Welcome

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This blog is connected with the web site at http://www.econdataus.com/budget.html. The main purpose of that web site is to organize and present budget and economic data and provide their sources. The purpose of this blog will be to add some commentary and perhaps to promote some discussion of that data.

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Are the 52 Months of Job Growth Under Bush Significant?

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Early into his 2008 State of the Union , President Bush said the following: To build a prosperous future, we must trust people with their own money and empower them to grow our economy. As we meet tonight, our economy is undergoing a period of uncertainty. America has added jobs for a record 52 straight months, but jobs are now growing at a slower pace. On February 1st, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures for January, showing a loss of 17,000 jobs. This ended the streak but Bush continued to mention the record of 52 consecutive months, often crediting it to his tax cuts. For example, on February 8th, Bush said the following during remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference : Despite these dire predictions, the tax cuts we passed contributed to a record 52 months of job creation. (Applause.) They helped produce strong economic growth -- and the increased revenues from that growth have put us on track to a balance our budget by 2012. (Applause.) Here i...
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Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

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January 31st marked the end of Ben Bernanke's 8-year tenure as Federal Reserve Chairman. An article titled "Bernanke Leaves Fed with Record Balance Sheet of $4,102,138,000,000" gives a short history of the actions of the Fed and growth in the Fed Balance Sheet during that time. Following is a short summary of the actions taken from there and Wikipedia : DATES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF FEDERAL RESERVE ACTIONS Program Start End Securities purchased ------- -------- -------- -------------------- QE1 Dec 2008 Mar 2010 agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and agency debt, up to $600 billion total Mar 2009 Mar 2010 expanded to $1.25 trillion in MBS, $175 billion in agency debt, and $300 billion in treasuries QE2 Nov 2010 Jun 2011 longer dated treasuries, at a rate of $75 billion per month for a total of $600 billion Twixt Sep 2011 Dec 2012 longer dated treasuries with funds from selling shorter dated treasuries, total of $400 billio...
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Do Tax Cuts Increase Revenue?

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On November 7th, David Stockman and Mike Pence appeared on This Week with Christiane Amanpour to debate tax cuts. David Stockman was a budget director for President Ronald Reagan and Mike Pence is a Congressman and has been the Chairman of the House Republican Conference for the past two years. A video of the tax cut debate can be found on the This Week website and a transcript can be found at this link . Following is an excerpt from that transcript: PENCE: Before we get -- look, David Stockman is, you know, he's a really famous guy and a thoughtful guy. I just disagree with him vehemently and I, frankly, have for about 30 years. David believes that every tax increase equals a revenue increase, but that's not true. Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues. AMANPOUR: Let me ask David... PENCE: So if we raise taxes, the American people are very likely going to -- the top 1 pe...
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