Obama is fond of saying that he ‘inherited’ a $1.3 trillion budget deficit and is merely ‘only increasing it to $1.4 trillion in 2009 and to $1.6 trillion in 2010′.
Dick Morris gets behind the numbers and tells the part that Obama left out:
In 2008, Bush ran a deficit of $485 billion. By the time the fiscal year started on October 1, 2008, it had gone up by another $100 billion due to increased recession-related spending and depressed revenues. So it was $600 billion. That was the real Bush deficit.
But when the fiscal crisis hit, Bush had to pass TARP in the final months of his presidency which cost $700 billion. Under the federal budget rules, a loan and a grant are treated the same. So the $700 billion pushed the deficit — officially — up to $1.3 trillion. But not really. The $700 billion was a short term loan. $500 billion of it has already been repaid.
So what was the real deficit Obama inherited? The $600 billion deficit Bush was running plus the $200 billion of TARP money that probably won’t be repaid (mainly AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). That totals $800 billion. That was the real deficit Obama inherited.
Then…he added $300 billion in his stimulus package, bringing the deficit to $1.1 trillion. And falling revenues and other increased welfare spending pushed it up to $1.4 trillion.
So, effectively, Obama came close to doubling the deficit.
More at the link here.
please listen because so many people get this wrong, the deficit is an excess of liabilities over assets, yeah, we almost doubled our deficit, but the real issue here is our national debt, which was brought to over 9 Trillion dollars during the Bush administration, this is serious considering he inherited a 3trillion dollar SURPLUS. As of now (2010) the current national debt is 11.4 trillion dollars and increasing, but during the Obama administration the stock market has so far increased by 60% and the economy is showing signs of recovery. Before you post shit on a website, please know what the fuck you’re talking about
Dear Perdo,
You wrote “Before you post shit on a website, please know what the fuck you’re talking about” but clearly you do not follow your own words. According to CNN (Sept 27th, 2000) “President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year’s record surplus of $122.7 billion.”This represents the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States,” Clinton said Wednesday morning.”
Where in all the universe do you get the “3trillion dollar SURPLUS”?