Republican Math, Budget Deficits, Job Creation, US Incomes, Two-Class Economy

Boys Club

Republicans & Math

Reid savings trumps Boehner plan Politico

No one is saying that House Speaker John Boehner has an easy job. And we’re pleased that he’s holding up well under the stress of his unruly Tea Party caucus. If Boehner cried at this moment, I suspect that the rating agencies would downgrade America’s credit status for real. Crying under pressure is not good for the country.

There is actually a much worse problem among Republicans generally, which is why I now turn the TV to mute when the 25 key-word Republican commentator takes the mic. To have a limited vocabulary and inability to grasp the complexities of business, politics, and economics is bad enough for the country.

Speaking in political platitudes and falsehoods is a gimmick that any real businessperson understands. For all their ceaseless rhetoric about the economy and President Obama’s wanton overspending, the ‘just say no’ party got us into this and god-awful mess for one good reason.

The Republicans are very bad at simple arithmetic, and many Americans refused to call them on it. Ideology is not the same as being able to run the calculator and build a businss forecast.

Boehner vs Reid

Boehner’s ‘F’

Last night we heard the dreadful news that besides meeting nothing but pushback on his own proposal to raise the debt ceiling, the Congressional Budget Office gave Boehner an “F” on mathematics. Boehner’s bill raised the debt ceiling by $900 billion and brought in savings of $851 over 10 years. Woops! Back to the drawing board.

Speaker Boehner told his representatives and the nation that his plan would save $1.2 trillion.

Worse yet, Boehner’s proposal starts up this political nightmare all over again in about six months. If Republicans believe that American business will make investments in new jobs and manufacturing — knowing that we will all relive this insanity in six months and in an election year — then the Republicans’ trend forecasting skills are as bad as their abilities to count.

Reid’s B+

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got a B+ on his proposal this morning from the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO released a report Wednesday morning that credits the Senate bill with reducing budget deficits by about $2.2 trillion through 2021, nearly three times the $850 billion credited to the Boehner bill on Tuesday, and $500 million less than the $2.7 Reid advertised.

It is true that Reid’s bill clamps down on military spending in the near future. Republicans are saying ‘no’ to making substantial cuts in military funding, even if they decimate every social program in America to do it. If the Reid bill forces a true debate on military spending, we say ‘do it’.

Let the Republicans vote to increase the deficit, given their commitments to continuing America’s war machine at whatever consequences for the country. Republicans have never met a gun they didn’t want to hold, a war they didn’t want to fight for God and America’s grand destiny.

Let’s have this debate once and for all. We’re tired of hearing that social programs are the primary source of America’s economic woes. AOC fully supports changes in entitlement programs, such as raising the age of social security.

Republicans want to break the backs of the teachers’ unions because teachers can’t be tested. (We agree teachers should be tested periodically.) But how about all Republicans and Democrats having to pass a fundamental math test before running for office?

Stop the Republican War on Women, focused on discretionary spending bills that represent 15 percent of the economy. It’s only a reflection of putting social conservativism before the American economy, jamming one social program rollback after another down our throats, as if Republicans are working hard on the  deficit.

George W Bush’s Math Skills

How the Deficit Got This Big NYTimes

None of these charts make news. But they do reflect a fundamental inability of Republicans to add and subtract, or to display an ounce of critical thinking skills.

This first graph wins the tea party, although it seems Republicans were drinking vodka when they wrote it.

If Republicans want to fire teachers who can’t pass their math tests, how about a president of the United States of America, who turns in this performance? In every job I’ve held in my life — all involving running a business and meeting quantifiable revenue goals — I would have been fired for this performance. To be fair, the real question is to examine (and we will try) the Bush Administration forecasts in 2005 or 2006.

Given the fact that Republicans were running two wars off the books, there’s no reason to assume that their budgets were any more realistic.

This second graph looks at policy changes under the two presidents Bush and Obama. Listening to the 25-word Republican talking point, you might think that President Obama is on financial steroids, compared to President Bush. Not so.

For the incessant screaming from Republicans about the $152 billion in health reform entitlement changes, they had no problem giving President Bush a $180 million Medicade drug benefit program. The hypocrisy is nauseating. Arrive the Tea Party members, prepared to finish the job by decimating every social program in sight, calling President Obama the reason we are in this mess.

‘Mute, mute, mute’. We have hit the ‘mute’ button and only wish that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Eric Schimidt and a female or two with demonstrable math and business skills would address the nation. I would feel much better following their advice.

CBO: Bush budget would produce $2.75 trillion deficits over decade USA Today 2/27/2004

The Bush Bedget: Misleading Claims and Misguided Priorities OMB Watch 2/5/2008

The forecasts above were issued in 2001, before Sept. 11. Republicans might argue that the costs of war weren’t included in their original thinking. Looking at Bush’s second budget. In a brief overview of Bush budgets after Sept. 11 and knowing we were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, one wonders if the administration ever put the wars on the books.

From OMB Watch 2/5/2008:

The president makes two critical but highly dubious assumptions — that Congress will not reform the AMT and that spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be less than $100 billion in 2009, with no war funding at all allocated thereafter. While a complete overhaul of the AMT is not certain, it is likely Congress will continue to make annual changes to the AMT to prevent millions of middle-class taxpayers from falling into AMT liability. These types of changes would cost $168 billion from 2010-2012, according to the Brookings-Urban Tax Policy Center. If the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, this estimate jumps to $243 billion. These costs are unacknowledged in Bush’s budget.

A similarly irresponsible assumption about war spending is made in the president’s budget: war spending will not exist beyond 2009. Since the president has ruled out a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year, his exclusion of funding for the wars beyond 2009 is an act of fiscal negligence that serves only to help show a balanced budget.

If history is any indication, war costs will be significant for many years to come. From 2001 through 2007, $602 billion has been appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Congressional Budget Office projects if the number of military personnel deployed for both wars dropped from around the current level of 200,000 military personnel to 30,000 at the start of FY 2010, it would still cost the Treasury $570 billion through 2017.

From The Atlantic, we have this graph showing projections of America’s federal deficit, considering the impact of events that occurred on the Bush Administration watch.

Other Republican Mumbo Jumbo Math

In today’s America, the Bush tax cuts didn’t create jobs. Whatever the politician tells you in his or her 25-word script, the Bush tax cuts accompanied the worst job growth in the last 60 years. It is a lie to the nation to suggest that keeping the Bush tax cuts will create jobs. The reality of job growth resulting from the Bush tax cuts is well established. Why does the media let politicos continue to lie to the country?

Does the media have any responsibility to insure that Americans hear the mathematical facts from speakers? Do Americans even care to hear the facts? Or are we just gounded in ideology, not economic reality?

Tax Cuts & Small Business

Republicans insist that tax reduction and specifically keeping the Bush tax cuts in place are necessary to stimulate small business.  Can someone explain to me why this assertion isn’t a damnable lie? And why don’t media pundits on CNN and all the other news programs, ask these qustions?

Do you agree that less than 2 percent of tax returns reporting small-business income are filed by taxpayers in the top two income brackets — individuals earning ore than about $170,000 a year and families earning more than about $210,000 a year?

Recognizing that many small businesses are structured as corporations or LLC’s, do you agree that proceeds from small businesses make up a majority of income for about 40 percent of households in the top income brack and a 30% of households in the second-highest bracket?

Readers might say — Anne, these numbers are significant — 40 percent and 30 percent getting money through their LLCs and small corporations.

The real question is how many people are employed by this ‘small business’? For the purposes of this very generous assumption above, authors are included, consultants, all self-employed people, even if they have created no jobs for others or have no employees. Internet writers, website owners who are Amazon affiliates — all of these individuals are considered small business owners, even though their intention may be to never create a job.

Practical Tax Cuts That Work

Why don’t we vote to give tax credits for actual jobs that are created? Why not dump the ideology and start fuding results?  Any small or large business that actually creates new jobs for American workers is rewarded; the rest of us don’t get tax cuts that have nothing to do with positively impacting America’s devastating unemployment problem?

And don’t say that we will spend the money and stimulate the economy? All research suggests that the wealthiest will bank the money or invest it — probably out of the country — but not put it into the American economy.