Well, hopefully, you'll be one of the first to be rounded up and sent to the reeducation camps...who knows, maybe with the proper "motivation", you might even develop a fondness for David Axelrod...

The debt numbers are based on the original article I cited. Obama estimated the debt at 17.6T in 2010.

I am really not trying to be a jerk... maybe my browser is screwy and it isn't giving me the whole article, but I don't see the 17.6 figure anywhere. I am willing to believe you, but is anyone else having trouble find that specific estimate in the article?

You are right that we can only prove the reality that we live in. But if you think that Obama is somehow being forced to spend, you just aren't paying attention.

You gotta be kidding me, right?

This is a global downturn in which $50,000,000,000,000 suddenly went "poof" around the world.

Do you think any market democracy can avoid "spending" in that situation?

Can you name any market economy anywhere in the world who did not suddenly need to pay out more for unemployment, social services, welfare ...

The debt numbers are based on the original article I cited. Obama estimated the debt at 17.6T in 2010. The article James cited says the deficit spending would be an additional 400B more than Obama claims. So the 17.8 trillion is probably closer to 18T. Of course the Obama 17.6T was based on the economy turning around and expanding healthily the rest of this year. You can decide if you believe that fairy tale.

Odograph,
You are right that we can only prove the reality that we live in. But if you think that Obama is somehow being forced to spend, you just aren't paying attention. I believe that this sort of massive increase in government spending was his plan all along. In a strong economy, the spending would be the same, the rhetoric to support it would be changed slightly.

So explain to me how I am the one being fooled and not the suckers who heard Obama promise that every spending increase will be matched by a budget cut and believed it.

I can't find the debt estimates for 2011... are they in the actual budget document? Where did those come from.

If they are actually planning on 17.8 trillion in debt at the end of 2011, I offer my apologies to you for my tone and ignorance.

What I was trying to point out is that you can't blame the economy for Obama's deficit. If the economy was roaring along, Obama would be spending like a drunken sailor. The administrations comments about not wasting a good crisis wasn't a slip of the tongue, but just the mask slipping about what their intent was anyway.

That is what we call a naked assertion. There is no way to prove what Obama's path would be in a strong economy.

... and there is the whole parallel world problem: would Obama have been elected in a strong economy?

Lets use the total debt numbers. Same source as above.
Year debt(T)
2000 5.6
2001 5.8
2002 6.2
2003 6.8
2004 7.4
2005 7.9
2006 8.5
2007 9.0
2008 11.1
2009 15.3
2010 17.8

So from a 5.6T debt in 2000 to 2008, we see 5.5T increase in debt.
For Obama in two years we see 6.7T increase in debt. So two years of Obama is still much more than 4 years of Bush.

So explain to me how I am the one being fooled and not the suckers who heard Obama promise that every spending increase will be matched by a budget cut and believed it.

Obama is a tax and spend liberal. No matter how much lipstick you put on the pig, there is no changing that fact. Add to that his inexperience and you can understand why Obama has done so much to wreck this country's economy in 8 weeks.

Odograph,

What I was trying to point out is that you can't blame the economy for Obama's deficit. If the economy was roaring along, Obama would be spending like a drunken sailor. The administrations comments about not wasting a good crisis wasn't a slip of the tongue, but just the mask slipping about what their intent was anyway.

Numbers you want, numbers you shall have.

Okay, good, so these are the "official" deficit figures that don't count the massive Bush off-budget expenditures. Got it. Happy to see at least one person -- you -- was taken in by that scam.

If you're an honest person you'll look at the year-by-year national debt figures to see what the real deficits were.

We'd have battles, and political realities, and budgets ... but they'd be different ones with different outcomes than we have now.

It's possible that he'd do a quiet centrist budget, or it's possible that he'd be mired in healthcare.

Here, you are the first one to deserve this quote since I put it up. Obama is your "cause."

Odograph,

Look at the revenue numbers. $500 billion off of the peak for Bush. If the economy was perfect and chugging along at that rate [...]

In what way is that kind of Fantasy Politics useful?