Democrats shrank US spending, deficit in last fiscal year, figures show

Source: Raw Story/Agence France-Presse

Democrats shrank US spending, deficit in last fiscal year, figures show

By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, October 16th, 2010 -- 4:25 pm

Democrats shrank US spending, deficit in last fiscal year, figures showThe US deficit shrank nine percent last fiscal year but still topped one trillion dollars, the government said Friday in a report seized on by Democrats' rivals weeks ahead of mid-term elections.

For the 2010 fiscal year that ended on September 30, the government had a budget shortfall of 1.294 trillion dollars, down 122 billion dollars from the previous year's record-setting high.

Revenue rose and spending fell amid recovery from recession and as President Barack Obama's Democratic administration wound down some of the emergency measures taken to restore growth.

The final figures "underscored the administration's commitment" to cutting the massive government deficit, Treasury Secretary TimothyGeithner said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/democrats-shrank-spending-deficit-fiscal-year-figures-show/

Nothing Pres. Obama or the Dems gets any traction at all. The chorus of "Obama is bankrupting us" continues unabated.

I sent the below email out this morning... too bad I didn't include this post in it.
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"These earmarks and "pork" projects are bankrupting America." You hear that a lot. Not true, though.

This year Congress spent $16.5 billion on 9,129 projects around the country, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Which is also less than one-half of 1 percent of all federal spending.

In fact, if you could retroactively undo every single pork-barrel project Congress has passed during the past 20 years — all 110,000 of them — you would have enough money to buy down the $13.7 trillion national debt by ... 2 percent.

http://www.cagw.org/

The two wars, the Bush tax cuts and the Medicare prescription-drug program the Republicans pushed through in 2003. The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and pushed the Medicare drug bill through by ending a filibuster by the Democrats. Just the drug program, which was never accounted for in the budget until 2009, is adding more to the deficit than the bank bailout, the stimulus and the new health-care law combined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act

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"Foreign aid is bankrupting America." You hear that a lot, too. Not true, though.

Do you have any idea how little we give in foreign aid? $18 Billion total, and Israel gets $4Billion and Egypt gets $4 Billion right off the top of that. Those are Treaty obligations. So.. you're talking $10 Billion available. Lemme see... $10 Billion a year ...and most of our foreign aid is for things like drug interdiction and "aid in kind"... weapons that we build in this country, for example. The US spends 2/10 of 1% of our national income.. less than 1% of our national budget.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1261.pdf

http://masbury.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/what-percent-of-us-budget-goes-to-foreign-aid/
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"Obama's spending is bankrupting America." You hear that a lot. Not true, though.

Here's a chart of the Congressional Budget Office report.... note the effects of the Wars and the Tax Cut for the rich. They just grow and grow. Obama's Recovery spending barely shows.

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If "Pork", Foreign Aid, and Obama's spending aren't bankrupting us... what is?"

$ 1 Trillion dollar a year military spending is the major cause. That's almost 60% of our budget's discretionary spending. Time to reign in military spending.

but that doesn't stop the Rolling Freak Show that is our government. :(

And our unemployment is going to increase over the next few months. There is no significant driver for job growth on the horizon. 48 million living below poverty.

In a similar situtation a president named FDR realized that the bedrock of this country was jobs, and began a program that started growing us out of the problem.

This time we get all this ill-conceived worry about the debt instead of how to re-build what has been torn down by others.

It was ok to loan $23 trillion to the investment banks whose criminal behavior brought us our financial crisis, but no one can muster the political will to invest as much in Main Street?

The income from taxes are what pay off the debt. Current policy seems much like reducing your household budget by not buying gas to get to work. Good for today's bottom line, really bad long term strategy.

This is short-sighted policy. Dealing with debt is important, but walking over the bodies of the aged, the young, and the infirm to pay it off is not the way this country will lead the world into the 22nd century.

But that would be a step towards getting us out of slavery!