[Vision2020] Federal Deficit for February Largest in History--Total debt now $22 trillion

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Tue Mar 26 20:10:33 PDT 2019 

Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:

"And remember when Trump would complain that Obama spends too much time on
the golf course?
--------------------------------------
No, I don't remember!

I can't even keep up with the 8,718 "false or misleading" claims by Trump
as
of Feb. 17:
*(UPDATE, Feb. 17: As of 759 days, **the tally is 8,718 claims*
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.e57398108081>
)
according to the Washington Post article copied below.

Good grief!  I just checked the latest update, by clicking on
"the tally is 8,718" as shown above
and as of March 17, 2019 the tally is 9,179!

But don't be fooled by the Washington Post!  Or Dan Rather!  They are,
after all, the "fake news" media!
---------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
---------------------------------------
Dan Rather: Trump criticism of media is 'straight out of Orwell'
By Jacqueline Thomsen <https://thehill.com/author/jacqueline-thomsen>
- 07/28/18
04:29 PM EDT

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/399355-dan-rather-trump-criticism-of-media-is-straight-out-of-orwell

“As several people have said before me, he is not just attacking the truth,
he wants to annihilate the truth,” the former anchor added. “He wants to
move us completely into the post-truth political era in which there’s no
such thing as objective facts.”

----------------------------------------
President Trump made 8,158 false or misleading claims in his first two years

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/21/president-trump-made-false-or-misleading-claims-his-first-two-years/?utm_term=.999d476331f1

Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, Meg Kelly

*UPDATE, Feb. 17: As of 759 days, **the tally is 8,718 claims*
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.e57398108081>

Two years after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made 8,158
false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that
analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the
president.

That includes an astonishing 6,000-plus such claims in the president’s
second year.

Put another way: The president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading
claims a day in his first year in office. But he hit nearly 16.5 a day in
his second year, almost triple the pace.

We started this project as part of our coverage of the president’s first
100 days
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.1edb5ec9c79d>,
largely because we could not possibly keep up with the pace and volume of
the president’s misstatements. Readers demanded we keep it going for the
rest of Trump’s presidency. Our interactive graphic
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.b04dccccc2a9>,
managed with the help of Leslie Shapiro of The Washington Post graphics
department, displays a running list of every false or misleading statement
made by Trump. You can also search for specific claims or obtain monthly or
daily totals.

In the first 100 days, the president made 492 unsupported claims. He
managed to top that number just in the first three weeks of 2019. In
October, as he was barnstorming the country in advance of the midterm
elections, he made more than 1,200 false or misleading claims.

Not surprisingly, the biggest source of misleading claims is immigration,
with a tally that has grown with the addition of 300 immigration claims in
the past three weeks, for a total of 1,433.

In the president’s immigration address Saturday, the last day of his second
year in office, we counted 12 false or misleading claims, including:

*"Heroin alone kills 300 Americans a week, 90 percent of which comes across
our southern border.” *

   - The 300-a-week number checks out. But while 90 percent of the heroin
   sold in the United States comes from Mexico, virtually all of it comes
   through legal points of entry. “A small percentage of all heroin seized by
   [Customs and Border Protection] along the land border was between Ports of
   Entry (POEs),” the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a 2018 report.
   So Trump’s wall would do little to halt drug trafficking. Trump’s repeated
   claim that the wall would stop drug trafficking is a Bottomless Pinocchio
   claim.

*“Many of these security ideas have been proposed by Democrats themselves,
and all of them have been supported by Democrats in the past, including a
physical barrier wall or fence.” *
- Trump overstates the supposed Democratic support. Sen. Charles E. Schumer
(D-N.Y.) and many Democrats (although not Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California)
voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was signed by President
George W. Bush and authorized construction of a fence along nearly 700
miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. It passed 283 to 138 in the House, with 64
Democratic votes, and 80 to 19 in the Senate, with 26 Democratic votes. But
the fence they voted for is not as substantial as the wall Trump is
proposing. Trump himself has called the 2006 fence a “nothing wall.”

*"However, the whole concept of having lengthy trials, for anyone who sets
one foot in our country unlawfully, must be changed by Congress. It is
unsustainable. It is ridiculous. Few places in the world would even
consider such an impossible nightmare.” *

   - Trump is routinely astonished by U.S. and international laws on
   asylum. This is how it works in any country that abides by the Universal
   Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Protocol Relating to the
   Status of Refugees: A refugee enters and makes a petition, and the
   government makes a ruling after analyzing the facts. It’s also worth
   keeping in mind that 85 percent
   <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/26/president-trumps-misconceptions-about-immigration-courts-and-law/?utm_term=.5ed62f2f3105>
   of all deportations in the United States are ordered quickly, without a
   hearing before a judge.

*"If we build a powerful and fully designed see-through steel barrier on
our southern border, the crime rate and drug problem in our country would
be quickly and greatly reduced. Some say it could be cut in half.” *

   - Trump’s statement that a border wall would cut the nation’s crime rate
   — and “drug problem” — in half is simply laughable. There is no evidence to
   suggest that is the case. Most undocumented immigrants do not illegally
   cross the southern border, undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes at
   a rate higher than U.S. citizens, and drugs flow through the border mostly
   through legal crossing points.

*"Thousands of children are being exploited by ruthless coyotes and vicious
cartels and gangs.” *

   - Here’s an example of where the president or his aides appear to have
   responded to our fact checks. No government statistic tracks children
   smuggled in by bad actors, “coyotes” or drug gangs, and for this speech,
   Trump has altered his usual claim that “last month alone, 20,000 minors
   were smuggled into the United States.” Now the number is fuzzier, and he no
   longer says “smuggled” but uses a weaker “exploited.” Trump previously
   referred to Customs and Border Protection’s number for family-unit
   apprehensions and unaccompanied minors. But we have pointed out that it’s
   wrong to describe it as a statistic that represents children being smuggled
   into the country. Trump appears to be acknowledging there are no firm
   numbers for how many parents might have hired a smuggler, coyote or gang
   member — though there is no evidence that the figure would be “thousands.”

Claims about foreign policy (900) and trade (854) rank second and third,
followed by claims about the economy (790) and jobs (755). But there’s also
a grab-bag category of “miscellaneous” (899), which includes misleading
attacks on the media or people the president perceives as enemies.

By our count, there were only 82 days — or about 11 percent of the time —
on which we recorded no claims. These were often days when the president
golfed.

But there were also 74 days, or about 10 percent of his presidency, in
which Trump made more than 30 claims. These were often days when he held
campaign-style rallies, riffing without much of a script.

Trump has made many misleading claims about the investigation into possible
Russian interference in the 2016 election, claiming 192 times a variation
of the statement that it was a hoax perpetuated by Democrats
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/03/20/president-trumps-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-twitter-day/?utm_term=.1aa0393c4325>.
The CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency had announced that they
had “high confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a
campaign to influence the election, with a clear preference for Trump.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was appointed by Trump’s Justice
Department, and the congressional committees investigating the matter have
been headed by Republicans.

Trump repeated 127 times the falsehood about securing the biggest tax cut
in U.S. history, even though Treasury Department data shows it would rank
eighth
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/01/president-trumps-tax-cut-not-the-biggest-in-u-s-history/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.477e2192f832>.
And 126 times, he has falsely claimed that the United States has lost money
on trade deficits. Countries do not “lose” money on trade deficits. A trade
deficit simply means that people in one country are buying more goods from
another country than people in the second country are buying from the first
country. Trade deficits are also affected by macroeconomic factors, such as
currencies, economic growth and savings and investment rates.

Visit our website of Bottomless Pinocchios
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/fact-checker-most-repeated-disinformation/?utm_term=.ce103ea344c7>for
highly misleading or false claims that the president has made so often that
they have become a form of disinformation.

*(Contributors to the database over the past two years include Michelle Ye
Hee Lee and Nicole Lewis.*)





On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 11:19 AM Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:

> Yes.
>
> And remember when Trump would complain that Obama spends too much time on
> the golf course?
>
> For you, Donnie-boy . . .
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/songs/Tribute_to_Trump.mp3
>
> Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
> http://www.MoscowCares.com <http://www.moscowcares.com/>
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> On Mar 25, 2019, at 10:39 AM, Nicholas Gier <ngier006 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Please note Trump scolding Obama about the budget deficit. Our own Sen.
> Crapo used to make this his primary focus.
>
> The monthly deficit has now climbed to 5.1 percent of GDP in contrast to
> the 3.8 percent at the end of Obama's two terms.
>
>
> https://www.huffpost.com/entry/record-february-budget-deficit-trump_n_5c96cc00e4b01ebeef103d01?ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__032519
>
> February’s federal budget deficit
> <https://www.huffpost.com/impact/topic/deficit> was the largest on
> record, according to figures released by the Treasury Department
> <https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0219.pdf> on
> Friday. President Donald Trump
> <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/donald-trump> promised during his
> campaign that he would balance the budget in eight years
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-turmoil-or-triumph-donald-trump-stands-alone/2016/04/02/8c0619b6-f8d6-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html?postshare=6561459637742585&utm_term=.0bec99dd4391>
> .
>
> The total debt surpassed $22 trillion for the first time ever in February
> — $2 trillion higher
> <https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-national-debt-deficit-compared-to-obama-bush-clinton-2019-2>
> than when Trump took office.
>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
> Donald J. Trump
> ✔@realDonaldTrump
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/230760366232195072>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/230760366232195072>
>
> The deficits under @BarackObama <https://twitter.com/BarackObama> are the
> highest in America's history. Why is he bankrupting our country?
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=230760366232195072>
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=230760366232195072>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
> Donald J. Trump
> ✔@realDonaldTrump
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/148876610811072513>
> <https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/148876610811072513>
>
> With a record deficit and $15 trillion in debt, @BarackObama
> <https://twitter.com/BarackObama> is spending $4 million of our money on
> his Hawaii vacation. Just plain wrong.
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>The massive
> shortfall is being attributed to a
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>20 percent
> drop in corporate revenue and increased federal spending
> <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-22/u-s-posts-largest-monthly-budget-deficit-on-record-in-february>.
> The Trump administration slashed corporate taxes in his new 2017 tax law
> from 35 percent to 21 percent. Trump’s tax-cut package cost the government
> $1.5 trillion.
> <https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>
>
> “When you pass the most irresponsible tax cut
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-government-ran-a-544-billion-deficit-over-the-first-5-months-of-the-fiscal-year/2019/03/22/932d3438-4cc8-11e9-9663-00ac73f49662_story.html?utm_term=.c15a772d8ab3>
> followed by the most irresponsible spending increase, unsurprisingly it
> leads to the largest deficit numbers,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the
> Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told The Washington Post.
> “Predictably, that’s exactly where we landed.”
>
> The deficit for the first five months of the federal fiscal year is $544.2
> billion, up nearly 40 percent from the same period the previous year,
> according to Treasury figures.
>
> The budget gap was $234 billion in February alone, which surpassed the
> earlier monthly record
> <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-22/u-s-posts-largest-monthly-budget-deficit-on-record-in-february>
> of $231.7 billion seven years ago, according to an analysis of data by
> Bloomberg.
>
> Total spending was $401 billion in February
> <https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-budget-deficit-widens-to-234-billion-in-february-2019-03-22>
> while the government took in just $167 billion.
>
> Corporations have so far this fiscal year paid $59.2 billion in taxes,
> compared to $87.4 billion at this point ini 2017 before Trump’s tax law was
> enacted.
>
> Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Congress last month that the
> federal debt matters — it’s growing faster than the gross domestic
> product
> <https://www.axios.com/jerome-powell-federal-reserve-national-debt-f8a536df-4429-414f-9668-92ad5d05274d.html>—and
> the nation must address the issue.
>
> Money owed is eating up an increasing share of the GDP. The budget
> deficit’s share of the GDP is expected to increase to 5.1 percent this
> year, up from 3.8 percent a year ago, according to projections from the
> White House Office of Management and Budget.
>
> At this rate, the national debt could be on track to hit 93 percent of
> GDP in a decade.
> <http://www.crfb.org/blogs/debt-could-be-20-percent-gdp-higher-presidents-budget-claims>
>
> --
> A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
> shall never sit in.
>
> -Greek proverb
>
> “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
> Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
> from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
> lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
> guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
> understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.
>
> --Immanuel Kant
>
>
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