Geithner defends tax increases
Tax cheat Timothy Geithner is defending President Barack Obama’s proposed tax increases:
President Obama’s Treasury secretary is defending proposed tax increases, saying they are necessary to limit future budget deficits.Timothy Geithner responded on Wednesday to Republican criticism that the administration wants to increase taxes during a recession. Geithner noted that tax increases on couples making more than $250,000 per year would not take effect until 2011.
Obama inherited a $1.3 trillion budget deficit that is expected to balloon to $1.75 trillion this year. Obama says his plan would reduce the deficit to $533 billion in four years.
Don’t you love how they act like the only way to cut the deficit is to raise taxes. I guess it’s too much to ask to just reduce spending to cut the deficit.
Obama, and now Geithner, keep telling us they “inherited” the budget and economy problems. They did not. They volunteered. Is Geithner really trying to tell us he was unaware of the scope of the problems? Right.
Rick
Obama was a member of Congress last year. Did he vote against the budget? No? Then he did not “inherit” it.
They’re Stalinizing the ’06 revolution, the year the Dems shut their collective traps about pork once their snouts were firmly in the trough once again.
How can it only balloon by $0.45 trillion this year, when Barack’s already spent $3.25 trillion in outlay and financing for the debt? And what about the omnibus bill right now that’ll add another trillion? Or is that a different budget? Is our government keeping separate books? It wouldn’t surprise me, as it’s clear Pelosi, Reid and Obama are top graduates of the Ebbers & Lay school of accounting.
It is not spending, it is investment, and everyone knows that cutting investment is a bad idea.
As I understand it, a slim but growing majority of Americans don’t believe in AGW anymore (especially after the recent snowstorm that pummeled the eastern part of the country). So, using AGW as an excuse to intentionally drive up the cost of energy might not be so smart.
On the other hand, I think that a sizable majority of Americans are CONVINCED that energy companies make “obscene profits”, and will naturally assume that any rise in prices is just more gouging.
Sigh…
We’re so screwed.
Maybe someone could do a post on the fuzzy deficit math. I keep seeing different numbers for the “inherited deficit” and current deficit.
It was my understanding that Bush had a $450B operating deficit in 2008, followed by a TARP payment ranging from $300B to $700B (300B released, 700B projected/promised). So that would put the “inherited deficit” in the range of 750-1150 billion (not healthy by any means, and deservedly criticized).
Now Obama and Congress jammed through an $800B spending bill right away. That would push the current deficit to $1.55 – $1.95T, depending again how you looked at the TARP numbers. Alternatively, the TARP numbers could be left off the deficit as they are supposedly an “investment/loan” and not an operational cost.
None of this meshes with an inherited $1.3T or a current $1.75T. Anyone know what’s really going on?