning to collapse and liquidated before I took a bath. Now I'm in buy mode as the time is right. Even my lefty friends love the WSJ. As for civil unrest the uncertainty being peddled by the dems is responsible.



  6. TomL on August 12, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    As a side note I might add, Yes I do miss him and it was honorable of President Bush and the First Lady to go and meet the soldiers coming home. They are a class act unlike the boob in office now. For those who thought he was stupid because of the way he butchered words in the english language you all need to go to Texas and learn Texas speak thats the way they all talk down in the Lone Star just like the cajuns in Louisiana its called dialect. 



    • GdavidH on August 12, 2010 at 3:03 pm

      Absolutely!!!

        To be fair and balanced…in a world with a NEUTRAL media Obama might be viewed as the bumbling boob he is. Corpse-men, 57 states, Okey-dokes and listening to him trying to find the right words in between the "uhhhs" and "ummms" makes me grind my teeth. What insttute of higher learning teaches this crap???



    • GdavidH on August 12, 2010 at 3:05 pm

      Oh yeah, and all the video evidence of him forgetting or contradicting what he previously said



    • winnie888 on August 13, 2010 at 12:13 am

      ahahahahahaaa! THANK YOU for that laugh…I used to say "okey dokey" (family thing, I guess that I picked up from my mom) but I cringe every time it comes outta my mouth now.

      And there is NO way he took or passed a college credit public speaking class.  Does no one do any preparation before opening their mouths?  If you have someone writing a speech FOR you, you may want to, at the very least, skim through it, pick out the "hard words", grab a dictionary and get pronunciation AND a definition!

       



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