| To: ild who wrote (225) | 6/23/2002 11:26:39 AM | | From: freeus | | | | Sorry to take so long.
It was 100 billion.
This is the latest update to "Parallels 1920s-30s and Today":
TODAY
* AP, Agency: Deficit Likely Above $100B, on nytimes.com, June 16, 2002:
The federal deficit probably will soar beyond $100 billion this year, Congress' top budget analyst says, escalating a problem that both parties hope to capitalize on in this November's elections.
In its latest monthly review of Treasury Department data, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday that this year's shortfall should ``end up well above $100 billion.'' The red ink for the fiscal year running through Sept. 30 would be the first since 1997.
Dan Crippen, director of the nonpartisan office ... blamed the worsening budget picture on an equal mix of rising spending, declining revenue and the added interest the government would have to pay to cover the resulting extra borrowing.
With elections for control of the House and Senate less than five months away, Democrats are using the returning deficits to blast President Bush's tax cut of last year. Republicans are citing it as proof of the need to control spending...
As recently as March, the budget office foresaw a surplus this year of $5 billion, but that was before a tax-cutting economic stimulus package and a farm bill became law. Also not factored in was a roughly $30 billion anti-terrorism package Congress is debating...
In an interview this week, White House budget chief Mitchell Daniels declined to predict how large this year's deficit will be.
He said that while the economy is doing better than administration officials predicted, revenue collections are lower. He blamed that largely on weak performance by the stock market, which during its boom of the late 1990s provided huge amounts of federal revenue from taxes paid on stock options, bonuses and other forms of earnings...
* President Bush ... signed a farm bill today [May 13] that will shower billions of dollars in new subsidies on bread-basket states... "It will promote farmer independence, and preserve the farm way of life for generations," Bush said. "It helps America’s farmers, and therefore it helps America"...
Several Republicans complained that the bill will further strain the federal budget art a time when deficits are predicted... Sen. Richard G. Lugar ... called [it] "a recipe for a great deal of hurt and sadness, and at the expense of huge transfer payment from a majority of Americans to a very few" (Mike Allen, Bush Signs Bill Providing Big Farm Subsidy Increases, washingtonpost.com, May 14, 2002).
Perspective: 1920-30s
... in June [1929] President Herbert Hoover had signed into law the Agricultural Marketing Act, which created a Federal Farm Board designed to help farmers stabilize prices and production. "The farm," he proclaimed, "is more than a business; it is a state of living" (Maury Klein, Rainbow’s End: The crash of 1929, (New York: OUP, 2001, pp.4-5).
A promising start had been made [after the October crash]... The Federal Farm Board moved to support prices of commodities that had declined sharply, notably wheat and cotton. It was hoped the tax cut, when passed by Congress, would increase investment and consumption while public works projects would put more people to work... (ibid., p.264).
Hoover’s vaunted Federal Farm Board drew severe criticism for pouring millions into a vain effort to halt the slide of wheat prices... (ibid., p.260).
The public works program and the Federal Farm Board ... cost a great deal of money and impinged on Hoover’s ardent desire to keep the federal budget in surplus. Increasingly that spring [1930] Hoover talked less of spending and more of curtailing expenditures... (ibid., p.269).
* After a decade of budget surpluses there was a series of deficits... (D.W. Brogan, "The United States of America", The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol.12, p.166).
Future?
"In 1932 ... Hoover lost control over Congress, which was horrified by the deficit and insisted that the budget had to be brought back into balance after two years of deficit. The 1932 Revenue Act saw the greatest taxation increase in US history in peacetime, with the rate on high incomes jumping from a quarter to 63 percent. This made nonsense of Hoover's earlier tax cuts, but by this time Hoover was not in a position to pursue a coherent policy..." (Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, pp.617-620). "Even after massive tax increases in 1932, receipts in 1933 were down by 41 percent from 1929" (James DaleDavidson & William Rees-Mogg, The Great Reckoning, p.395). |
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| To: freeus who wrote (238) | 6/23/2002 6:22:05 PM | | From: shadowman | | | | "Telling politicians to 'vote their conscience' is like telling cannibals to eat tofu and alfalfa sprouts."
--James Pinkerton
"Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel."
--John Quinton |
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| To: shadowman who wrote (239) | 6/23/2002 6:49:16 PM | | From: freeus | | | | re the light at the end of the tunnel
You are so right.
In San Diego we have Jack Murphy Stadium, used by a pro baseball and football team. It was within 4 years of being paid off. So what do our politicians do? They decide to do fancy upgrades for a superbowl EVEN THOUGH the NFL chiefs whoever they be said temporary seating would be fine...and cost a timy fraction.
Why are taxpayers paying for stadiums for rich (or poor for that matter) sports franchise owners?
Anyway, so just as the stadium is about to be paid for a new debt is incurred (citizens don't realize that bonds cost them money: the interest is paid and eventually the bonds have to be paid off and if defaulting happens the general fund will be used for that instead of sewers, water systems, etc.)
then the baseball team decides that with the new seating and look the stadium is not "baseball friendly" and that the taxpayers should pay for a baseball stadium!
Meaning that there will be TWO stadiums with HUGE debt to service used by ONE team each!!!!!!
Talk about building more tunnel when you see the light!
Freeus |
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| To: freeus who wrote (240) | 6/24/2002 2:23:09 AM | | From: shadowman | | | | OT. freeus...I see what you mean.
San Diego Wonders if a Losing Team Is Worth Keeping
By JAMES STERNGOLD
SAN DIEGO — It is not often that this sunny community can hold something over its giant nemesis, Los Angeles, but in the mid-1990's San Diego felt as if it had won a double lottery. Not only had its football franchise, the Chargers, made it to the Super Bowl in 1995, but Los Angeles had just lost both of its teams to other cities.
nytimes.com |
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| To: Bill McCabe who wrote (235) | 6/27/2002 12:17:43 PM | | From: Ron | | | | | Bought HGMCY and PAAS as a hedge. Mostly short term trades here, but I like gold's prospects here, in light of economic, political and international trends of the last several months, so am holding longer term in these. |
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| To: freeus who wrote (244) | 7/19/2002 6:24:57 PM | | From: Traveling Man | | | | Freeus,
Gold shot up to around $323 this afternoon. I guess some bonds look good to people,but gold is looking better than stocks,apparently. One thing that bothers me about Harmony.After all the dishonest accounting we've seen here,I wonder about a fast grower like Harmony????????
Sure hope everything is up&up! I'm in deep.
TM |
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