When our attention turns fully to the Congressional and Presidential elections here in South Dakota, I'm sure we'll hear Kristi Noem and the Romney surrogates decrying all the money President Obama and we dastardly Democrats wasted on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the massive, failed stimulus package of 2009.
Wait, wait, wait: "massive"? Economist Mark Thoma questions that massiveness, noting that contractions in state and local government spending (caused by folks like Kristi Noem when she was in the South Dakota Legislature) offset much of the federal stimulus. To put the "massiveness" of the 2009 stimulus in perspective, Dr. Thoma points to the following chart from Menzie Chinn:
- EGTRRA: Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (Bush tax cuts)
- JBTRRA: Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (more Bush tax cuts)
- PPACA: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare, which, yes, saves us money)
Dang. If we'd have spent as much boosting our economy in 2009 as we did blowing up Iraq and redistributing wealth to millionaires, we might have beaten the recession much faster.
We spend too much money in this country. We don't need all of the crap we spend money on. Cut some stuff.
Bush spent too much and the Dems ripped him for it and it cost him the House and the Senate.
Obama spends too much and it cost him the house and hopefully the senate - maybe the presidency.
We need to stop spending so much money.
10% across the board worked in SD I think it can work nation wide.
I'm to the point I just want to cut, slash and burn the spending. Once we cut the Government down to a reasonable size we can begin to look into the programs that are important and make sure they are adequately funded. But the country is more important than any program.
Kristi Noem voted to raise taxes, fees etc at least 7 times while she was in the state legislature. Look it up.
She is not fiscally responsible like she pretends to be. She does whatever suits her at any given moment.
You're a bit over-general on this one, Mike. Where's the crap we shouldn't spend on? Was the Iraq war a waste of money? Do we waste the money we spend redistributing wealth to the wealthy? Should we not have used the stimulus to stop the recession from turning into a depression?
I'll admit, arguing that President Obama isn't wasting as much money as President Bush isn't the strongest rhetorical position. But we need to keep things in perspective about the conservative movement's situational aversion to deficits.
The way Iraq and Afganastan have been handled since we essentially won the war does not make them worth the money. We tried to nation build and we put those countries good fortunes ahead of our own military.
If we are going to go into a war then we should establish total dominance like we did in Japan rather than go in and allow people to vote for puppets that really don't have any control but still continue to act like politicians and blow with the wind.
In war our soldiers and our country must come first. In Iraq and Afganistan we have lost our focus. (probably since 2003-05)
All programs need to be cut. They are all too fat.
O.K. Let's Ron Paul out and withdraw a majority of our overseas force protection. is that fat or meat?