The Chart to End All Charts!

There's so much good stuff here that I barely know where to begin. (This is from the Congressional Budget Office, the best place to find budgetary information) Take a second and look at it carefully...

The black line is how much revenue (tax money) the government takes in. The bars represent the amount of spending the government does each year, and it breaks it down by type of spending. If the black line is higher than the bars, that means we raised more money than we spent -- budget surplus (like in 2000, under Clinton). If the black line is lower than the bar, budget deficit -- we're in the red, that is our deficit.

Ugh, I don't even know where to begin. First, you can see under Bush that revenue went down (bc he cut taxes), but spending went up. This is pretty irresponsible. BUT! He started doing much better in his second term -- the black revenue line almost catches the spending. Who knew? I didn't. Not sure what's going on there, but it should be noted (I think this is right) that this chart doesn't take into account war-spending, so the actual spending under Bush was significantly higher.

The second point is more important -- what happened to revenue between 2008 and 2009? It PLUMMETED. Why? Recession! Recessions make people poorer, and poorer people pay less taxes, so the government collects less money. At the same time, government spent a lot more on entitlements than in previous years, because we were paying more unemployment insurance, medicaid, and the stimulus. That is economics 101 - not having the government step in and pay for those things would just lead to more poverty and misery. But, as we start to grow again, revenue shoots back up, as it's doing now.

Third, and this is in direct response to Max (finally found the chart I was looking for!), you can see pretty clearly that defense spending and non-defense discretionary spending (basically, everything but entitlements like social security and medicaid and all the other stuff) are pretty flat. You can cut military spending in half and you'd still have a budget deficit. Same for cutting the non-defense discretionary spending -- that's what Republicans in the House are cutting now. Chump change! The cause of the increase in the deficit mirrors entitlements and interest on the debt. As those green and purple lines jump up, so does the deficit. That's where we need to be focusing on for real cuts -- the other stuff is all smoke and mirrors.

Brothers Koch

Don't really get the left's concern about them, to be honest. There are big fundraisers on the left and on the right (Koch Bros., meet Soros). I think partisans on both sides feel that generally, this is a bad thing, except when it's not. Democrats like that Soros money (although he hasn't been donating to candidates lately), and Republicans like that Koch money. This isn't a partisan problem - money is corrupting both sides of the equation.

The left is happy for some reason that the Governor Walker of Wisconsin accepted what turned out to be a prank phone call from one of these Koch brothers, while apparently refusing to talk to the union he was attempting to bust. This proves...I don't know what. That Walker takes phone calls from (a) people who give him lots of money and (b) who he has spoken with before. OK! It's not much of a surprise that he wasn't taking direct calls from the union, considering that he is trying to break them up. Compromise is not Walker's goal. Is that why liberals are gloating? Newsflash: lots of people don't like unions, public sector ones especially. I think those people are wrong, and should be responded to on the merits. But the whole Koch thing is a distraction.

Conservatives do this too with Soros. I don't get it.

Huckabee

I don't think Huckabee is going to run for president, but if he does, I think he'd be one of the more formidable opponents for Obama. He has some crazy beliefs (creationism, flat tax, anti-gay marriage, etc.) but he doesn't seem like a crazy person. This is significant! Almost all the Republicans actually seem somewhat unhinged and/or out of the mainstream. We all know how Sarah Palin is, but there are others. Here's Tim Pawlenty, who won't win but is really trying, introducing himself to the American public.



I mean, that's weird. Real life isn't a movie. It's just strange. This type of stunt may appeal to the far right of people who vote in Republican primaries, but not to regular Americans.

How about Haley Barbour? He's so out there that he won't even commit to denouncing one of the founders of the KKK. That's crazy! He also talked about going to go see a MLK rally in the 60s in order to pick up girls. What! I know some liberals think that Americans are stupid and racist, but most people won't vote for a guy with that kind of background. It's too far out there.

Anyway -- Huckabee seems rational all the time. He's folksy and well-spoken and humble and funny. And guess what he did today. Defended Obama regarding his ties to Jeremiah Wright! More than anything else, this makes me think he'll run. He knows he's well-positioned to win the primaries, and is already trying to highlight that he's not a crazy nut. Good strategy!

Tiger Dog

You know why China is gonna beat America? INGENUITY. For example, they have created tiger-dog and panda-dog.