Food For Thought That Matters

With the economy in the shape it is in, Americans still losing their jobs, bail outs and stimulus plans, it is time to take a good look how past Presidents performed in office fiscally and how they protected or wasted the taxpayers money.  The current talk is all about future deficits so lets see what Presidents in the past really showed and executed leadership on the subject. 

 

Presidents don't spend federal dollars but it is their leadership that points our fiscal house in the right direction with a sound fiscal and economic policy, the veto pen and the wisdom to recognize problems.  Why is looking at the past so important?  Because it is the key to the future of changing the status quo and understanding the wrong decisions of the past.  Only fools make the same mistake twice and when we are talking about trillions of taxpayers dollars wasted that is criminal.  Below is the list of Presidents who served beginning with fiscal year 1970, Nixon's first budget year and ending with Bush 43 fiscal budget year ending 9/30/08.  Bush's final fiscal budget year does not end until 9/30/09 so no numbers are available for that year yet.

 

Fiscal Years 1970-1977:  The Nixon-Ford Presidency: 

 

Did not balance one federal budget in the 8 years served.

Accumulated a total budget deficit of $250.8 Billion during that term in office.

That worked out to be an average yearly deficit of $31.3 billion.

Nothing was paid down on the governments public debt.

 

 

Fiscal Years 1978-1981:  The Carter Presidency:

 

Did not balance one federal budget in the 4 years served.

Accumulated a total budget deficit of $252.7 billion during that term in office.

That worked out to be an average yearly deficit of $63.1 billion.

Nothing was paid down on the governments public debt.

 

 

Fiscal Years 1982-1989:  The Reagan Presidency

 

Did not balance one federal budget in the 8 years served:

Accumulated a total budget deficit of $1.4 Trillion during that term in office.

That worked out to be an average yearly deficit of $176.5 billion.

Nothing was paid down on the governments public debt.

 

 

Fiscal Years 1990-1993:  The George Herbert Walker Bush Presidency

 

Did not balance one federal budget  in the 4 years served:

Accumulated a total budget deficit of $1.03 Trillion during that term in office.

That worked out to be an average yearly deficit of $258.9 billion.

Nothing was paid down on the governments public debt.

 

Fiscal Years 1994-2001:  The Clinton Presidency.

 

Ran declining deficits the first 4 years in office to the tune of $496.5 billion.  Ran surpluses last 4 years in office with balanced budgets in last 4 years in office. 

Accumulated a budget surplus of $62.8 billion during his term in office.

That worked out to be an average yearly surplus of $7.9 billion.

Paid down $453 billion on the governments public debt.

 

Fiscal Years 2002-2008:  The George W. Bush Presidency.

 

Did not balance one federal budget in first 7 years in office.

Accumulated a total budget deficit of $2.13 Trillion during his first 7 years in office.

That worked out to be an average yearly deficit of $304 billion.

Nothing was paid down on the governments public debt.

 

Note:  Mr. Bush has one more fiscal year budget that ends 9/30/09.  The CBO has already reported the deficit for Mr. Bush's last fiscal year budget will run approximately $1 trillion. 

 

The above represents over $5 trillion of deficit spending not counting Mr. Bush's last budget which is slated to add another $1 trillion to the total.  When you add the interest Uncle Sam has paid on the borrowed money to finance the deficit spending it comes to over $7 Trillion.  That's a total of over $12 trillion.  If any one thinks that is being fiscally responsible, may God help America.  That $7 trillion paid in interest did not educate one child or improve the quality of life for the people. 

 

The past dictates that the future has to change and that Presidents have to set a new course and be fiscally responsible with the taxpayers money.  Real economic and fiscal plans that work and are realistic have to be adopted.  Meanwhile, the people should tune out CNBC and CNN's so called money advise shows.  Journalists on those programs never touch on the massive deficits and debt.  They along with the financial institutions who love those trillions of dollars in interest paid on the debt have failed the American people.

 

The numbers of the Bush 43 Presidency have been devastating.  The American people need to demand change and never take no for an answer.  This is a critical time that should never have been with the proper fiscal Presidential leadership.  It is ironic that those Presidents who claimed to be conservatives hurt our country and people the most with their reckless spending.  They not only failed the test, they were given 28 years at the helm of the American ship and failed big time. 

Above information on Budget numbers taken from Congressional Budget Office Reports.

A Time To Move Forward

Now that the Presidents stimulus plan has been signed into law and his proposal to help rescue millions of Americans because of foreclosure on their homes has been announced, it is time to look forward and work for a better world for our children and grand children.  There is still much to be accomplished to reverse the greed and damage that the nation has experienced but the people can not and should not be side tracked from the journey ahead.

 

No matter what happens, the negative voices on radio and television will continue to try and divide America and its people.  We know from the past those voices have nothing to offer for the advancement of idea's that will carry our nation and people in the right direction to solve the problems of the past that have been with us far to long.

 

Our country has not survived over 200 years of history by accident.  We have had more good leaders than bad who put country and its people first, who overcame doubt with positive action.  A nation with ideals was our founders compass and every time we strayed from those ideals, a new leader emerged to get us back on tract.  We live in an imperfect world and we and our leaders are imperfect people, but we know right from wrong, good from evil, truth from lies and fact from fiction.  Therefore we have the ability to tune out those negative no nothing voices who try to divide us. 

 

Our people have to become once again leaders instead of followers.  Our future depends on that attitude, that can do spirit that rise above all the petty ideology that has harmed the country with personal superiority that is preached by those negative voices.  The future is ours to improve and safeguard for future generations.  We know the way because we have experienced the past and the failures.  All of us have a stake in life to make it better and for all of us to share in the benefits of what can be.  Anything short of that is a betrayal of what America is all about. 

AWOL On Obama's Stimulus Plan

Louisiana U.S. Representatives in congress, republicans Anh Joseph Cao and Steve Scalise met with port of New Orleans executives and other industry leaders to promote the ports master plan for 2020 reported the New Orleans Times Picayune in an articled published February 18.  The story pointed out port CEO Gary LaGrange said the key to job creation and to keep those jobs was more investment in the port by the state and federal governments.

 

Scalise said money needs to be poured into improving the port because it has been neglected for years by the state.  It was noticeable Scalise failed to point out he served in the state legislature during that time.  It was also noted that the meeting coincided with President Obama signing the stimulus plan passed by congress and opposed by both Scalise and Cao.  Their excuse for not supporting the stimulus plan in congress made them feel inadequate so they met with port officials to push for state and federal help for the port.

 

The stimulus plan passed by congress will put industry and people to work and ship material thru the port of New Orleans but Scalise said the plan was not responsible at a time when we need to control spending.  He was obviously talking about the record deficit spending and debt created by Mr. Bush the last 8 years.  The American people can be sure that the next President to control spending and balance the federal budget will be another democrat.  Mr. Scalise and Mr. Cao's party have no record to run on when it comes to controlling spending and balancing the budget.

 

Scalise and Cao may be new republican faces in congress but their ideology still represents the failed policies of the past that has been devastating the country and the people.

The Democrats Respond To Corporate Greed

The $787 billion economic stimulus plan that passed the House and Senate contains a provision that would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions.  The provisions would prohibit cash bonuses and almost all other incentive compensation for the 5 most senior officers and the 20 highest paid executives at large companies that receive money under the TARP program, the New York Times reported.

 

The provisions was written by Democratic Senator Chris Dodd and would bar top executives from receiving bonuses that exceed 1/3 of their annual salary.  Bonus money would have to be in the form of long term incentives, like restricted stock, which cannot be cashed out until the TARP money is paid back in full.  The new rules will help ensure that taxpayer dollars non longer effectively subsidize lavish Wall Street bonuses Dodd said.  The top economic advisers to President Obama opposed the pay restrictions.

 

I believe that Dodd's provision and the Democrats willingness to embrace this common sense approach captures the feeling of the people concerning Corporate greed and the need to control this transfer of wealth.  It should be noted that only 3 republican Senators voter yes for the economic stimulus plan while all republicans in the House voted No.

 

President Obama and those that voted for the plan were willing to face the severe problem the economy is in and take action they believe was required.  Future action by the President and congress should be progressive and tackle those problems that have been left to fester by the previous administration.

 

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Does he really represent a new thinking for the republican party like people in the news media say as they promote him the rising star of the GOP.  The press in Louisiana is promoting him as such every chance they have.  As of this writing his accomplishments have been little in the year that he has been governor.  Obviously that is not long enough to judge the merits so lets look at some of his comments to try and understand what his ideology may really be.

 

In the February 12 issue of the Times Picayune on page A-15 Jindal told an audience in North Carolina that voters in 2006 and 2008 fired the republicans in congress and in the minds of too many the republican party has become the party big government spending, earmarks and the party of corruption in Washington, the party of Wall Street and big corporations.  No one can disagree with that description of the GOP but he forgot to mention that the GOP is the party of record deficit spending and debt creation.  In fact the last 5 republican Presidents in the last 38 years have not balanced one federal budget in all those years.  He neglected to mention that the republican party has no record of creating a sustained economy or job creation.

 

Jindal's was reported to say his solution would be to restore what he calls America's core cultural values, which he says are under assault by Television, Hollywood, the music industry and the Internet.  If that sounds familiar it should because that is the same ideology Ronald Reagan ran on almost 30 years ago and every republican President since.  There is nothing new there for Jindal.  It is the same divisive issues used in the past by the republican party.  One would think with the U.S. in the deepest economic trouble in 50 years, with massive job loses the governor would have something to say to address that priority.  It should be noted that Governor Jindal said that if he was still a member of congress he would have opposed both the House and Senate version of the stimulus plan as reported by the Times Picayune on Feb. 11, page A-4.  Jindal did not say what he would do to help the economic recovery.

 

Gov. Jindal failed his leadership role when he was silent when the Louisiana legislature raised its members pay which outraged the public and finally the governor vetoed the measure when it got to be his hot potato.  He supported the cancellation of the Stelly Tax plan which the Time Picayune reported cost the state a loss of over $300 million in revenue.  Now with the next state budget projecting a huge deficit the governor has mandated cuts in higher education and other area's. 

 

Commissioner of higher education Sally Clausen said her staff and the state's college system presidents have been looking at economies in programs as they face cuts as much as $382 million in the coming year as reported in the Times Picayune of Feb. 13, page A-2.  The loss in revenue of the Stelly plan has made the budget crisis worse.  There is no question there are times to cut taxes but republicans have a history of cutting taxes for votes and then get into the pockets of the average citizen 100 different ways.  Governor Jindal talks a good game but real action on important issues are lacking. 

 

Jindal has had fund raising events out of state in North Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Connecticut and Mississippi so far to date.  It is obvious his mind is on a national office.  I have no problem with that but his priority should be the people of Louisiana.  A changed republican?  The record so far does not support that conclusion.

Update on Previous Commentary of Politidose

This will update Part III of "The U.S. Economy, What Party Performs Best" published on February 25, 2008.

 

The budget deficit is in for fiscal year ending 9/30/08 concerning Bush's second to last budget.  The deficit came in at $454.8 billion.  Another record for Mr. Bush and it does not even contain any of the $700 billion bail out package Mr. Bush urged congress to pass.  That will come in Mr. Bush's final budget ending fiscal 9/30/09.  The 2008 budget deficit is just another reminder of the damages caused and created by republican policies.  Mr. Bush's administration has the distinction of having the four worst budget deficits in U.S. history and still has one more budget to go.

 

The damages caused by Bush's reckless spending and debt is compounded by the loss of the projected $5.6 trillion surplus projected by the Clinton administration that Bush used to justify his tax reductions that benefited the wealthy the most.  One can understand why the economy has failed and so many jobs have been lost under Mr. Bush's administration.  Conservative republicans?  Their record proves otherwise. 

Another First For Politidose

Current economic conditions has prompted journalists in the news media and our elected officials in congress to finally speak out against Corporate America's greed that has been rewarding CEO's and executives lavish bonuses and other financial benefits while their companies are loosing billions of dollars and their workers loosing their jobs and benefits.  However, they have been silent for far too long.  Make no mistake this transfer of wealth goes back to the Reagan years.

 

The problem was pointed out in politidose in two articles dated November 23, 2007 titled, "Corporate America, Leaving The Average Worker in The Dust:"  And one reported on July 23, 2008, titled, "Innovation, Lost In America."  This was long before the people found out about the meltdown on wall street and the financial markets.  The media and the republicans have also been silent during the same time concerning the massive deficits and debt created by Ronald Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 during the 20 years they served and ran the country.

 

Journalists and republicans now want to talk about future deficits after the damage has already been done.  Their lack of credibility on the subject speaks for itself.  Both will also forget about Corporate greed in the next few months and will continue to support Corporate greed and the transfer of wealth as legitimate business decisions in a free enterprise system.  That has always been their position in the past.

 

Also look for journalists and republicans to use the current economic situation to open the door for the elimination of Social Security and Medicare.  That is one of the main reasons why the last 3 republican Presidents created so much debt for the country.

Republican Lies And Ditto Heads

For the past eight years our people have been exposed to the lies of President Bush, Dick Chaney and the republicans.  They adopted the philosophy of Karl Rove that if you keep repeating the same lies over and over the people will start to believe they are fact.  President Obama's stimulus proposal before congress is bringing our the same Karl Rove philosophy from some republicans.

 

As reported from the Washington Bureau published in the New Orleans Times Picayune dated February 6, republican Senator David Vitter said this.  "The extra spending (concerning the stimulus) will put the country on a spiral of deficit spending for many years to come."  Fact:  Mr. Vitter forgot to remind the public that the last three republican Presidents have already put our country on a 20 year spiral of deficit spending and debt.

 

Mr.Vitter also said, "I don't know anyone, democratic or republican who wouldn't trade the current economy for the job growth that the Bush, Reagan and Kennedy tax cuts produced."  Fact:  The current economy is the Bush economy that has lost over 3 million jobs in the last 13 months and has produced the lowest job growth since the Eisenhower administration that ended 47 years ago.  President Carter who only served 4 years had a better job growth rate than Bush who served 8 years.  Fact: President Kennedy's tax cut did not favor the wealthy and the Kennedy-Johnson administration produced the only balanced budget besides President Clinton in the past 40 plus years.  The job growth under Reagan does not even come close to Clinton's job growth and of course Reagan never balanced one federal budget in his 8 years in office.  Republicans don't even know the meaning of the word "surplus."

 

Now lets look at what republican Steve Scalise had to say in reply to President Obama's statement that past republican tax cuts have failed and helped to give us the present economic meltdown.  "History shows us that tax cuts have proven to grow the economy and increase revenues to the federal government while also creating jobs.  The problem has been that both republican and democrat have spent even more money thanthe tax cuts brought in."  Fact: History has shown just the opposite.  Republican tax cuts that favor the wealthy and known as trickle down economics have never produced a sustained economy, sustained job creation, low unemployment or a balanced budget.  The unemployment rate is now at 7.6%.  When George Bush took office it was 4.2% thanks to the Clinton administrations fiscal and economic policies.  Fact:  In the past 28 years only republican administrations spent more money that tax cuts brought in.  President Clinton's fiscal and economic policy and selected tax cuts gave the country the greatest economy, created a record number of new jobs and created surpluses.  No republican administration can match that.

 

It is obvious why Mr. Vitter and Mr. Scalise never mentioned the Clinton administration.  It would only remind the people of how well they did during those 8 years and that republicans have no record to run on. Karl Rove's philosophy is still playing out in the name of Vitter and Scalise.

 

Note:  The U.S. Labor Department reported that for the year 2008 the economy lost a net of 2.9 million jobs.  The highest job losses in a single year in the history of our country.  That is Bush and the republican record of what trickle down economics has produced.  Vitter and Scalise do not know the meaning of truth or facts.  Trickle down economics is a myth of those republicans who feel so inadequate they can not tell the facts.

A Conversation With Corporate America

More and more details are coming out each day how CEO's and executives of Corporate America have been fleecing their own companies and their average worker with lavish bonuses for themselves taking billions of dollars.  CNN's Headline News reported that CEO's and executives of wall street, financial firms and other businesses received almost $100 billion in bonuses in 2008.  Yea you read right, that's billions.

 

I reported earlier how Merrill Lynch gave its CEO's and executives approximately $4 billion in bonuses one month early because of the Bank of America buy out.  It matters not that Merrill Lynch was losing billions of dollars at the same time.

 

One can imagine the conversation coming out of Corporate America's board rooms between their CEO's and executives.  I think it went some thing like this.

              Our company is losing billions of dollars and will be reporting that in our financial statements soon.

              We need to reduce our work force, cut salary, cut back working hours, reduce our compensation or

              eliminate our contribution to our workers IRA and 401 plans, reduce insurance benefits and warn

              our employees there will be more cuts to come.  Mean while we will reward our CEO's and

              executives with bonuses, stock options and other benefits despite these difficult times.

 

I believe this type of conversation has taken place in many board rooms in Corporate America and I believe the facts as they are unfolding and being made know every day prove the existence of this type of conversation. 

 

We have a recession that started in December 2007, over 2.6 million jobs have been lost just in the last 12 months and more are announced every day.  Workers pay have been cut and benefits reduced or eliminated, home foreclosures at an all time high and the list goes on and on.  The transfer of wealth from the average worker to Corporate America has been complete.  Greed is the corrupting influence and the people responsible for this transfer of wealth need to be dealt with.  They do not deserve any respect and have no place in the board rooms of Corporate America.

Living With The Cycle Of Time

Most everyone has heard the expression, "things seem to happen in cycles."  That expression is usually used when several events happen in a short period of time.  The truth is we do live in a cycle of time and everything we do is related to that cycle.

 

We count time because of the movement of earth and the moon.  Planet earth takes 365 days to make one complete orbit of the sun.  That cycle of time we count as a year on earth and we also celebrate birthdays on that cycle of time.  At the same time earth is orbiting the sun it is rotating on its axis and takes 24 hours to make one complete revolution.  That 24 hour rotation is the cycle of time we call a day.  The day is divided into twelve double hours that we designate day and night.

 

Our calendar is based on these cycles of time and is a solar calendar.  The Muslim calendar is based on the movement of the moon and is called a lunar calendar.  Earthly time began on earth in 3760 b.c. and the Jewish people still use that calendar today.  The Jewish calendar reads the year 5769 instead of the western world calendar of 2009.

 

The cycle of time fits a mathematical scheme.  The cycle of 60 seconds equals one minute and the cycle of 60 minutes equals one hour.  What do the numbers 12, 24 and 60 have in common?  They can all be divided into 360 evenly, the number of degrees in a circle.  The number 12 has always been considered a sacred number.  There were 12 Apostles, twelve tribes of Israel and 12 houses of the zodiac.

 

Our ancient ancestors built temples that were oriented to earth's movement to tell time and to celebrate various events.  Our nation celebrates Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.  That is Easters cycle of time.

 

Everything we do in life is related to our way of counting time.  A change in the cycle of time as we know it would result in a disruption of our hours, days, weeks, months, years, night and day, our four seasons and just about everything we touch. 

 

For those who worry about their age factor keep this in mind.  Since we use the cycle of 365 earth days to count one year on our planet, a person who is 75 on earth would be only 6 years of age if he lived on Jupiter because it takes Jupiter approximately 12 earth orbits around the sun to complete one year on Jupiter.  So age is related to the cycle of time of the planet one lives on.  This should give people another perspective how to look at ones age.

 

The average person does not give it much thought but our cycle of time keeping is very orderly and fits in with our place in the universe.