On the Debt, Obama Wants to “Move On to Another Topic”

October 6, 2012

On the Debt, Obama Wants to “Move On to Another Topic”

Democrats Notch Four Straight Years of Trillion Dollar Deficits that Have Buried Middle Class Families with Skyrocketing Debt and Higher Taxes

President Obama had a hard time defending the Democrats’ record of failure in a recent debate, and even attempted to change the subject from the ballooning national debt.
Democrats have spent the last four years borrowing from countries like China to pay for their spending sprees at home, and the result is a nearly 50% increase in the national debt.
Democrats still haven’t learned their lesson and want to keep their spending sprees going with more tax hikes, even if those tax hikes will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs.

President Obama had a hard time defending the Democrats’ record of failure in a recent debate, and even attempted to change the subject from the ballooning national debt:

ROMNEY GRILLED OBAMA OVER HOW TO BALANCE THE BUDGET: “I don’t want to cost jobs. My priority is jobs. And so what I do is I bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions — the same idea behind Bowles-Simpson, by the way. Get the rates down, lower deductions and exemptions to create more jobs, because there’s nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than having more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes. That’s by far the most effective and efficient way to get this budget balanced.” (“Remarks by the President and Governor Romney in the First Presidential Debate,” The White House, 10/4/2012)

OBAMA’S RESPONSE? “JIM, YOU MAY WANT TO MOVE ON TO ANOTHER TOPIC”: (“Remarks by the President and Governor Romney in the First Presidential Debate,” The White House, 10/4/2012)

CBO: IT’S OFFICIAL: AMERICA HAS NOW SEEN FOUR STRAIGHT YEARS OF TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICITS UNDER OBAMA: “A new estimate puts the deficit for the just-completed 2012 budget year at $1.1 trillion, the fourth straight year of trillion dollar deficits on President Barack Obama’s watch.” (Andrew Taylor, “CBO Tallies 2012 Deficit at $1.1T,” Associated Press, 10/5/2012)

Democrats have spent the last four years borrowing from countries like China to pay for their spending sprees at home, and the result is a nearly 50% increase in the national debt:

STUDY: ANNUAL COST OF OBAMA’S DEBT AMOUNTS TO $4,000 A YEAR IN HIGHER TAXES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS: “In a new paper, AEI’s Aspen Gorry and Matt Jensen look at the real annual cost of servicing the debt for households at various levels of income — including a potentially higher tax burden. As the table below illustrates, a household making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year could find its tax liability higher by roughly $2,400 every year. Over ten years, that works out to $24,000. And when you add in the debt already accrued the past four years under President Obama (the second table), that’s another $1,600 a year. So now we are now talking about $4,000 a year, $40,000 over ten years.” (James Pethokoukis, “Study: Obama’s Big Budget Deficits Could Mean A $4,000 A Year Middle-Class Tax Hike,” American Enterprise Institute, 10/2/12)

CHINA OWNS $1.15 TRILLION IN U.S. DEBT: (“Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, 9/18/2012)

$5.53 TRILLION INCREASE IN NATIONAL DEBT SINCE OBAMA TOOK OFFICE: (“The Daily History of the Debt Results,” Bureau of the Public Debt, Accessed 10/5/2012)

NATIONAL DEBT CURRENTLY STANDS AT $16.15 TRILLION; SIZE OF NATION’S ECONOMY AT $15.59 TRILLION: (“The Daily History of the Debt Results,” Bureau of the Public Debt, Accessed 10/5/2012; Bureau of Economic Analysis, Accessed 9/18/2012)

POLITIFACT SAID LAST YEAR THAT OBAMA WAS THE “UNDISPUTED DEBT KING OF THE LAST FIVE PRESIDENTS”: “Obama is the undisputed debt king of the last five presidents, rather than the guy who added a piddling mount to the debt.” (Louis Jacobson, “Nancy Pelosi Posts Questionable Chart on Debt Accumulation by Barack Obama, Predecessors,” Politifact, 5/19/2011)

THREE YEARS AND TWO MONTHS OF OBAMA IS MORE DEBT THAN EIGHT YEARS OF PREDECESSOR: “The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama’s three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency. The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.” (Mark Knoller, “National Debt Has Increased More Under Obama than Under Bush,” CBS News, 3/19/2012)

OBAMA RECORD “THE MOST RAPID INCREASE IN THE DEBT UNDER ANY U.S. PRESIDENT”: (Mark Knoller, “National debt has increased $4 trillion under Obama,” CBS News’ Political Hotsheet Blog, 8/22/2011)

DEMOCRATS’ AGENDA OF MORE DEBT WILL HURT ECONOMIC GROWTH:

CBO: OBAMA BUDGET WILL “HURT THE ECONOMY IN THE LONG TERM”: (Erik Wasson, “CBO Estimates Obama’s 2013 Budget Would Hit Economic Growth,” The Hill, 4/20/2012)

STUDY: ECONOMIC GROWTH TAKES 25% HIT FROM DEBT LEVELS AT MORE THAN 90 PERCENT OF ECONOMY: (Rich Miller, “Reinharts, Rogoff See Huge Output Losses From High Debt,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 4/30/2012)

GOLDMAN SACHS RESEARCH: STIMULUS SPENDING “WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD TO A DRAG,” HIGHER DEBT LEVELS TAKE ECONOMIC TOLL: “The eventual effect of sustained fiscal imbalance is slower growth and greater risk of a fiscal crisis. Our estimates suggest that a 10-point increase in the debt/GDP ratio lowers growth four years later by 0.2 percentage point, and increases the probability of a debt crisis by 2.5% in the aftermath of a financial crisis like the recent one. (See No Rush for the Exit,” Global Economics Paper, No. 200, June 30, 2010 and “When One Crisis Leads to Another,” US Economics Analyst, 11/04, Jan. 28, 2011.) To avoid this, lawmakers must begin to identify deficit reduction strategies.

“Ultimately, what goes up must come down. In the case of the federal budget, this means that a deficit-financed boost to growth will eventually lead to a drag. While policymakers can try to smooth the transition by phasing in cuts and incorporating multi-year fiscal commitments, achieving a sustainable fiscal policy will inevitably be a painful but necessary process.” (Jan Hatzius and Alec Phillips, “Fiscal Restraint: A Question of When, Not If,” Goldman Sachs Global ECS U.S. Research, 3/2/2011)

MAJOR ECONOMIC STUDY LINKS GOVERNMENT DEBT TO SLOWER ECONOMIC GROWTH: “Our main finding is that across both advanced countries and emerging markets, high debt/GDP levels (90 percent and above) are associated with notably lower growth outcomes… Seldom do countries simply ‘grow’ their way out of deep debt.” (Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, “Growth in a Time of Debt,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 12/31/2009)

Democrats still haven’t learned their lesson and want to keep their spending sprees going with more tax hikes, even if those tax hikes will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs:

FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE: IF DEMS GET THEIR WAY “RECESSION WOULD OCCUR EARLY NEXT YEAR”: “The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, if the full range of tax increases and spending cuts were allowed to take effect–a scenario widely referred to as the fiscal cliff–a shallow recession would occur early next year…”(Bernanke testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Federal Reserve Web site, 7/17/2012)

JOB-DESTROYING TAX HIKES ON SMALL BUSINESSES THAT WILL HURT WORKING FAMILIES:

TAX HIKE WOULD BE A $201 BILLION HIT TO THE ECONOMY: (Robert Carroll and Gerald Prante, “Long-Run Macroeconomic Impact of Increasing Tax Rates on High-Income Taxpayers in 2013,” Ernst & Young, July 2012, Appendix C)

710,000 JOBS COULD BE DESTROYED BY DEMOCRATS’ TAX HIKE PLAN: (Robert Carroll and Gerald Prante, “Long-Run Macroeconomic Impact of Increasing Tax Rates on High-Income Taxpayers in 2013,” Ernst & Young, July 2012, Appendix C)

1.8% DROP IN WAGES: “Real after-tax wages would fall by 1.8%, reflecting a decline in workers’ living standards relative to what would have occurred otherwise.” (Robert Carroll and Gerald Prante, “Long-Run Macroeconomic Impact of Increasing Tax Rates on High-Income Taxpayers in 2013,” Ernst & Young, July 2012)

JOINT COMMITTEE ON TAXATION: 940,000 SMALL BUSINESSES TO GET HIT BY DEMOCRATS’ LATEST TAX HIKE: “Congress’s Joint Tax Committee—not a conservative outfit—estimates that in 2013 about 940,000 taxpayers will have enough business income to meet Mr. Obama’s tax increase threshold.” (Editorial, “Off the Tax Cliff He Goes,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2012)

MORE THAN HALF OF NET BUSINESS INCOME WILL BE HIT BY HIGHER TAX RATES UNDER OBAMA PROPOSAL: “And of the roughly $1.3 trillion in net business income, about 53% will get hit with the higher tax rates. This is because millions of businesses report their income as sole proprietors and subchapter S corporations that file under the individual tax code.” (Editorial, “Off the Tax Cliff He Goes,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2012)

OBAMA’S NEW TAX HIKE WOULD HAVE SOME SMALL BUSINESSES PAYING HIGHER TAX RATES THAN GENERAL ELECTRIC AND J.P. MORGAN: “So Mr. Obama wants these businesses to pay higher tax rates than the giant likes of General Electric or J.P. Morgan. Does that qualify as ‘tax fairness’?” (Editorial, “Off the Tax Cliff He Goes,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2012)

TAXMAGEDDON WILL COST AVERAGE FAMILY $4,138 IN 2013: (“Taxmageddon Costs Average Family $4,138 Next year,” The Heritage Foundation, 6/14/2012)

On the Debt, Obama Wants to “Move On to Another Topic” http://ow.ly/eg0x8