Obama Watches Deficit more Closely than Bush

Fox News reports that In an interview on Sunday, Timothy Geithner the Treasury Secretary, said that the Obama Administration is paying attention to deficits more closely than the Bush Administration. Or in other words: Obama and the Tea Party movement are on the same side. This answer was in response to a question on NBC's "Meet the Press" about the tea party protests. According to the article President Bush had a $458.6 billion deficit in his last full year in office, while Obama is projected to top $1 trillion for the next several years in a row. Did Timothy Geithner make more math errors like he did on his tax returns or do you think that the Obama administration really is paying more attention to deficits?

Scott Hinkley:

Like so many Americans, I am also concerned about the size of our growing national deficit. Our nation is experiencing a decline in both productivity and education, which is an incredibly dangerous position to be in even when we are in a state of fiscal surplus.

Further handicapping ourselves through over-spending only stands to magnify our global decline as a super-power, and the timing of our decline could not come at a worse time. More nations are learning how to sustain complex infrastructure, one of America's last frontiers of excellence, and our citizens are having to compete for food and shelter in an ever-increasingly competitive world.

While I feel that our nation's fiscal irresponsibility has been the legacy of the last century, I am certain beyond any doubt that this issue is being mined for all of the fear it can inspire by those in this country looking to keep money and control out of the hands of average citizens.

Corporations have out maneuvered the American legal system for the past 50 years, and now, when corporations are experiencing the biggest decline in their power and influence in half a decade, they are pulling on their strings as forcefully as possible.

Jokes about math might be good for concealing a desire for greed and selfishness, but the reality, which for some reason has not been a position well championed in response to the tar-and-feather approach being brought by the Tea Party and the GOP at large, is that our deficit stems almost exclusively from the dark and insidious policies maintained by the last Bush administration.

The primary cause in my opinion is the unprecedented tax-breaks which Bush permitted, while simultaneously reducing oversight so that coffers could be raided at will. At the time, the Bush administration hid behind a misdirection of claiming that more money in rich pockets meant more money in every ones pockets.

Meanwhile, the same people getting the huge tax breaks were hoarding that capital and instead encouraging dangerous loan practices, essentially liquidating the savings of a nation while preserving their own wealth. I find it ironic that Madoff received such national attention when he was one of only a few rich crooks to rob from their own peers.

Our nation has less money than ever, we allowed our privately wealthy citizens to keep all their stolen money while the rest of the country begs for a pass on their taxes, and now those same wealthy people are trying to manipulate middle-class citizens into a state of outrage that our nation is trying to continue to pay for the services we depend on while it copes with perhaps the least Christian or even secularly-moral behavior I have ever witnessed.

If American's are so concerned about the deficit, stop driving, going to parks, calling the police, littering and pay more taxes. One day our nation will collapse beneath the weight of our absurd sense of entitlement.

Nikki Lorenzini:

Oy vey. All I know is that we are in a deficit. Whether it’s $485 billion or $1 trillion, it’s a boat load of money. You can say that you are watching your money all you want, but that is not limited to watch it fly out the window. Obama can easily say that he is watching our money and our deficit, but all I see is the tax credits he is handing out, the new health care reform that will cost more money, we still have troops in Iraq, and heck, in one of last weeks blog, only what, half of America is paying taxes? Where are we getting all this money from?

I don’t doubt Obama is watching our money. Seems like Obama is a dreamer. A real big dreamer that has a huge price tag stuck to it. In a way I can’t blame him. But before I see him doing this health care reform, I would really like to see some action from him when I hear that he is watching our deficit. I would really like to see him making some type of reasonable budget on our spending, some actual cut backs that won’t harm us (maybe see some higher up officials in DC getting salary cuts?). I am sure there are ways to have this shrink up to less than what Bush had it.

I’m sure Geithner could have had some math errors, not sure if they were intentional or not (maybe some where in between). But why be mad at him for making a math error when we all know that there is still a deficit with a president who wants to spend more money?
Austin Lee:

There is a famous story by Hans Christian Andersen called, "The Emperor's New Clothes." In the story a couple of swindlers tell the Emperor that they have developed some new clothes that only those who are stupid or unfit cannot see.

The Emperor, however, cannot see the clothes himself, but lies to not appear stupid as do his high ranking officials. It isn't until a small child calls out, "He isn't wearing any clothes!" That the rest of the people begin to realize what has happened. The emperor cringes, but presses on ahead, because he is embarrassed.

Barack Obama is the Emperor. He has listened to his Liberal professors and confidants who have taught him that capitalism is evil and government is the answer to everything. And anyone who says differently is stupid, bigoted, and hate filled. While looking back at the history of the United States he has moments of doubt, but does not want to appear stupid so he agrees.

Timothy Geithner is one of the high ranking officials. He, too, is scared to be called stupid, so he continues the charade. He cannot possibly believe that the deficit is actually being watched more closely than in years past.

Let me be the one to say: THE EMPEROR ISN'T WEARING ANY CLOTHES! Barack Obama's spending spree is NOT helping our economy. We the people need to yell this louder, and louder, and louder. And on November 2, 2010 we can yell the loudest with our votes.

David Loftus:

Geithner’s reported comments make me want to laugh. Not a “ha-ha-that’s-stupid” laugh, but more of a “ha-ha-nice-try” laugh. While I have little doubt the Obama administration really is paying more attention to budget deficits than the Bush team did (for any number of reasons -- from a possibly stronger philosophical interest in the matter to the fact that we’ve now been in a recession for more than a year and there’s just a lot more pressure on Obama than there was on Bush with regard to budget deficits), that doesn’t put the White House in the same boat with the Tea Partiers. On that, I think the Tea Party crowd would readily agree with me.

That the deficits are much bigger now is absolutely no reflection on how much attention the current chief executive is paying to them, or whether he’s been attacking them the best way. To question the Obama-Geithner team’s math is beside the point. Odds are the deficits would have been comparably large whether McCain or Edwards or even Jeb Bush had been elected President in 2008, because they were largely put there by a combination of George W. Bush’s wars and the multibillion-dollar misbehavior of Enron, Lehman Brothers, and a vast array of banks.

What is “ha-ha-that’s-stupid” is the Tea Partiers’ assertions that Obama is to blame for the size of the deficits or the time it is taking (and will take) to turn them around. But then, these are the sort of people who can’t see that Medicare, Social Security, and U.S. military benefits are all socialist programs (and what’s wrong with -- no -- what is socialism, anyway? They certainly couldn’t tell you), but are inclined to hold a person’s middle name against him.