Who Will be the CFO In Chief?
March 17th, 2008 by Peter SudermanSteve Chapman wonders why the presidential candidates aren’t more interested in the nation’s finances:
It’s good to know they are preparing themselves for that 3 a.m. phone call. But I’m not convinced any of them is ready for the 8 a.m. call from the budget director reporting that the deficit is raging out of control. When it comes to combating the fiscal menaces we face, these three are all absent without leave.
The budget situation is already dire. In the last six years, the federal government has spent some $1.8 trillion more than it has taken in. This year, the deficit will hit an estimated $410 billion. If the economy falls into a recession, the gap will grow.
Believe it or not, these are the good old days. In the next few years, the budget will begin to show the effects of a mammoth event that has long been dreaded: the retirement of the baby boomers. Social Security and Medicare already account for one-third of federal spending, and over the next 30 years, they are expected to nearly double in cost as a share of the total economy.
A recent report from the Brookings Institution found that just to pay for all federal outlays, we would have to raise taxes by at least one-third by 2030.
The clock is ticking on Social Security. Estimates project that it will begin to run a deficit in 2017 — less than a decade from now. So why are candidates all but ignoring the topic and, in the case of both Obama and Clinton, talking up spending even more on health care — the costs of which are already projected to rise substantially over the next few decades — instead?
March 17th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
A CFO would be imprisoned if he or she used federal accounting methods. The real deficit is probably over $800 billion this year. The GSE’s are also tottering on the edge of a multi-trillion dollar abyss and the federal reserve is taking toxic mortgage-back paper on its books. I’m sure glad we have a Harvard MBA in the White House!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I should point out that no less than Dick Armey himself predicted a financial armageddon should Bill Clinton become President. You all don’t exactly have a lot of credibility on this issue right now. Your supporters (they are mostly Republicans, right?) have had power for six of eight years and are ruining us.
Meanwhile, as Chris points out, the Fed is now in the business of socializing debt while privatizing profit, meaning another hit to taxpayers. But this is the big hit: not the little monies to save a few mortgages. This is the big-time bailout that we taxpayers had to pay after the S&L debacle (thanks, Republicans!) and the airline deregulation (thanks, Republicans!). Any posts up here about that giveaway of taxpayer dollars?
March 17th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
FreedomWorks’ supporters are conservatives, not Republicans. My guess is that they probably vote Republican a majority of the time, but voting a particular party does not necessarily make a person affiliated with that party. I’m sure there are some conservative members of FreedomWorks who are members and affiliated with the Republican Party, but a majority of FreedomWorks’ members are conservatives not Republicans.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Remember the 1990s? When the Clintons and the Dems pretty much balanced the budget on their own? Yea, that’s the kind of fiscal responsibility that we’re heading for when the Dems take back the White House. Making the federal tax system more progressive again, and, hopefully, making some changes to Social Security (like gradually raising the retirement age as people naturally live longer &/or raising the cap on SS taxes). Much of the problem that this country faces with health care is the skyrocketing cost of it, which isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of people are uninsured or underinsured. The Dems have plans for that too…wait and see…
If we hadn’t gone down the road of supply-side economics again earlier in this decade, the problems that we face now wouldn’t be as big. If you want to take issue with the unified budget theory…take it up with LBJ…he’s dead BTW. Boy, are we back to trying to put the “non-partisan” monkier on this website again?? Ugh…
March 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Dude, the Oregon state chapter of FreedomWorks is a higher-up in the Oregon Republican party. The Colorado director worked on Rudy’s presidential campaign. A cursory glance of the political contributions by FW’s principals and bloggers shows donations exclusively to Republican candidates and causes. Blogger Brendan Steinhauser wrote a book about conservative campus activism and is a big-time Republican. Kinnan is a republican, and comes from a longtime Republican family. The seed money to start CSE came from major Republican donors.
Can you provide any proof that “a majority of FreedomWorks’ members are conservatives not Republicans”? Anywhere?
March 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
It’s obviously true that we often side with Republicans and support Republican policies. And it’s not exactly a secret that Armey, our chairman, was a Republican legislator. But that’s usually because Republicans present strong vehicles for us to promote our agenda. We’ve been harsh on Republicans whose policies we disagree with (see Mike Huckabee, for an easy example), and if Democrats started promoting economic policies that cut taxes, reduced spending, limited the powers of government, etc. etc. I think we’d support them. But I don’t see much likelihood of that.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
We’ll be looking forward then to support from you guys on future efforts the Dems will be undertaking to reduce the tax bruden on the middle class, reduce spending in/on Iraq, and limit the power of the Executive Branch.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
When Democrats want to reduce the overall tax burden, FreedomWorks will support it. We do, however, limited the number of issues that we address, so we’re less likely to take any sort of position on the other two.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
C’mon Peter. There’s a huge difference between saying that Republicans tend to agree with you more than democrats and having actual Republican party big-wigs and operatives staff (and lead) your state chapters. For whatever reason you guys have never addressed that point. Why not?
March 19th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
So how much money does my company have to donate for you to look at my issue?
Yeah I’m being snarky, but see how the issue of your donors comes into play? Freedomworks appears to have a nasty habit of taking on the “issues” of its biggest donors according to the Washington Post. The telecoms gave you a bunch of money, and you guys went to bat for anti-net-neutrality. The sugar industry gave you money, and you opposed the federal everglades project that would have affected them. These are documented facts, btw, not conjecture. I’m not saying that those corporate donations “chose” your issues for you, but the timing was curious enough to attract the attention of a major newspaper. Not to mention your illegally signing up “members” without telling them through an insurance carrier (and another donor).
March 19th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
sorry, I guess that last move wasn’t “illegal,” just patently dishonest.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
So, you want to reduce the tax burden, but not cut much of anything from govt. spending (all the *real* money is going to Iraq right now BTW)?? That’s just more supply-side nonsense that has failed over & over again…no thanx…