Category Archives: Photos

Bloomberg: “Republican Leaders Voted for Debt Drivers They Blame on Obama”

Posted on by
149

What do you know, some journalists actually do their job:

//

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nationā€™s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.
Together, a Bloomberg News analysis shows, these initiatives added $3.4 trillion to the nationā€™s accumulated debt and to its current annual budget deficit of $1.5 trillion.

// snip

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost almost $1.3 trillion since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, according to a March 29 analysis by the Congressional Research Service. Operations in Iraq have cost $806 billion, and in Afghanistan $444 billion. The analysis shows the government has spent an additional $29 billion for enhanced security on militia bases and $6 billion remains unallocated.
Medicare Drug Benefit
The 2003 Medicare prescription program approved by President George W. Bush and a Republican-dominated Congress has cost $369 billion over a 10-year time frame, less than initially projected by Medicare actuaries.
Nine Senate Republicans, including Nebraskaā€™s Chuck Hagel, along with 25 Republicans in the House, voted against the bill. Hagel argued that it failed to control costs and would add trillions in debt for future generations.
ā€œRepublicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility,ā€ Hagel wrote in a 2003 editorial in the Omaha World Herald. ā€œWe have lost our way.ā€
TARP, the $700-billion bailout of banks, insurance and auto companies, has cost less than expected. McConnell, Boehner, Cantor and Ryan all voted in October 2008 for the program, which stoked the rise of the Tea Party movement.
Many institutions have repaid the government. The latest estimated lifetime cost of the program is $49.33 billion, according to a June 2011 report by the Treasury Department. That figure includes the $45.61 billion cost of a housing program which the administration never expected to recoup.
Rank-and-file Republicans are eager to pin the blame on Democrats, frequently pointing to the economic stimulus signed by Obama in 2009. The total cost of the stimulus will be $830 billion by 2019, according to a May 2011 Congressional Budget Office report.
Thatā€™s half the cost of the Bush tax cuts and less than two-thirds of what has been spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

*********************************************************************************

PBO and VPB visited the Norwegian embassy on Tuesday to pay respects in wake of deadly terror attacks in Oslo.

Let’s keep crashing their sites!

Posted on by
31

You heard the president, let’s go.

*
*

House Representatives on Twitter

House home page

Senate home page

Online Congressional Directory

Weeper of the House site

Weeper of the House on Twitter: @SpeakerBoehner

Weeper of the House on Facebook

Senate Republicans on Twitter: @Senate_GOPs

More member of Congress on Twitter

********************************************************************************

“America learned that sometimes it’s a good idea to bet on the skinny guy”

Posted on by
151

Yea, no way to touch this man’s swagger. You just can’t. This is hilarious:

***********************************************************************
*
President Obama Addresses Council of La Raza:

*************************************************************************
*

* DON’T FORGET PBO’S ADDRESS AT 9 ET.

*

****************************************************************************