Reagan wasn't exactly as conservative as people wish he was. He did massively expand regulations on health care (much more than Obamacare) and doubled SS taxes for everyone.

As for the bracket, a President will never be able to win on issues like that in partisian politics. If they do a bracket, they are wasting time. If they don't, they are out of touch with the people. Those on the left gave Bush shit for golfing and other activities. Think Clinton even got shit for going to college basketball games. I think it is important to do stuff like that from time to time. Whether it's filling out a bracket or throwing out a first pitch at a game. They are a figurehead as much as an executive.

Is that federal government spending only or federal and state combined?

I think it's combined government spending at all levels, but I can't find a clear confirmation of that. They tend to be precise with titles at TPM, so I'd expect this isn't just federal spending.

If Obama is really blue and Reagan is really red in that chart, then it's not until the last quarter of the second term that Reagan starts outdistancing, not first term like is mentioned above.

Also keep in mind this is inflation adjusted. Does anyone really think we're spending less right now than we did when Obama entered office? Reagan entered with runaway inflation and got it way down under control. We have other policies screwing with inflation right now (oil speculation, for example) that fiddle with inflation-adjusted numbers.

Unless I'm reading it wrong- that graph goes 80-84 for Reagan (and 09-12 for Obama)

That said, it's always tricky when working in percentages changed because you have to keep in mind where you came from and put that into context.

SI

Crap, too busy at work so read "first term" as "first year". For those keeping score, that's one more check in the "stupid things Greg has said on the forums" column.

Oh dear god. I hope no one is keeping track of the number of stupid things any of us has said here. That would end badly for all of us

SI

The point isn't a comparison between absolute spending levels. Reagan's recovery was fueled by both tax cuts and an extreme increase i government spending. Obama's recovery is fueled by tax cuts, but those are being counteracted by reductions in spending.

That was the constant harping on how much vacation Bush took.

One side is always going to find something to criticize about the other side. The discouraging thing is how many people buy into that view and attach importance to the BS irrelevant stuff that gets blown up as if it was something substantive. That's how one asshole's insistence that Dubya finishing a children's book when the 9/11 attack occurred instead of running panicked out of the room was a dereliction of duty that became further "evidence" of a conspiracy.

I have said it before that I really couldn't care less how often the President (regardless of party) is on vacation. My understanding of the Presidency is that it is a 24/7 job no matter where they are. If something happens, it doesn't matter if they are playing golf, at their kids musical, or having sex with their wife, they are on duty. If they want to hit up Camp David, Hawaii, or Texas every once in a while, I have no problem with that.

CBO: Obamacare to cost $1.76 trillion over 10 yrs | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

shocking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Would make sense for the GOP to put a guy in the general election who didn't create it. Romney can't take advantage of that at all.

If you actully read the report you'll find this:


The total cost was revised downward by 48 billion dollars.

Not really the whole story:

http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/c...0Estimates.pdf

(Page 2) "that amount represents a gross cost to the federal government of $1,762 billion, offset in part by $510 billion in receipts and other budgetary effects"

So, yup, $1.76T - $0.51T = $1.25T. Yes, higher than the initial $900B claims but not double like the crazy headline from the hack Washington Examiner. Basically, there will be $510B in increased revenue from taxes on high end "cadillac" health care plans, penalties paid by employers who don't offer it, and a decrease in reductions from people's taxes as they come off of employer-provided insurance to their own insurance.

No solace for the "starve the government" yahoos out there but part of the cost is actually paid for, which is how things should be. I'd argue that all of it should be paid for but with "discretionary spending" cut to the bone and no one willing to talk substantial tax increases, it is what it is.

So, you folks who want to just lop off all funding to the federal government except for a couple of pet projects like defense- you can just sit this one out. But for the rest of us: "What is the societal value, in dollars, to the increased standard of living it provides by decoupling insurance from employees, bringing our estimated elderly uninsured rate from 18% down to 7% (page 3), and establishing a baseline level of profitability that is not solely stock market driven but more supply and demand driven?". I'm not sure whether $1.2T over a decade is above or below the answer.

SI

Ah, I was trying to find the difference between my numbers and yours and it looks like Table 1 goes 2011-2021 while Table 2 goes through 2012.

SI

176 billion a year?



There you go...paid for it already.

"A new report from the Government Accountability Office reveals that the government is wasting taxpayers' money every day."

This just in...Lance Bass AND Liberace are gay.

I'd have more confidence in this thing if it didn't seem like the be-all end-all measure of success is "# of insured people". That's a meaningless number in itself. I want people to have more access to better healthcare. It seems to me the most important thing to accomplish that is to somehow address healthcare costs. If healthcare is cheaper, people are going to have more access to it whether it's through private insurance/government funded insurance/direct government-provided health care/health care through charities, everything. If the goal is just to label as many people as possible as "insured", that's probably pretty easy to do, but when healthcare costs explode even more in response to that, what's the impact on what SHOULD be the goal - actual access to good healthcare? The whole thing is kind of depressing unless you're a drug company or insurance company or medical services provider. This is such a step away for where we need to go, IMO.

Medicare cost projections have slowed dramatically in the past two years. It's unclear how much of this is due to ACA, but the cost control measures implemented may be doing what you wish.

From the latest Trustees Report:

Now that's definitely an argument I can see. Ultimately, I'm a single payer fan and I think the best efficiency is gained in that health system. "Death panels" where you know going in what is covered and what isn't and where it's decided by as impartial a group as possible is best, in my mind. There's no profit motive, just a desire to get the most bang for the buck- most higher quality of life for the least cost.

However, it's clear to me that we don't and won't have the political climate for that in the next 10 years.

SI

Basically the government said "we're going to pay doctors less", and what do you know it looks like the government will spend less!

And less and less doctors are accepting medicare patients now. I live in the second oldest town in America, believe me when i say doctors f'ing hate medicare.

My company does a lot of work in the healthcare space, and a main reason we see doctors hating on Medicare is due in many cases to the manual record keeping of the doctors. We see the rejections and re-verification levels between Medicare and private insurance are roughly the same. Their inefficiencies in record keeping are masked by the higher private insurance reimbursements and made painfully clear by the lower Medicare reimbursements. When they see they can cut the time spent fixing or re-verifying claims from 6 or more hours per week to less than an hour, it changes their bottom line drastically. One of our biggest customers does over 90% of their billing via Medicare, and they were bought by the biggest home health care company in the country last year for over $1 billion.

Interesting read from the Washington Post.......

Obama’s evolution: Behind the failed ‘grand bargain’ on the debt - The Washington Post

dola

Pretty ballsy stuff from Bristol Palin. Did a good job making the president look pretty hypocritical. I'd argue this is a more well-formed argument than we've ever seen from her mother.

Mr. President, When Should I Expect Your Call? | Bristol Palin

How is this "ballsy"? Of course now the president will look hypocritical if he doesn't call every woman that's ever been defamed. But I guess what I learned from the Colbert Report applies, I believe the president can't have any "actual connection" to these SuperPACs, so he can't ask them to return any money. Anyway, the president is a politician so I wouldn't expect much anyway. I hear Lance Bass is still gay, too.

Fixed.

This is really good work, but who would put this kind of time into something like this?

That is really well done. top comment: "I feel bad for the person who had to watch all those Romney vids" +1 to that.

If only Obama had been willing to speak out in her defense against attacks at some point.

"Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits," Obama said, "and people’s children are especially off limits.
"This shouldn’t be part of our politics," he continued, "It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.
"And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories," he said. "You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits."



SO BRAVE though.

Bush ruined everything for everyone, took so much vacation time that the next guy needs to work non-stop to avoid pissing off the masta.

One guy sounds like he's doing a pro wrestling promo and the other sounds like he's selling insurance. These are going to be some great debates!

It's there a CTRL-function that just pastes in some version of "it's Bush's fault?"

It has to be close to the one used for "it's the liberal's fault."

It might be, but last I check liberals haven't retired to a Texas ranch somewhere. Though to be fair, if they did, I'm sure a lot of people would still be obsessively blaming them for everything years later instead of acknowledging their own parties/candidates failures.

Some of us say it was Bush's fault because he truly was a terrible president, though maybe that is too hard to grasp for the faction cheerleader types that reduce all argument to 'my side/your side'. It is like the Bush Administration read 1984 and thought it was an instruction manual.

Glad to know you're above "my side/your side faction cheerleader stuff", since you're posts wouldn't suggest it.

Get these out of here, you and your nasty facts! Reality is the latest jackassery that spews from Rush Limbaugh's mouth, seriously, get a life you liberal moron with your snobby facts.

I think there was exactly one poster here who had any problem with Obama's bracket (and that was just a snide remark). Obama doesn't need your support on this one.

The only thing you can really hang on Bush is the wars. History won't look down kindly on him for it. Most of the other stuff would have been done anyway by either party. Cutting taxes for everyone despite big spending isn't new or party specific. Same with expanding education, health care, and a slew of other things. You can argue that he should have laid out more stringent regulations for the financial industry, but it's not like Obama or the Dems were interested in doing that either (ever after the collapse).

We get the politicians we elect. Many of the Bush decisions were popular, even if they were the wrong ones. That's our fault as much as it is the fault of the President we elect to make those decisions.

Not shocking. The "independents" are pretty consistant and the others back their team. Don't the polls show the same thing about support for the war? I remember when the Democrats actually had a spine and stood against endless war until it was their team doing the bombing.

I like Obama's stated energy policies a lot (and I have no problem with higher gas prices, I think that's going to be a necessary part of progress), I just wish they weren't completely theoretical. The only noteworthy thing he's accomplished there is helping Solyndra steal federal money.

Monumental week for the Supreme Court, six hours of arguments over ACA. There hasn't been this much time scheduled for a single case in over fifty years.

It's not a very complicated case. The argument length shows they're pretty obsessed with either perception or the policy merits of the plan. If it wasn't for the how important this was policy/political-wise, I'd expect it to be affirmed 8-1 or 9-0. But instead, I'm curious to see if the dissenters will want to go to back to pre-1930 commerce clause interpretation, or if they'll come up with some other wrinkle that nobody's talking about yet. Because even if you're a justice that believes the commerce clause still means something - this doesn't seem like the best place to fight that battle. In this case, unfortunately, I think Congress does have the authority to make healthcare even more expensive and less efficient and accessible.

Ok, I'll bite. Expensive and less efficient--I disagree with you, but you'll never convince me, and I'll never convince you. And I can certainly see your point, and we will just have to see how it goes.

But less accessible? Explain. For all that ACA might have flaws, I have not seen the argument that it makes coverage less accessible in the aggregate.

Well, relatively, in the sense that if healthcare costs continue to explode, we're all going to have less access to care. I think that the goal of Obamacare is for more Americans to count as "insured," and it will probably be successful in that, but we'll have to see how that designation translates into actual healthcare when everything costs even more than it does now.

Though, I kind of wonder too if the system completely blows up, if we'll be forced to go to something that looks more like a universal healthcare or even a single payer system, and if that's by design as well.

Edit: And maybe I'm wrong, I'm no healthcare expert or anything. But when the federal government wanted more people to have access to home ownership, college education, and healthcare - the cost of all three exploded and have caused a ton of hardship - and here we have another "solution" that the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are completely on board with. It's hard to be optimistic, but maybe it's big enough to cause some kind of burst to where we can rebuild it into something efficient.

66 vs 53 is consistent? But yes, the rest are just backing their team.