Budget FY2010

[kgbsquirrel]

I was cruising around checking out how much of our progeny's money we were spending this year when I came across the "official" site...

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/browse.html

Some of the headers really made me pause for a moment. Such as "A New Era of Responsibility" and "Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities." That last one struck me an awful lot like "it's all the last guy's fault." Anyways, welcome to the 2010 budget report, read, discuss, carry on.

[PTK]

"Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities".


"Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities"?

....whiskey, tango, foxtrot. Over.

[Ben]

"Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities".

"Weaseling out of things is important to learn.  Its what separates us from the animals...except the weasel."
-- H Simpson

[dm1333]

If you think the titles are bad you ought to read some of the .pdf files in there.  Here is one little gem taken from page 5 of "Inheriting a legacy of misplaced priorities".

research has shown that there is a high return
for investments made in high-quality, comprehensive
programs supporting disadvantaged children,
and their families, from birth. Some studies
show that for every dollar invested, there is a $4
to $9 return to society in higher earnings, higher
graduation and employment rates, less crime,
decreased need for special education services,
less use of the public welfare system, and better
health. However, we have yet to make a serious
commitment to our youngest learners.

Ok, I'll bite!  What research?  They cited studies in the paragraph but nothing to back up the claim that for every $1 invested there is a return of $4-$9.

This one, on page 10, made snort so hard I had to clean my keyboard.

Fiscal Irresponsibility
Another manifestation of irresponsibility is
the large budget deficits we are inheriting. These
deficits, over time, will harm economic growth
and impose burdens on our children and grandchildren.
For the past eight years, in a time of economic
growth, the Government spent recklessly
on tax cuts for the few and hand-outs for the welloff
and well-connected, mismanaged billions of
dollars in taxpayer money, and failed to honor the
responsibilities we have to future generations.
Massive new programs have routinely been omitted
from the Budget to mask their true cost, while
a new entitlement program and massive tax cuts
were proposed and signed into law without any attempt to pay for them.

Unreal, it almost sounds like they are talking about healthcare.

This is classic!  Also from page 10.

Over the past eight years, policy was made behind
closed doors. In many cases, unprecedented
levels of secrecy have been invoked to block public
scrutiny. In such an environment, the well connected
and those who are able to hire high-priced
lobbyists were able to carve out huge loopholes in
our tax code, win massive subsidies that shifted
the tax burden to small businesses and the middle
class, and obtain exemptions from the basic
rules of the road for themselves and their clients.
And they did this all without paying for it or being
held to account. This must change.

It also confuses me that this is on GPOAccess.gov.  The Government Print Office?

[kgbsquirrel]

Ok, I'll bite!  What research?  They cited studies in the paragraph but nothing to back up the claim that for every $1 invested there is a return of $4-$9.

Sounds like they are trying to compare the current entitlement state to how the Montgomery GI Bill helped give the nation's populace a boost immediately post WW2. The MGIB sent millions of veterans to college after the war, and back then it was able to cover going to Ivy league schools such as Harvard. This resulted in a huge boon to national income through higher wages being earned by those millions of vets (and obviously more taxes collected from those wages) where-as the current welfare/entitlement system seems rather engineered to keep those collecting it in their current economic bracket by either just providing subsistence, not not the means for personal elevation, or by providing such limited or burdening  (student loans) means for personal elevation that the upward mobility is effectively nil for the vast majority.

I make this slightly unqualified statement as someone who has collected both the old form MGIB, the new form or Post-9/11 Chapter-33 MGIB (which is substantially better), and stafford student loans.

[HankB]

I snicker whenever the administration says ". . . for the past eight years . . . "

For the first five of the past eight years, the GOP did indeed control the House, Senate, and Oval Office. And they spent too much money.

For the next two, the Dems controlled both houses of Congress . . . where spending bills come from . . . and that's about the time things began heading south.

And for a bit more than a year, it's been the Dems who control the House, Senate and Oval Office. And look where we are now, and where we're headed.

There's an old proverb that this administration should heed: "Man who live in glass house should not throw stones."

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

There's an old proverb that this administration should heed: "Man who live in glass house should not throw stones."

Men in glass houses should use detcord.

[Kingcreek]

community organizing at its best.

[sanglant]

i just want to know how joe "the" biden could be inheriting anything. he was there while this pie was being made.