$1.75 trillion federal budget deficit

[DanS]

And only slightly smaller deficits for years to come.

Commence indigestion. We're going to be paying this off for generations.

God, we need some bankers to hang.

[Kidlicious]

And only slightly smaller deficits for years to come.

I wouldn't count your chickens.

[chequita guevara]

God, we need some bankers to hang.

The DanS project bears fruit!

[Asher]

And only slightly smaller deficits for years to come.

Commence indigestion. We're going to be paying this off for generations.

God, we need some bankers to hang.

It's really not THAT much bigger than last year's deficit when using the same accounting standards.

Your country is ****ed. Congratulations!

[chequita guevara]

And his politics is what ****ed it.

[Darius871]

We're going to be paying this off for generations.

More fun facts:

On Tuesday, [Obama] left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

Fast forward to this year (and 2010) when the Wall Street meltdown and recession are going to mean far few taxpayers earning more than $500,000. Profits are plunging, businesses are cutting or eliminating dividends, hedge funds are rolling up, and, most of all, capital nationwide is on strike. Raising taxes now will thus yield far less revenue than it would have in 2006.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1235...mEditorialPage

[DanS]

It's really not THAT much bigger than last year's deficit when using the same accounting standards.

Your country is ****ed. Congratulations!

The $1.75 trillion figure is for fiscal year 2009 (October 2008 through September 2009). If Obama's budget is to be believed, fiscal year 2010 will have a deficit of $1.17 trillion.

[DanS]

And his politics is what ****ed it.

Wrong.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And President Obama thinks he's going to half the deficit by 2012? Is he training pigs to fly yet?

[DanS]

His budget lists a 2012 deficit of $581 billion. I somewhat skeptical of any of these numbers because the state of the economy and the policy is in so much flux.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/Summary_Tables2.pdf

I assume that he is contemplating those deficits despite large increases in taxes.

[Kidlicious]

Porjections are total bs

[Ramo]

This is going to be some trick.

That article is ignoring carbon credit auction revenue, which indirectly taxes everyone.

[Ramo]

The $1.75 trillion figure is for fiscal year 2009 (October 2008 through September 2009). If Obama's budget is to be believed, fiscal year 2010 will have a deficit of $1.17 trillion.

Asher's point is that previous budgets didn't include the AMT fix or appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Ramo]

And President Obama thinks he's going to half the deficit by 2012? Is he training pigs to fly yet?

Reducing the deficit to $875 billion is relatively unambitious.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Are you including all the new spending he's proposing? I mean this upcoming budget doesn't even have the health care plan in it, right?