Cut spending, stupid:
Barack Obama has been trying to stimulate the economy with record-high government spending funded by higher tax rates and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s low interest rates.
But as Stanford economist Michael Boskin points out in the Wall Street Journal, “Japan tried that, to little effect, in the 1990s.” Slow growth has become the new normal there.
There are alternative policies. One is to cut government spending, or cut it more than you raise taxes. As Boskin points out, the Netherlands in the mid-1990s and Sweden in the mid-2000s “stabilized their budgets without recession [with] $5-$6 of actual spending cuts per dollar of tax hikes.”
And he notes that Canada reduced government spending in the mid-1990s and early 2000s by an amount equal to 8 percent of gross domestic product.
Those cuts weren’t painless, but they put Canada on a trajectory different from ours. Canadian voters value budget surpluses, and Canada managed to avoid almost all the bad effects of the 2007-09 recession.
I think that Keynes himself would be appalled to see the things being done in his name.
But but if we cut spending billions of people will lose their jobs, there will be long lines at airports, stores will sell rotting produce and plaugues of locusts will sweep over the land.
Yes, let’s all listen to Michael Boskin, the World’s Wrongest Man, author of the 2009 WSJ op-ed “Obama’s Radicalism Is Killing The Dow”.
What can’t go on forever, won’t.
With interest rates on bonds and bank deposits behind inflation, people are putting money in the stock market. The federal reserve is pumping stock prices with direct injection of their funny money to buy stocks. So the Dow is hitting new highs, but that does not reflect the health of the economy.
the Dow is hitting new highs
Highs only as a numeric. The actual value of the Dow, in terms of previous values of the dollar, is not at a new high.
True — and it’s great for someone here to note the difference between nominal and real dollars. Maybe we’ll see less hysteria about “unprecedented” $1T deficits, exaggerated statements about nominal spending growth, etc.
But the Dow still up 100% since Boskin wrote that Obama was killing it. Boskin’s model of how the market works is badly broken.
What’s your prediction on the Dow that I may share in the prosperity you are enjoying?
Maybe we’ll see less hysteria about “unprecedented” $1T deficits
Oh, so you rather us discuss in terms of GDP? Which in that case, the deficits are unprecendented.
Oh, so you rather us discuss in terms of GDP? Which in that case, the deficits are unprecendented.
No, they aren’t.
What gave you the idea that they are?
OK so, technically, he may be wrong under the measure you provide. But, it is still worse than during the worst war casualty-wise we ever experienced, closing on “the War to End all Wars”, and we have the worst upheaval the world ever experienced in our sights. Can you really afford to be so blase?
OK so, technically, he may be wrong under the measure you provide
Leland is definitely wrong, there’s no “technically” about it, and it’s under the measure that he provided. His statement isn’t anywhere close to being true. So why did he think it was true?
Leland is definitely wrong
If this is how I’m wrong; I’m still far closer to reality than you are thinking its WW2.
Still, it’s unprecedented in my lifetime and for anytime in which the US wasn’t involved in total war.
No, they aren’t.
What gave you the idea that they are?
The other three periods with deficits that deep had a major war going on. And the spending quickly improved once the crisis was over.
Still, it’s unprecedented in my lifetime
So “unprecedented” just refers to your lifetime now? In that case you should include your birthdate whenever you use that word.
anytime in which the US wasn’t involved in total war
So the combination of multiple non-total wars and a global financial crisis doesn’t count?
You can just admit that you were wrong, and that you stand corrected.
WTF??? You’re trying to score rhetorical points, while the situation is, objectively speaking, really, really bad no matter how you slice it? You’re arguing about peanuts on the floor when there is an elephant in the room! Sheesh, get a sense of perspective.
So the combination of multiple non-total wars and a global financial crisis doesn’t count?
I say “no”. Note that the US has been in dozens of significant wars, including the big three, the US Civil War and the two World Wars. Only the last three resulted in significant deficits comparable to what we’re seeing now. No financial crisis, including the stock market crash of 1929 which kicked off the Great Depression, had those kinds of deficits.
Being in a few minor wars at one time hasn’t been a serious drain on the US government finances in the past. Having even a really bad financial crisis hasn’t been a serious drain on US government finances. What has changed is that we’re simply spending a lot more than we used to. If we do ever go into a big war again, where’s the money going to come from?
You can just admit that you were wrong, and that you stand corrected.
But then I’d be wrong to do so. Why don’t you ever take your own advice?
What multiple wars are we in?
Afghanistan and?
You can just admit that you were wrong, and that you stand corrected.
Is the global financial crisis the reason for Texas’ surplus?
Having even a really bad financial crisis hasn’t been a serious drain on US government finances.
We haven’t had a really bad financial crisis since 1929. In 1929 the deficit didn’t shoot up as much as in 2009 because we didn’t have a modern welfare state, things like food stamps, federal unemployment insurance, Medicaid, etc. Those things are sometimes called automatic stabilizers: they automatically increase when the economy tanks, without any action on the part of Congress.
So yes, we got a bigger jump in the deficit in 2009 than in 1929. We also got much less human suffering. That’s exactly how things should work.
In 1929 the deficit didn’t shoot up as much as in 2009 because we didn’t have a modern welfare state, things like food stamps, federal unemployment insurance, Medicaid, etc. Those things are sometimes called automatic stabilizers: they automatically increase when the economy tanks, without any action on the part of Congress.
Even if those programs had been around in 1929, it wouldn’t have been that significant. Of the big three items in the budget, Social Security, Medicare, and defense, two didn’t even exist in 1929 and the third was far smaller than it is now.
We also got much less human suffering.
The stupid things we’ve done this downturn weren’t as harmful as the stupid things done then. Obama didn’t, for example, make as many oligopolies. He hasn’t handed as much power to labor unions or given organized crime a big boost. He hasn’t set up a tariff war or had quite as bizarre a monetary policy (though the QE stuff is pretty flaky).
The Dallas Fed chair has come out twice now in the last few days and admitted that the Fed is rigging the market.
As early as 2009, market-watchers were scratching their heads, asking who was propping-up valuations. Now we know.
After the dot com bubble during the Clinton years and the housing bublble during the Bush years, you think the smarest man ever to be in the whitehouse would know not to intentionally create one in the most important sector of our economy.
Either Obama isn’t as smart as his disciples proclaim or he is doing this cloward piven thing intentionally.
You think Obama is intentionally creating a bubble? In the “most important sector of our economy”? What sector is that? How exactly is Obama creating a bubble? Do remember that he doesn’t run the Fed.
There’s no logic here, or information, just a certainty that whatever Obama’s doing is bad, and whatever’s bad is Obama’s doing.
“You think Obama is intentionally creating a bubble? ”
Obama…..Pelosi….Reid……Durbin….Levin…..Bernanke….
and all the rest who refuse to cut spending.
You REALLY think the Fed is independent of the Executive and Legislative branches?
If the big spenders of the Federal Government (Lib-Dem and those GOP to whom the definition applies) drastically cut spending (and NOT only Defense) you would see the stock market shoot to the stars, and for rational reasons… not the bubble that’s being created now by cheap, printed money.
The market is presently a bubble. The economy is in retraction.
Look, Japan has tried this for the last 15-20 years and they are STILL in the doldrums? To continue this way is to get us to the same point as Greece or Italy – unable to rationally cut spending due to riots in the streets.
Why you want that, I cannot imagine.
If the big spenders of the Federal Government (Lib-Dem and those GOP to whom the definition applies) drastically cut spending (and NOT only Defense) you would see the stock market shoot to the stars, and for rational reasons… not the bubble that’s being created now by cheap, printed money.
You appear to have a mystical belief in the healing powers of spending cuts. Go look at how well austerity is doing in the UK, where it’s bought them a double-dip recession.
Right now the US deficit is falling faster than anytime since the WWII demobilization. Cutting it faster would be asking for a new recession.
To continue this way is to get us to the same point as Greece or Italy – unable to rationally cut spending due to riots in the streets.
What Greece and Italy want to do, and should do, is print or borrow more money. But they can’t, because they don’t control the Euro. We control our currency, so we aren’t going to become Greece. In fact, while Greece and Italy face sky-high borrowing rates, we can borrow dollars at record-low rates. The “oh no we’ll become Greece” argument is completely ridiculous.
Why look at the UK? Why not look at Texas? Texas has 1/3rd the labor force of the UK yet only half the GDP. Texas cut spending last legislative session, and now has an $8 billion surplus.
And this: Right now the US deficit is falling faster than anytime since the WWII demobilization. is wrong according to your previous link. Why do you think that is true?
Follow my original link, and ponder the meaning of the words “right now”.
“Go look at how well austerity is doing in the UK, where it’s bought them a double-dip recession.”
Cherry picking. Britain only imposed austerity after trying everything else, and bringing themselves to the brink of ruin. Look instead to Germany, which cut back when the crisis first hit, and has weathered the storm.
Austerity is making things worse in the UK. Why would we want to emulate them?
Look instead to Germany, which cut back when the crisis first hit, and has weathered the storm.
Germany talked about cutting back, while enacting a significant stimulus in 2009 and 2010.
Follow Jim’s original link and ponder the success of CBO predictions.
Austerity is making things worse in the UK. Why would we want to emulate them?
Indeed. Better that we follow Texas.
I say again, why look at the UK? Why not Texas? If you don’t like Texas, then California or Illinois?
Jim
March 8, 2013, 3:58 pm
“Germany talked about cutting back, while enacting a significant stimulus in 2009 and 2010.”
Germany’s “stimulus” was a tax cut, not a borrowing binge.
Germany’s “stimulus” was a tax cut, not a borrowing binge.
A tax cut is a borrowing binge. Germany cut taxes, and borrowed to make up the lost revenue. We did too.
Better that we follow Texas.
We should join a rich country that will send checks to all our senior citizens, pay their medical bills, and defend our borders? Sounds like a great plan.
“Germany cut taxes, and borrowed to make up the lost revenue. We did too.”
Germany chose an entirely different path, and succeeded in blunting the pain of the recession. Their public debt did not go up nearly as much, and yet they had much better results.
Once again our Beloved, pleasantly befuddled, Jim fails to look even a half inch deep into cause and effect:
Everyone with a working synapse knows that the Dow is being artificially pumped by the Fed’s cheap money. This is on purpose, of course.
In 2009, Boskin didn’t predict the deep level of cynicism and the careless willingness of the administration to kill off the economy with willful abandon. Lots didn’t want to believe that and lots still refuse to believe it.
The rest of us know better, and more are coming to understand as time presses on. Obama’s sequester lies continue to open eyes.
The rest of us know better, and more are coming to understand as time presses on.
Which is why Obama was re-elected, your predictions of a Romney landslide (“the slaughter will be legendary”) notwithstanding, and the Dems picked up seats in the House and Senate?
Your prediction track record is as bad as Boskin’s. But you, and Boskin, won’t let that stand in the way of being sure that you “know better.”
Just keep patting yourself on the back for an election strategy who’s explicit goal was to drive wedges between classes, races, genders, and ages.
Quite true, Jim I was wrong about the election.
Nice diversion. Irrelevant, though. All you want to do is find an incorrect prediction – NOT discuss the issue. Typical Obama tactic. You’ve learned well.
The Feds have rigged the market as Thales has pointed out, as well as I.
Continue with your head buried firmly in the sand – that just raises your butt to perfect height for the Obama economy to kick.
The economy is bad and only those in a clueless bubble don’t know that.
Companies have money and profits, but new investment is not happening as it should. That is also a bubble. Cronyism in with government is not healthy.
People are being pressured by government as never before. They are acting rationally, but really don’t know what to do.
The people electing Obama are not doing it for traditional reasons. The media has demonized any other option. We are heading for a world of hurt and it isn’t going to be pretty.
So Jim, tell me again how wonderful things are in California these days with the middle class fleeing?
The economy is bad and only those in a clueless bubble don’t know that.
Yes, it’s bad, but it’s been getting better.
People are being pressured by government as never before.
What are you talking about?
The people electing Obama are not doing it for traditional reasons.
Again, what are you talking about?
“I don’t like Obama and so his popularity makes me feel like the country is going down the tubes” is a valid emotion, but it isn’t an argument.
Yes, it’s bad, but it’s been getting better.
Are you basing this on the unemployment rate dropping to 7.7% with the addition of 236,000 jobs or just ignoring the fact that 296,000 just gave up looking for a job? Maybe the .1 growth in GDP last quarter is “better” to you?
What are you talking about?
That’s a really good question Jim. It’s one you should ponder more, rather than just trying to win arguments.
As I’ve said in this place and numerous others, QE (or whatever is the fashionable thing to call it this week) might actually work to stimulate the economy – if it was put into the real economy, and not directly into the sticky, greasy hands of the greedy, dishonest psychopaths employed in and running the banks.
How to get around that? Simple, really. Give cash money directly to citizens – and only citizens. Of course, the banks would get their mitts on it eventually; but at least it might do some good along the way.
To get a genuinely strong economy, start with recognizing the Right of a man to the fruits of his labors. And recognize that the government is historically a poor judge of what a man’s labors are worth. On that basis, “stimulus” by wealth transfer is a general failure.
It must be hard to sleep with all those bankers living rent free in your mind.
Giving money directly to the people? You mean like not taking it from them in the first place? Or printing more money and then giving it away?
Government spending certainly can stimulate the economy but it is entirely dependent on how and where that money is spent and in what quantities and also where that money comes from.
Simply spending money on anything wont cut it and thinking that if spending $100 works so lets spend $100,000,000,000 more on stimulus wont cut it either.
Our stimulus wasn’t designed to help the economy, it was designed to prop up state and local governments and funnel money to political constituents.
“Give cash money directly to citizens”
That would have caused massive amounts of inflation. One of the reasons that inflation has been held down somewhat is because the Fed is encouraging banks to sit on the cash by spotting them a few additional basis points of interest.
A trillion dollars of “Keynesian stimulus” on nuclear power plants would have at least left us with power plants.
But the insanity of insisting “It’s -all- good” with respect to government spending means the money was effectively printed for the sole reason of devaluing everyone else’s money … and then set on fire.
If you are to redistribute money, to whom should it go?
It should go to those that know how to create wealth. Which is not those on the top or bottom, but those in the middle.
Where does the money for government redistribution come from? The middle predominately.
Collecting and redistributing adds inefficiency. So don’t do that.
If the above is true, then Obama is doing everything wrong.
Perhaps I wasn’t being clear earlier. Apparently, the US and UK governments both thought it was necessary to stimulate the economy by pumping money into it. Assuming that is correct – which is far from being undeniable – shovelling it into the banks was probably the worst way to do it. The proof of that statement is in what actually happened – they simply kept the money. For a small business to get a loan, these days, is still close to impossible.
Of course, apparently not being able to lend out any money didn’t prevent the banksters from giving themselves bonuses. Recently, it came out that RBS lost £5.2 billion in 2012 – but still gave out £600,000,000 in bonuses to its City gamblers.
Actually, IMHO if stimulus spending by government was and is necessary (I’m far from convinced of that), as Al said the way to go was infrastructure investment.
From a purely UK point of view, what we really need to do is rebalance the economy and do our damnedest to get manufacturing and exporting working again. Which is a complicated affair, involving changes to the educational system and the entire business culture of the UK.
Tell me, how is it possible for government to…
stimulate the economy by pumping money into it
In fact, it is not possible. They can only redistribute money. If pumping money in is stimulus, the pumping money out from somewhere else is antistimulus. Now count inefficiency and you have a net loss. Every time.
Printing money doesn’t work either because it’s just antistimulus of another variety; a tax by a different method.
Who does the government give money to? Their political friends mainly. So in addition to government redistribution being antistimulus it is also blatant corruption. If it weren’t for all the money they steal from taxpayers and funnel to themselves and friends they could never be elected.
Fletch,
The problem is that once you decide to have the government take money OUT of the economic system, and then re-introduce it back into the system, the government has to decide where. There are three problems with that:
1) You lose some of it to overhead – the Feds take their vig off the top in administrative costs and inefficiency
2) The government is not nearly as good at allocating the money effectively as is the market itself. It will make bad decisions usually because the economy is enormously complex, and
3) It opens up the opportunity for government graft and cronyism – which we’ve seen quite of bit of lately.
It’s important to remember that politicians are no more noble or honest than businesspeople.
Gregg, actually I agree with you. With a few comments, however. First of all, the discussion is about which of several alternatives to use – and the one that is being used in the UK at least is the very worst possible; print billions (maybe tens of billions) of pounds and give every last penny of it to the banks, with no conditions on how they use it. ANYTHING is better than that.
Second, private business is very bad indeed at base-level infrastructure; by which I mean highways, bridges, dams. The reason is that everybody benefits from such, and getting the money out of everyone is not easy. Since everybody benefits, maybe everybody should pay?
Third, most of the abuses by politicians and government bureaucrats could probably be prevented by term limits and fixed-term nonrenewable contracts respectively, with no pensions/special health provisions/transport subsidies/whatever for either group.
People like our Beloved Jim are practically clueless about the waste, fraud, and abuse of public money by the Feds. Or they choose to ignore it. Not sure which.
Either way, we have the beautiful view of Obama canceling White House tours – tours that cost about $18,000 a week.
Oh the pain.
And so petty.
As Kimberly Strassel puts it:
“We’ve learned that the White House employs three calligraphers, who cumulatively earn $277,000 a year. The Environmental Protection Agency gave $141,000 to fund a Chinese study on swine manure. Part of a $325,000 National Science Foundation outlay went to building a robotic squirrel.
……………
The government gave a $3,700 grant to build a miniature street in West Virginia—out of Legos. It shelled out $500,000 to support specialty shampoo products for cats and dogs. A San Diego outfit got $10,000 for trolley dancing. The feds last year held 894 conferences that each cost more than $100,000—$340 million altogether. But Mr. Obama is too broke to let American kids look around the White House.”
None of us can really encompass the colossal magnitude of Federal waste because we don’t know all the little fiefdoms, agencies, groups, etc that are created to do….worthless things.
If someone really undertook the study the nation would be appalled. Some of us are even without the study.
Because we are all too familiar how wasteful people can be with other people’s money.
It’s human nature.
None of us can really encompass the colossal magnitude of Federal waste because we don’t know all the little fiefdoms, agencies, groups, etc that are created to do….worthless things.
Why don’t you know? It’s all a matter of public record. Just look through the budget documents.
It’s easy to find individual spending items and make fun of them (even if, as with the robotic squirrel, it’s a basically good idea). What you can’t do is show that all of those silly-sounding items add up to anything significant in the context of the federal budget. The things that really matter are things like Social Security, defense and Medicare — and they don’t strike voters as silly at all.
Why don’t you know?
Because the entire ball of crap is NP-Hard.
In addition, every single layer of the onion is intentionally obfuscatory.
Because the entire ball of crap is NP-Hard.
No, it isn’t even O(n^2). It’s just a very big tree of information, which you have to be willing to walk.
Just look through the budget documents.
What budget documents? The USA hasn’t had a budget since Bush.
Which means that we’re operating under continuing resolutions, i.e. tweaks to the last complete budget. Did you really think it meant that we don’t have budget documents?!?
Please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals to find out where we’ve been spending money. It’s all a matter of public record.
Continuing resolutions are not the same as a budget. You know this. Don’t play stupid, it doesn’t sit well on you. Merely acknowledge that you were incorrect and move on.
Continuing resolutions are not the same as a budget
A budget tells you how money has or will be spent. The continuing resolutions, in conjunction with past budget bills, do the very same thing. There’s nothing about continuing resolutions that makes government spending an unknowable secret.
“Why don’t you know? ”
Are you serious? I can’t even track down my TOWN’s spending to the last line item let alone the Federal Government’s. I don’t have that kind of time.
And a lot of it is buried. Here is how it’s done:
1) Obamacare gets passed with a pile of money mandate to make up rules…later….
2) Rules get made up later by some minor bureaucrats who were appointed a year or two after the law gets passed…..
3) Said organization hires, gets office space, makes trips to gather information………spends money…like hundreds of thousands of dollars for hot tub junkets as reported last year….. Creates sub committees and feeds them money….
4) And then makes up a rule which charges several organizations/businesses/citizens a fee.
But a lot of it is even more obvious….Trips to Spain, Hawaii, million dollar vacations to Florida, 54 christmas trees in the White House…..$50 million for new TSA uniforms JUST under the sequester wire….when a Marine uniform allowance is much less……… all on the citizen dime……BUT……..
We cannot afford the $18,000 a week to finance when VOLUNTEERS give White House tours.
You SERIOUSLY think the amount of waste, fraud , and abuse by the Fed government doesn’t amount to anything much?
You are clueless.
I don’t have that kind of time.
So you don’t have time to find out what the facts are, but you’re sure what we should do about them?
Yes, the federal budget is large and complicated. But it isn’t a secret — it’s published online! And there are thousands of journalists and think tank researchers and Congressional staff members and political operatives and GAO investigators looking for examples of stupid spending. If there were hundreds of billions of dollars in obvious fraud and waste, it would have been found long ago.
The examples you cite prove my point. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the biggest possible wasteful item that you’ve listed in this thread is $1.1b in farm subsidies spread out over 6 years (if every dollar involved was in fact fraud, which doesn’t appear to be the case). That’s under $200m per year. The sequester, which you consider a pinprick, is starting at $85b/year and going up. That’s the equivalent of 425 (or more) of your farm subsidy scandals, every single year for the next decade.
That isn’t where the money is. The money is in Social Security benefit checks, Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals, and defense. The idea that we can fix the deficit by finding little secret piles of wasted money hidden in dark corners of the the budget is a total fantasy, based on an inability to think clearly about really big numbers.
Here, Jim her eis a start – *IF* you really want to know….I suspect you prefer to live in blissful ignorance.
and mind you, this is just a start:
1) Turns out that the State of Massachusetts admitted to sending EBT cards (i.e. welfare) to 47,000 people who do not exist. This is 10% of the total welfare population of Ma. The Governaor calls it “leakage”…..
Or try these just for starters (and please note from where the reports came from – the Feds):
1. Stimulating the Dead
More than 89,000 deceased or locked up Americans were sent $250 stimulus checks in 2009, according to a September 2010 report by the Office of Inspector General in waste, fraud and abuse. That adds up to about $22.3 million in stimulus checks, most of which were mistakenly mailed out. The erroneously mailed stimulus checks, or Economic Recovery Payments, were among the one-time payments of $250 mailed out to 52 million retirees, disabled individuals and Supplemental Security Income recipients receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration.
2. Warming the Dead
The Department of Health and Human Services sent 11,000 dead people across seven states $3.9 million in assistance to for pay heating and cooling costs, according to a 2009 Government Accountability Office investigation of waste, fraud and abuse. The payments were made through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which is designed to provide aid to low-income households.
3. Farm Subsidies for the Dead
From 1999 through 2005, the federal Farm Services Agency paid out $1.1 billion in subsidies to 172,801 dead farmers, according to the Government Accountability Office. The subsidies are designed to encourage Americans to pursue farming as a profession. It’s OK for farms to continue receiving payments for two years after a recipient’s death, but GAO investigators looking into claims of waste, fraud and abuse discovered that lots of money was going to farmers who had died long ago.
4. Housing Subsidies for the Dead
Maybe cemeteries just weren’t good enough. Local public housing assistance agencies paid out more than $15.2 million in housing subsidies to 3,995 low-income households where at least one tenant was – you guessed it – dead. That’s according to a 2008 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates claims of waste, fraud and abuse at the agency.
5. Pain Meds for the Dead
Taking the cake for waste, fraud and abuse in federal government could be this 2009 finding from the Government Accountability Office. Medicaid paid more than $200,000 for prescriptions written for over 1,800 dead people in five states in 2006 and 2007. What’s even funnier – or more infuriating, depending on your point of view – is that the health-insurance provider for low-income Americans shelled out more than $500,000 for prescription drugs that had been written by 1,200 dead doctors. Medicare, meantime, has allowed fraudsters to walked off with as much as $92 million in medical equipment including wheelchairs, oxygen condensers and canes.
And that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
EBT cards (i.e. welfare) to 47,000 people who do not exist
What was the total cost?
$22.3 million in stimulus checks, most of which were mistakenly mailed out
How many were mistakenly mailed out? Of those, how many were cashed?
And you can’t save any money by fixing this problem, since the stimulus is over.
sent 11,000 dead people across seven states $3.9 million in assistance to for pay heating and cooling costs
How much of it was used to pay heating and cooling costs for living people who were eligible for assistance? How many people who were eligible for assistance didn’t get it, and what would it have cost if they had applied?
It’s OK for farms to continue receiving payments for two years after a recipient’s death
So how much of the $1.1b went to families of eligible, recently-deceased farmers?
lots of money was going to farmers who had died long ago
How much is “lots”?
$15.2 million in housing subsidies to 3,995 low-income households where at least one tenant was – you guessed it – dead
How much were the households actually eligible for? Over how long a period did this happen?
Medicaid paid more than $200,000 for prescriptions written for over 1,800 dead people in five states in 2006 and 2007
$200,000 over two years? As much as that?
as much as $92 million
How much?
And that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
I’m guessing that these are the big examples you’ve found — why would you start with the small ones? And except for the farm subsidies, these are all pretty small. $200k over two years?!? Remember that the federal budget is nearly $4t, that’s $4 million million. Your $3.9m in possibly misdirected heating aid is one-millionth of the budget, and about four millionths of the deficit. You would have to find and completely eliminate 200,000 instances like that one, each and every year, to close the deficit. What makes you so sure that they’re out there?
It’s all a matter of public record.
Various things are supposed to be all public record, but it sort of depends on whether the DOJ is willing to release the public record or claim Executive priviledge. And then there are the agency heads that use private and personal emails to hide things from the public record.
Just look through the budget documents.
How about we reduce the federal budget, so that it won’t take so much time to go through it? Cutting spending would do that.
How about we reduce the federal budget, so that it won’t take so much time to go through it? Cutting spending would do that.
Cutting spending won’t reduce the number of pieces of information in the federal budget, it’ll just make the dollar figures smaller. It won’t make the budget any easier to understand.
It can. You are just thinking across the board reductions (Sequester, just like Obama’s thinking). We could do targeted cuts and eliminate useless and harmful government programs, such as the ones mentioned by Gregg.
Cutting spending won’t reduce the number of pieces of information
It will if we actually eliminate worthless departments like education.
Gregg didn’t mention any harmful government programs, just examples of fraud and waste inside programs (like Medicare, or low-income fuel assistance). If you think the entire program is harmful, or a waste, then just treat its entire budget as one chunk of money, and you’ve solved your information problem.
Cutting the budget isn’t hard because the budget is complicated. Cutting the budget is hard because every bit of spending is there because someone wanted it, and will fight to keep it. And the biggest pieces, where the biggest savings are possible, are the pieces that millions of people care the most about.
Jim, now that was a good example of how you can be right when you stick to facts and avoid ideology.
The battle is ideology. People care about things they depend on. They were made dependent on them because of ideology. That can be changed for the better, but it does require a different ideology.
And before Jim gets all wet over the jobs report:
Those who track the quality composition of the jobs, as opposed to just the quantity, will know that the part and full-time jobs breakdown has long been a major issue. And not unexpectedly, in February according to the Household Survey, the number of full-time jobs declined by 77K from 115,918 to 115,841. The offset: a jump in part-time workers which rose from 27,467 to 27,569, or 102K. Part-time jobs, for those who are unaware, are “jobs” only in the broadest of definitions.
But the most surprising development in February from a quality standpoint was that the number of multiple job-holders rose by a massive 340K, which just happens to be a record. One wonders: how many actual people got new jobs, as opposed to how many qualified single individuals ended up getting more than one job in February in order to boost that much needed weekly income to sustainable levels.
The jobs report was better than most we’ve seen lately, better than the average Bush jobs report, and much better than what we were seeing in 2009. But we could do better, e.g. if we cancelled the sequester and passed the American Jobs Act.
I see that reading and comprehending is not your forte.
Obamacare is killing full time jobs, and the Feds say that the jobs added are part time jobs – with 77,000 full time jobs *lost*, and you claim it’s better than most we’ve seen?
You really love that Kool-aid.
The household survey is even more volatile than the establishment data. Full-time jobs are down in February, but they’re higher than they were in November. Multiple job-holders are up 340k in February, but January was down 190k from November. Those numbers jump around a lot. Blaming the loss of full-time jobs in February on Obamacare makes as much sense as crediting Obamacare for the full-time jobs gained in December and January.
Which is all to say: I wouldn’t take one-month’s household data on job type as more important than the top-line establishment data figure, which is that we added 246k private sector jobs. I don’t doubt that if we’d added only 40k you’d be calling it an Obama failure.
“…better than the average Bush jobs report…”
Please provide a reference. I have got to see under what twisted logic you are making such a farcical claim.
Sure. Check out Table B-1, total private employment:
January, 2001: 111,799k
January, 2009: 111,793k
Change: -6k
So while Bush was president we lost 6,000 private sector jobs over 96 months, for an average monthly loss of 62 jobs. In February we added 246,000 private sector jobs. 246,000 > -62.
So yes, this morning’s February job report was much, much better than the average Bush job report.
As my old boss used to say, apples and oranges. Numbers do not tell us what jobs lost or gained.
Household incomes are down to 1960s levels. That tells us more about jobs than the jobs report. ObamaCare is losing full time jobs and people are taking multiple part time jobs to keep up. That makes all the numbers suspect.
You said, and I quote, “better than the average Bush jobs report”. This is not the average report. You might spin it as the report average, but that is not the same thing. The average unemployment in Bush’s jobs reports is 6.45%, and that’s including the aftermath of the Clinton recession, the 9-11 attacks (Clinton’s fault), and the Democrats’ mortgage fiasco. Oh, for the good old days!
That’s ok guys…Jim is a bitter clinger – to Federal Falshoods.
We all know the jobs report will be downgraded next month as they aways are.
And we know the quality of the jobs (e.g. part time) means we are deeper in the hole than we were before.
People like Jim will always be the last to know.
The average unemployment in Bush’s jobs reports is 6.45%
The unemployment rate tells you how things are, the jobs gained/lost tells you how they’re changing. The job picture got worse under Bush, better under Obama.
the Clinton recession, the 9-11 attacks (Clinton’s fault), and the Democrats’ mortgage fiasco
I get it, if something bad happened, it was a Democrat’s fault. Your logic is impeccable.
We all know the jobs report will be downgraded next month as they aways are.
It will be revised, but we don’t know which direction. The January number was just revised down, while the December number was revised up.
“The unemployment rate tells you how things are…”
And, they were a LOT better under Bush.
“…the jobs gained/lost tells you how they’re changing.”
No they don’t. It is the difference between a derivative and a secant line. With the former, you can reconstruct the whole series. With the latter, inconvenient events, such as the Democrats taking over Congress and the implosion of their mortgage bomb, can be glossed over.
It’s a marvelous advantage the Democrats have that they can destroy the economy but, with a compliant media holding sway over low information voters, they can successfully cast the blame on the other side.
Jim, you’ve got to stop telling people what different parts of the elephant are like. You know it really doesn’t matter what direction things go short term so quoting any statistics like that is total BS.
The economy stinks and there is plenty of blame to spread around.
There is only one point we need to consider… is government spending good or bad?
Government spending is redistribution of other peoples wealth. Do we agree on this?
Government spending involves overhead which means it is inefficient. Do we agree on this?
So is government spending good or bad? Not in elephant parts, but overall?
There was some speculation here that Baghdad Jim was away from this blog while mourning Hugo Chavez; but clearly he’s back to his calling in life, being Obama’s Numero Uno apologist. “Il Dufe” should vote him a Most Loyal Little Citizen citizen (which in Obama terms means “most easily brainwashed”) award.
The Japanese economic recovery was less bad than you would expect. There was a cooling down in the early 90s as the export markets topped out, the country was massively overbuilt, and the Japanese failed to enter markets everyone was dead certain they would e.g. Intel ceased manufacturing DRAM because they thought the Japanese would flood the market. It turns out DRAM is now controlled by the South Koreans as are most consumer electronics and the Japanese are going to be reduced to a single DRAM company which some say is going to go bankrupt soon. The same applies to LCD display panels and the like.
However Japan since the late 90s did learn how to innovate in leading edge ways and came up with blue, green, violet LEDs, and white LEDs. These are now commonplace and they have all the relevant technology patented. Their supposedly insular culture and cuisine is now a vibrant export commodity. They sell music all over the growing markets in Asia and sell animation all over the world as a couple of examples. They still control the automobile market. Their aviation industry is experiencing a renaissance including the construction of large transport aircraft. They are leaders in the manufacturing of composite materials and high quality glass among other things. They still manufacturing heavy construction equipment and advanced robotic machine tools.
If you exclude the natural disasters like Kobe in 1995 and this one in 2011 of magnitude 9.03 the economy was indeed recovering fairly well in the late 1990s early 2000s. The Governments of late made several mistakes like closing all the nuclear reactors just to placate public opinion which are hampering their recovery from the Earthquake but once those go back online we will see who is in the crisis then.
As for Germany their strategy of selling machine tools and heavy mechanical equipment to China is going to hit them in the medium term. While they are now aiming for Brazil and African nations as targets those countries often have differently aligned interests and cultures not to mention capital and resources so their probability of recovery is much worse. China covets Africa for itself as well and so far they have been succeeding much better. Especially as they make fools of themselves to their own people and the rest of the citizens of the EU. They replaced their Pan-European strategy which had provided them with decades of growth with a throwback nationalism and mendicity, lack of vision, unseen in Germany in decades. At the same time the UK which is the backbone of European defense is making pathetic fools of themselves by pretending they can be the Cayman Islands and live off tourism and a banking sector. Pathetic. Only the Chinese seem to still realize what growth is and they are certain to benefit from it in the long run. The French are still a wild card in my view. They made certain large investments which may or not pay off in the long run. Depends on what will happen in the energy sector.
The US is less worse off because it has friendly relations with its neighbors and easy access to energy. Even the most colossal blunders would not sink the economy.
As I said before it is time the US starts looking back at putting their own backyard into order before the confrontation with China so I would expect a cleaning up of the South American situation (it is more than just Venezuela) sooner rather than later. It is in the US’s interest to have a weak and divided South America since it is the only natural enemy they have in their own landmass and still then the landmasses are connected by an isthmus which is easily defensible. This has been the policy of the US in the Americas since nearly the time of its foundation so it will hardly stop now.
The Chinese will probably commit a misstep or two. They may have internal social troubles again because of the large disenfranchised people with lost Confucian values to hold such an uneven scheme. They may get cocky and get bogged down in a war near one of their borders. Burma, Vietnam, are examples. Korea is less possible in my opinion and in fact would be an ideal target to strike if they got bogged down in the marshes for any extended period of time.
The Japanese economic recovery was less bad than you would expect.
I have to disagree. It’s worse than I would expect. I would have expected a full recovery inside of ten years to the economic powerhouse of the 80s. It’s worth asking why that hasn’t happened and why Japan owes so much debt now.
The disasters you speak of are insignificant economically.
putting [our] own backyard in order
Our neglect in this regard is appalling. Obama, siding with the wrong side at every turn, has only made it worse. To live in the fantasy that we will never be put to the test again as a nation may be our final curtain call.