November 23, 2009 06:00 PM
Conason Reminds Scarborough That The Iraq War and Tax Cuts Ballooned the Deficit
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h/t Bob Cesca:
Joe Scarborough thinks the $3 trillion Iraq war that was accompanied by tax cuts didn't balloon the deficit more than the current healthcare bill. You know, the healthcare bill that's entirely paid for -- and will actually reduce the deficit.
Guest Joe Conason made the mistake of pointing this out, stirring Scarborough into one of his little freakouts. Of course he denied supporting the combination of wars and tax cuts, which, if you watched any cable news during that time, is total horseshit.
Nothing like pointing out a few facts to make Scarborough's head explode. I don't know how Conason manages to suffer through being a guest on that show.
If Scarborough had an intellegent thought he would still be on the vening shift. Instead he is on my shift where I have no real choice as to what news to watch. However, CNN is getting better.
S has selective memory just like most Rethugs.
It has been said before and I will be happy to repeat it. Republicanism is a mental disease. S has a terminal one.
Here he is polishing up the economic outlook under Bush during the elections:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw6xq4cGnKg
Basically stating the economy will be fine and we don't need to worry about spending - and he blames homeowners for the problem. Also, note how he boasts about the company Caterpillar and his forecast for them. This guy makes Jim Cramer look like Nostradamus.
Joe reminds me of this recent profile from The Onion:
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
but what else can you expect from a republican!
Sure Joe. Your MSM induced amnesia doesn't fool us.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Sick theater. Glad I don't watch those shows. Kinda like political porn.
If porn where to tell you there was a money shot when in fact there wasn't. Would give new meaning to the term "smoking gun".
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
Whatever makes your cobra spit!
;P
I deliberately avoid this disgusting pig and his symbiotic GF, who both make me physically ill!
When confronted with verifiable facts and reliable forecasts by experts, he blusters, repeats lies, and engages in ad hominem -- and at the end, tries to support his bullshit by citing his own book.
And he does all of the above with a constant sneer and supercilious tone.
What an asshole.
I seldom am able to watch Joe Scarborough (in the logistical sense), and given this opportunity, I find myself unable to stomach him, either.
I don’t understand Joe. At the end he says that in his book he noted that “You can’t fight two wars and cut taxes at the same time. It will ruin the economy.” Just before he says that the Iraq/Afghan wars did not contribute that much to the debt/deficit. How can you reconcile these conflicting ideas? Oh, that’s right – he doesn’t. He’s using his book to prove wrong that which his book says is true.
I don’t give much credit to those conservatives who never admit mistakes, Joe.
That's ok, Joe doesn't understand Joe either.
That's what's so RIGHT about Joe; he's always wrong!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Ouch! GOP hack gets pwned with reality check!
If only we had freedom of the press in this country to constantly shine the light of fascism on these assholes.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
joe scarbutt is a condescending asshole.
what an arrogant miscreant.
Joeknows that he can talk crap all day long because, unless he gets real stupid all of a sudden, he'll always have a fat bank account.
...speaking the truth to an unrepentant murderer is truly a waste of time.
Don't forget to spread it around. People don't know about his female aide who was found dead in his office. We must remind them. This ended his political career!
When Joe was on the Colbert Report in 2008, he pretty much summarized the Bush fiscal legacy then, namely, that he took an economy that was generating budget surpluses, with projections that the deficits could be entirely wiped out, and wound up nearly doubling the deficits.
He turned over to Obama two military quagmires, a collapsed banking system, and an economy in free fall.
Scarborough does say one thing I picked up on and agree with, that we need to stop being the world's 911. Seeing that we spend as much as the rest of the world combined on defense, (I think before war spending), cutting defense spending no longer should be off the table.
As far as the costs of the Iraq policy is concerned, I think that some of the costs of Afghanistan should be charged to the Iraq policy, because the Iraq policy placed Afghanistan on the back burner, and caused that war to be extended. The fact that both those wars were turned over to Obama, rather than already being concluded is a debacle in its own right.
That is the reason we continue to get credit from many nations. Our job is to keep shipping lanes safe and open. Pesky neighbors of our friends in check. Secret nuclear powers supplied with weapons. Keep unruly representative governments from coming to power in friendly dictatorships.
When pirates off the coast of Africa cause trouble and we don't handle the situation and keep that area safe for the world, we are failing in our mission. What other reason is there for us to have a military budget larger than the rest of the world....combined.
What you need to remember is, that why we spend more than the rest of the world combined, our troops couldn't get body armor, and their parents had to pay to provide said armor. Meanwhile 40 Senators voted to continue the F-22 program, which was viewed by DOD as unnecessary.
Eisenhower warned that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." But the same influence is obtained by large multi-nationals in general, and is not confined to the military=industrial complex.
It is the corporate bribery of the government, whether it's the military-industrial complex, or Wall Street financial corporations, or the health industry corporations, that is driving this nation into insolvency.
To fix the problem, the problem needs to be identified. Bribery/corruption is the key problem. Everything else is symptoms of the problem.
..to Bribery/corruption and you'll have hit the trifecta.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
My morning joe isn't stale and bitter.
Hey Scar. Here's something else you can read over a glass of fiscal conservative Kool-Aid.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/...
this morning... and WAS DELIGHTED. The FIRST thing I noticed was Joe's body language with his arms folded in his "HAUGHTY/CONFRONTATIONAL" self... so I KNEW he was talking to somebody SMART and LIBERAL. In a few minutes Conason had CLEANED HIS CLOCK... and Joe was stammering over some bullshit book he wrote a dozen years ago.
My coffee tasted better, I smiled at my wife, and I even patted the dog's head on the way out the door.
that once one of these righties would admit their error; if only on one or two points. They never do; even when someone like Conason backs them into a corner.
Ugh!
and what I loved most about Conason was how he kept his voice at a normal, conversational level that made JS appear even sillier than he usually is.
It was just like a Dad disciplining an errant son.
My hat is certainly off to him for that...but he didn't LOOK like he felt like keeping it at a normal, conversational level...he looked like he would have loved to have stomped MJ all over the place. Or at least bitch-slapped the jerk.
Keep stammering Joe, maybe if you keep doing it, we'll get distracted from the truth that Conason is telling us.
someone calls "Dead Intern Joe" on his rethug hack bullshit, his eyes narrow, and his body language is that of someone with anger management issues. Lori Klasutis' death looks less and less mysterious to me.
How can Scarborough's eyes "narrow" any more than they are usually? This dude makes the banjo-playing kid from "Deliverance" look like a wide-eyed non-Fetal-Alcohol-Syndrome-suffering optimist!
like a Republican..."
No REPUKEs have consciences! That's why they all lie and steal and cheat!!!!!!
and a female employee is found one morning in his office with a cracked skull. He also abruptly resigns from Congress shortly after being reelected to "spend more time with his family"
Coincidence?
and please KEEP TALKING ABOUT IT!!!!!!
wrong is that you will always be wrong.
There's something about this guy that doesn't smell right.
He's never had to really explain why he resigned from Congress so abruptly after spending all that time, effort and money to get elected.
I don't buy that "spend more time with family" bullshit.
It funny to watch Joe confronted with facts. It's like a bung hole confronted with bad chili at a dive bar. Fluttering, stuttering, spraying, and stinking up the room. Slimey residue running down his leg. Making everybody in the room nauseous. What a piece of drippy dung. Shit stained tard. Who will relieve us of this vile filth, Scro-brow. Help us all.
i bring up this MEDiCARE D program to Republicans and I get glazed eyes and mouth breathing. I had no idea the GOA is saying the program will COST more than $7 trillion dollars. The extreme right and teabaggers are marching around with a righteous attitude about the perceived deficit since obama got into office. This MEDiCARE D program was NOT paid for......is NOT smaller government and is less than
"free market". TRY it sometime watch the eyes spin around like a slot machine with smoke coming out of their ears........hypocrites.
Medicare D came around because it was not politically feasible to lock up Grandma for importing drugs from Canada. So, to stop the increasing importation of drugs from foreign countries, Medicare D was enacted. Since the implementation, importation of prescription drugs has all but disappeared from the political landscape.
"By the design of the program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as federal agencies do in other programs. The Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Part_D
So, like the current health reform legislation, the primary objective of Medicare D was first and foremost to preserve corporate profits.
.
Q U E S T I O N:
Why is it the fault of the man who inherited the large deficit...
... And not the fault of the man who handed it off in such a state?
If the measurement is to be "What he[Obama] does with the finances" as the defining argument...
... How about dealing with how he[Bush] dealt with the same?
THIS DID NOT HAPPEN IN A VACUUM...
... But as long as Joe Scar and the rest of the MSM that dominate our opinions/discourse/newstainment, a vacuum exists.
.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
This is part-and-parcel of the attempt to stuff the administration of George W. Bush--The Worst President In United States History--down the memory hole. That eight years didn't happen, according to The Villagers, and less than one year of Barack Obama has brought us to the brink of economic ruin.
Don't let it happen! Challenge anyone who tries to blame the deficit on Obama. Remind them of the tax cut for the rich, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Medicare Drug "Benefit", and the TARP bailout. The war in Iraq accounts for $1.2 billion per month. That's BILLION. What is $1.2 billion times seventy-eight? The Medicare Scam cost us seven trillion, more-or-less. Now, they're telling us that every extra soldier we send into Afghanistan will cost us another billion dollars. Since we've been there for eight years, extrapolate that billion bucks per soldier up until today, And--don't forget--that the wars were "paid for" "off-the books."
Let's leave aside the exorbitant contracts awarded to Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, KBR, etc. The above paragraph adds up to quite a bit of money. And let's not forget the $768 billion Fed-Treasury hold-up that is TARP.
The ONLY reason we're not in a declared depression right now is that the Obama stimulus package was sufficient to interpose a quarter or two of growth into what is an economic crash-dive. That's why The Villagers refer to our current plight as "The Great Recession." It's a dodge. Rest assured: This is the Second Great Depression. People don't have money. They don't have jobs. They don't have the security that most of us grew up taking for granted.
Put the blame where it lie... on George W. Bush: The Worst President In United States History.
In World War 2 everyone shared the burden of the crises. Tax rates were the HIGHEST in history.
The REPUGS tried to do their war on the cheap and have their money too.
The ONLY people making ANY sacrifices were the TROOPS, their FAMILIES and the rest of the WORKING NATION that suffered LOSS WAGES even as productivity rose.
THE CURRENT CRISES... brought to US ALL by the REPUBLICANS...
fuck them all...
..so true!
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
It would literally kill them to do anything for the common good or the everyday American. Corporations shit through the rectums of the republican party right on the heads of the American people time after time.
I saw this and my first thought was this guy has no foundation of what he believes. He simply starts spouting off in a direction and then finds himself in a corner based on what he has said before. Fox is truly ultra-right and this guy is all over the place; not a good rep for progressives. If you want to see progressive passion watch "The Ed Show"!!
over and over again.
...a car at 120 mph toward a cliff and ten feet from the edge hops out the door and lets someone else take over behind the wheel, it is the second driver who is responsible for the disastrous fall into the abyss.
Yep, Joe, we'd be a lot better off if the Feds had skipped preventing the global economy from collapsing. The US, with other presidents before Bush also taking turns behind the wheel, has been heading toward the abyss for many years. As in Afghanistan, Obama's economic choices were severely limited when he took office. Had he followed the advice of some economists and pushed for an even larger stimulus package, the short term deficit picture would undoubtedly look worse, but the long-term outlook might be a lot brighter. It's entirely possible that Bush's extraordinarily reckless tenure finally pushed this country beyond the point of return -- it seems possible now that no matter what current and future presidents do, our economy is in the trunk of that car and there's no parachute on board. Adios amigos.
At the very end he says "I wrote in my book in 2004 that you can't have two wars, tax cuts, and a $7Trillion dollar entitlement program"
He just made Conasan's point for him. What a douchebag.
The real story needs to get out. The current deficit hawks need to be called on their votes for the two wars, unfunded Medicare D, and the 2.3 trillion in tax cuts. Reminded how in 2000 we were looking at a bufget surplus and what the Repubs and other current obstructionists did to it. Call them out on all their BS and educate the public. Do it constantly by scolding them on the floor of Congress and naming names. Get this in the news. Let their constituents know about the monies they are getting from those opposed to reform.
Why does Mika Brzezinski make my head explode?
And who names their kid after a rock? .... Ho, sorry, "mica"..... Anyways, why does "Mika" make my head explode?
of the abuser Joe!
The absolutely only issue the Republicans "think" they have on Obama is the deficit. However, it is a complete pack of lies to blame Obama for the deficit. It was years in the making and the deficit can almost entirely be blamed on Bush.
The national debt itself doubled under Bush from about $4 trillion to $8 trillion. Bush left Obama with a 2009 budget deficit of $1.3 trillion, which was the number for 2009 before Obama even took office. Bush left Obama two unresolved wars, the worst economy since the great depression, and a huge debt.
I suggest you read this very good analysis of were the expected deficits and increase in the debt has really come from. It is an analysis of what the CBO has said on the debt issue and who is to blame. Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/ec...
The deficit that is expected over the next three years can almost entirely be blamed on Bush, even if you factor in the stimulus bill. Healthcare reform is paid for.
Bush's deficit spending and the Bush recession are the biggest cause of the current expected deficits. Obama's agenda is estimated to only responsible for 3% of the increase in the deficit over the next three years and the stimulus plan another 7%, which never would have had to be done without the Bush recession. So at max Obama may be able to held account for 10% of the deficit, which took many years to build. In fact, if the stimulus helps pull the economy earlier out of the recession or limits its damage, the stimulus spending may have had a net positive impact on the deficit; ie. it helped tax revenues recover sooner.
Here is a summary of how it breaks out. There was a $800 million surplus when Clinton left office. Through 2009 to 2012 the country is expected to run a +$1.2 trillion deficit per year. Therefore there has been a $2 trillion swing in the deficit since Clinton's surplus.
This is how the deficit happened.
37% of the $2 trillion swing in the deficit came from the recession. ie. reduced tax revenue
33% came from legislation signed by Bush, including tax cuts and prescription drug benefits that were not paid for
20% came from Obama extending the Bush policies like the wars and tax cuts; but also the TARP
7% came from the stimulus bill
3% comes from the Obama agenda on healthcare, education, energy and etc.
Net-net more than 90% of the deficit expected between 2009 and 2012 can be blamed either directly or indirectly on the Bush years. The Bush recession, the Bush wars, the Bush tax cuts, unfunded drug bill, etc. In fact, you could argue that the 7% the stimulus bill will contribute is also Bush's fault because without the Bush recession there would be no need for the stimulus bill. And the stimulus bill is not just a negative contributor to the deficit, it also is likley helping tax revenues to recover, as it helps the economy.
I think not. Scarborough and Buchanan come to mind immediately for reasons why they fail if that's their goal, but I think having CNBC analysts on is another reason why as well.
Scarborough comes off reasonable some of the time, but he usually slides into these types of fits. What makes this show even worse is Mika's apparent little crush she has on Scarborough (and watch the show a few times and you'll begin to notice it). Then there's Mika's constant defense of Sarah Palin as being a "poor picked on woman in a man's world" when Palin is the one that goes out there... you know what, you all know this. Anyway, Morning Joe is better than Imus in the Morning before it, but it's still a shitty show... I do kind of enjoy Way Too Early with Willy Geist though.
MSNBC runs three liberal shows a day for three hours (Shultz, Olbermann and Maddow). They also run three hours of the conservative Scarborough. Most of the rest of the programming on MSNBC is conservative. In the past they booted Phil Donahue's show for being too against the Iraq war. MSNBC is far from being liberal.
I would love to see three hours of a liberal show on FOX every single day, similar to Scarborough.
Again we have a case of the Republicans needing to be reminded that it was under THEIR majority rule that brought our country to the precipice, A majority rule that included eight years of rubber-stamping Bush$Co. Yet they conveniently forget and refuse to take responsibility for the unforgivable mess they created.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
Why is that bobble head, bleach blonde even there for? Hilarious just how worthless female Reslugs are.
He is absolutely incapable of surviving on his own. They are tied at the hip!!! Watch how she saves him! It's called a SYMBIOTIC relationship!
Told Joe last year...........
"You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."!
That was hilarious, I loved it!
of his daughter!
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