Captain's Quarters Comments - Latest Comments in RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Joe Godfrey — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:20:29 -0000

I thought this was a pretty good idea at first. Then I realized it could blow up in the GOP's face as Democrats could easily do a Spendometer on Republican spending since Bush took office. Republicans used to own the issue of spending but now they have to earn that issue back and a lot of conservatives are very skeptical.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

unclesmrgol — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:18:38 -0000

Of course. All the grid controllers are digital nowadays. They were digital when the Enron thing happened, and California's certainly is proven so, given that this computer admin's rant nearly shut down our grid a couple of months ago.

So, with regard to your exposition (;}) you are claiming that Barack is setting up to take credit after the fact for something that's already happened. Sort of like Al Gore inventing the Internet. Got it.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

SDN — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:31:48 -0000

Of course, McCain can reply that at least national defense spending is Constitutionally required.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Bogey — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:59:16 -0000

oh no you don't buddy.

the President of the RINO's, John McCain railed against this stuff for years.

meanwhile the radio rabble rousers, and all the self proclaimed REAL Republicans (like sleazeball De Lay and friends) were voting for all of this and more.

while cutting taxes.

like I said.. Econ 101 and Creationism.. a package 2 for 1 course deal taught at Bob Jones University.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

HongKongFluie von AH_C — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:53:22 -0000

I'd be interested in a RINO spendometer for pork like the bridge to nowhere, stimulus package etc.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

jharp — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:28:23 -0000

I'm looking forward to the vast improvement in fiscal responsibility.

Let's hope the 4 trillion deficit in 7 years by W and company is something that will never happen again.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Monkei — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:58:07 -0000

The way the Dems leaped onto this thread to shriek

It will happen everytime a post is put up here that totally ignores the historic deficits run up by the drunken sailor GOP congress and president. Credibility ... something the GOP has none of in regards to spending.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Monkei — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:52:27 -0000

Simple answer to a very simple question ... how in the hell could the dems do any worse?

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

unclesmrgol — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:50:04 -0000

Well, the 100 years worth of troops in Iraq (if it takes that long) certainly is preventing loss of life here in America.

Obama has promised to pull them out from a knowledge position that's at or below sea level. If the guy becomes President and gets access, I wonder what his tune will be then? Once you are inside Washington, you are no longer the outsider.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Steve Z — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:07:25 -0000

I checked Google using the phrase "digital electric grid', and found an article about replacing existing controllers on the electrical grid with digital controllers, whose response time is supposedly faster than existing controllers, and would (in theory anway) reduce the frequency of brownouts or blackouts.

It's not clear whether Obama is referring to this, or whether Obama would understand what this technology is and how well it would work. But who cares whether it works or not? It sounds cool like "hope" and "change" and voters will buy it and pay for it because The Great Anointed One has written it, and anyone who dares question its value, feasibility, or cost is so, like, you know, unenlightened and so, like, you know, 20th Century, and so, like, you know, anti-hope. You gotta see the light, whether or not the lights stay on.

Dixit Oprah-bama: The Kingdom is coming on Earth, and Obama is Da Man, and thou shalt not ask questions to Da Man!

/sarcasm (for Obama dreamers who might not have noticed).

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

unclesmrgol — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:00:36 -0000

Hahaha - ;}

It was never just on or off -- occasionally it was boomeranging off Washington or Idaho.

Davis was not the problem, nor could he have devised a solution in time even had he realized early-on that there was a problem. Note that it took Schwartzenegger a year to fix the Path 15 problems which drove so many power generators out of business and allowed Enron to "boomarang" power trans-state and profit from the arbitrage thereof.

This is a prime example of the need for federal regulation of the energy transmission market.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

ScottW — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:56:37 -0000

Over 50% of the federal budget is going to entitlement programs brought to us by a democrats over the last 40 years. That is about 1.5 trillion in 2008. When we leave Iraq, the war funding will be over. Entitlements are forever and are on the way to burying future generations. The balanced budget in the Clinton administration was brought to you by the Republican congress and the contract with America legislation spearheaded by Newt Gingrich. Gingrich and Republicans fought for a balanced budget amendment that Clinton opposed and threatened to veto. As it was, the legislation died in the Senate where nearly every democrat opposed it...

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Bogey — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:48:55 -0000

well.. it DOES

but you can't bring up the issue when you are largely responsible for some of the biggest deficit spending in history.

that's when you "lose" the right to throw the first stone.

of course, I suppose they can say we voted for tax cuts (as spending was going thru the roof and they did nothing to rein it in)

could that be because they studied Economics 101 along with Creationism at Bob Jones University?

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Bogey — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:43:55 -0000

the RNC has lost all sense of reality

if I were a Dem strategist, I would just run this article.. over and over and over and over (and note this does NOT Include the Iraqi sinkhole)

How George Bush, Big Spender, Destroyed Nirvana: Kevin Hassett

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

Enlarge Image/Details

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- If you could go back in time to President George W. Bush's inaugural address and add one economic statement, what would it be? For me, there is an obvious answer.

If Bush had promised in January 2001 that the baseline of government spending that he inherited when he took office would be the cap during his term, then we would have a big budget surplus today. It would have been easy to do. He just had to say: ``I will not spend one penny more than President Bill Clinton planned to. I will veto any bill that tries to.''

I have written before in this space that Bush has outspent Clinton by a mile. With government spending still out of control, the gap between where we are and where a disciplined nation could have been is getting bigger and bigger.

With a recession looming, the policy implications of the spending explosion are serious. If a deep recession occurs, we will have less wiggle room.

To see how different the world could have been, I gathered data from a number of sources and ran an alternative history. In that wishful place, government spending was set equal to the spending envisioned by the Congressional Budget Office in the January 2001 long-run forecast, plus the spending for the war in Iraq and to fight terrorism. This simulation assumes that the war would have happened in spite of Bush's spending promise, and wouldn't have induced him to seek cuts elsewhere.

The difference between that spending path and the one we are on is huge. Today, we expect federal spending in 2008 will be $2.9 trillion. According to the alternative history, spending would be $2.5 trillion.

Surplus Fantasy

With spending at the lower level, we would have a surplus of $152 billion if revenue were equal to what it is currently projected to be.

Running the simulation forward, the gap between revenue gets wider and wider. By 2017, we are scheduled to spend almost $1 trillion more than we would have if we had stuck to the Clinton baseline. With the low spending baseline we would have a surplus in 2017 of $1.1 trillion, instead of the $151 billion surplus that's currently forecast.

Think of it this way. If we now had the lower spending levels that Bush inherited, we could extend his tax cuts, repeal the alternative minimum tax, enact the current stimulus package, and still have a 10-year budget surplus of $1.9 trillion. And, remember, that allows spending to be adjusted up for the Iraq war and the war against terrorists.

Many observers might say this scenario is unrealistic. The 2001 long-run forecast covered both discretionary and mandatory spending. No administration, the argument might go, could have held the line on the growth of Medicare and Social Security spending.

Hold the Line

There are two responses to that.

First, a president could always demand that spending be capped and that discretionary spending be reduced to offset unexpected increases in mandatory outlays. Social Security might be the third rail of American politics, but it might not be. It has been changed before. Why couldn't it be changed again? Families do that all the time. If Johnny needs braces, then you take fewer trips to the restaurant.

The second response is perhaps more powerful. Let's see what happens when we allow mandatory spending to go up as it did. This lets Bush have his prescription-drug benefit, which is now part of mandatory spending.

If we had held the line on everything else that is discretionary, we could have had the prescription-drug plan, the Iraq war and the war against terrorists. We could have kept all the Bush tax cuts, made them permanent, repealed the AMT and added the stimulus package and still ended up with a balanced budget from 2008 to 2017.

Bloated Uncle

It makes you sick to think about it. All that money wasted on ethanol and bridges to nowhere has accumulated into a pile that massive. Uncle Sam ate a whopping helping of apple pie every day for seven years, and now he is obese.

This is important to bear in mind as we move forward to the general election. We don't have a deficit because of Iraq, or the tax cuts, or the drug benefit. We have a deficit because the government grew fat. We can't fix that with tax increases. Uncle Sam must go on a diet.

A simple way to start would be this: Whoever is elected president this November should pledge that he or she won't spend $1 more than we currently plan to. If Bush had done that seven years ago, we would be in a different world.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Steve Z — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:34:46 -0000

A possible script for a GOP ad:

Reporter: Senator Obama, how are you going to pay for all your hope and change?

Obama: I haven't ideated that yet. Ask me in 2009.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

michaelreynolds — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:15:33 -0000

"Theoretical billion?" What do you think the Spendometer will be dealing with? It's all "theoretical." It's all predicated on assumptions, and after seven years of staggering expenditures and a massive increase in the size of government, the GOP has zero credibility with any but those who've OD'd on the Kool-Aid.

Obama will hang the GOP Congress and George (30%) Bush around McCain's neck. get ready to see the infamous McCain-Bush hug photo all over the place.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

SouthernRoots — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:01:46 -0000

digital electricity grid

Probably means that it's either on or off. Californians under Grey Davis know what that is.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

SaipanDrunkenSailor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:01:23 -0000

Well, what would you have the RNC do? Simply surrender the issue to the Democrats?

Remember, the surrender strategy the Dems trot out regularly for Iraq, is only good for wars you never wanted to win in the first place. So that doesn't apply here.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

unclesmrgol — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:41:27 -0000

I decided to check out a few of Obama's initiatives, and noticed one which immediately caught my eye. It is called the digital electricity grid.

Now, last I saw, electricity came only in analog -- alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC); our current grids transmit only those two types of power (Wikipedia agrees). So this digital electricity grid must be something completely new and revolutionary.

I looked on Google. On Barack Obama's campaign site (which does NOT have a search function, so boy was that hard). On Barack Obama's government site. Nothing indicates what digital electricity is, except that the term comprises one part of a sentence on barackobama.com.

Maybe Al Gore knows. It could be related to the Internet. Obama needs to explain to us technical insophisticates just why we ought to convert to digital electricity.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

SouthernRoots — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:31:43 -0000

Thanks jvandahm. After awhile, all these numbers run together - my checking account doesn't use as many zeroes.

You're right though. My point is that either Obama's plan is far from "comprehensive", or that my State's plan is overstated.

Either way, the combined tax hits are tremendous.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

SaipanDrunkenSailor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:27:09 -0000

the "thought" process among the rest of the country

Seems to me there's not much "thought" going on at all, if they believe that through lawsuits for all, heavy unionization, taxing corporations far above what Europe does and putting up trade barriers, the Democrats will usher in an era of prosperity.

Sure they will. Well, at least the Democrat pols will remain prosperous, they have all of their huge trust funds in offshore tax havens.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Yashmak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:27:08 -0000

They don't have to, if McCain starts quantifying how much Obama's plans are going to cost the average taxpayer, ears will perk up anyways.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Yashmak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:21:45 -0000

Indeed. See the veterans health care debacle for how well government run health care systems work.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Yashmak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:19:50 -0000

Democrats in congress voted in favor of spending that money, just as the Republicans did. It requires historical revisionism to try and isolate the blame to the Republican side of the aisle. In fact, the Democrats have continued to vote in favor of that spending even after taking control of congress.

It's revisionism to try and isolate the blame on that. Even the democratic base knows it.

Re: RNC Unveils The Spendometer As They Focus On Obama

Yashmak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:14:39 -0000

Well, a mere 7 billion increase in federal spending over 4 years would be a much slower rate of budget increase than the historical average. . . so it'd be a start.