Lol!! Hilarious! Thank you. 😀

Here you go.
http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2016/01/tina-fey-returns-snl-pan-palins-trump

I never said he balanced the budget. And by the way, when was the last time a Republican president balanced a budget? I’m not sure, but George Bush never did – during the Clinton presidency there were consistent surpluses. The strong fiscal position of the US was destroyed by the illegal war in Iraq.

However, a balanced budget isn’t necessarily a good thing. It’s a good thing to have deficits when the economy needs a boost because there isn’t enough demand. It’s not when the money is going to pay for a stupid war that has caused far more problems than it solved.

I’m not sure if you’re understanding what I’ve been saying about the deficit. For example, if the deficit was $10, and now it’s $5, it’s been cut by 50%, but the total debt has still increased. The deficit has reduced every year of Obama’s presidency, but the cumulative deficit has increased. However, because the problem causing the GFC was a lack of demand, demand needed to be stimulated and therefore a deficit was required.

Your figures are correct, but they are not explaining the situation correctly.

Anyone who thinks the government should be required to balance the budget doesn’t understand economics. Whether there is a deficit, surplus, or the budget is balanced is a tool the government can use to help the economy. To fund the deficit, the US government has been borrowing money at an extremely low rate – the strong fundamentals of the US economy mean that the amount borrowed was therefore not a problem. It seems like a huge amount of money (and it is), but it’s not the issue those who worry about it think it is.

Sure, any estimate looking ahead that far is a guess. And yes, the Republican Congress has forced some very modest spending restraint that pushed the deficit back below 500 billion for a single year, 2014. But it would be fantasy to give Obama credit for fiscal responsibility (let alone balancing the budget):

Cumulative deficit spending:
2001-2008…2.2 trillion
2009-2016…7.1 trillion

Annual deficits exceeding 500 billion:
2001-2008…0
2009-2016…7

Thanks. I accept your employment figures re-part-timers, though I haven’t checked them.

The budget one is exactly what I was saying. The CBO is anticipating no increase in revenue, but an increase in debt/interest payments and fixed expenditure (probably because of increased population and increased retiring baby boomers). The actual budget deficit has reduced over Obama’s term in office. The are clearly assuming no increase in economic growth (which would increase revenue), which is very conservative as at the moment the US has one of the stronger economies in the world. However, due to the weakness in much of the rest of the world some caution is sensible.

The link to the CBO estimate is below — see Summary Table 1 on Page 2. The budget deficit increases for 2016 and every subsequent year, exceeding a trillion dollars in six years. Debt reaches 24 trillion (86% of GDP) in a decade.

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51129-2016_Outlook_Summary.pdf

In January 2009, part-timers accounted for 17% of employed persons aged 16 and over, whereas they account for 37% of the difference (10.7 million) in the number of employed persons in December 2015 against January 2009.

http://www.bls.gov/data/#employment

Unless you can prove which proportion of jobs are low quality, you can’t say whether there are more now than then. I accept you could be right – I’m saying you need to prove it. I don’t know how the stats are broken down by whoever produces your labour market statistics, so I don’t know whether or not this is possible.

Obama’s support of sustainable energy is a good thing. Some of the projects haven’t worked out. However, even Fox News has stopped going on about them because the vast majority have done well, and the number that have failed is less than was expected when the programme was started.

You’re getting the budget deficit and the national debt mixed up (which nearly everyone does). The budget deficit continues to reduce, but still exists. As long as there is any deficit, the national debt increases. It takes surpluses to decrease the national debt, which, of course, (in a recovering economy) means the government keeping more of the money they take in taxes. That doesn’t sound like the position of a typical Republican.

I would respectfully answer as follows. Yes, there always are low quality jobs, but they account for a disproportionate share of the increase. Demographics only partially explain the labor participation decline.

Yes, domestic oil production has doubled, and natural gas production has increased by about 40%, so the USA now is the biggest oil and gas producer, and an exporter again — thanks to the industry’s ingenuity, and no thanks to Obama or any of his dodgy green boondoggles.

I replied to a post that said that Obama is “on track to balance the budget by the end of his term.” To the contrary, as my reply indicates the CBO projects deficit increases this year and every year for the next decade. It is true there was a massive deficit in Obama’s first year due to his trillion-dollar “porkulus” boondoggle, and by retaking the House the Republicans prevented a repeat of that. Again, no thanks to Obama for taming his voracious appetite for other people’s money.

Bill Clinton committed perjury and obstruction of justice and evaded criminal prosecution only through a plea deal. That’s hardly a personal problem. Hillary Rodham is a criminal accomplice who encouraged Americans to think of her as “co-president”. The only executive position she’s held in her own right was her tenure as Secretary of State, which was a disaster, and during which we now know she recklessly and illegally compromised classified communications. While she’s not quite as encumbered by ideology as Obama, it’s because she’s not much encumbered by principles of any kind.

If other countries are enamored of the Obamas and Clintons, they are more than welcome to take these people off our hands. Please.

I’ve started writing a post about the view of US leadership abroad, to I’ll save my responses to that part of your answer until then.

Yes, a lot of the jobs created have been part-time and low wage, but you can’t just subtract them, because part-time, low-wage jobs have always been part of the figure. Your assumption is that all jobs used to be full-time, high-wage. The workforce is declining because the baby-boomers are retiring. That will continue until c. 1930 when the last of them retire. They are a population bulge. The way to ameliorate it is more immigration.

Obama has focused on sustainable energy, and good on him. Your country is less dependent on foreign sources than ever before, and could soon be self-sustaining.

Obama has significantly reduced the deficit as Mark stated – that is a fact. That is not the same thing as paying back the debt that has already been accumulated. It was Bush that put two wars on the credit card, and a big chunk of the debt since is the interest on Bush’s debt. Republicans have added far more to your national debt that Democrats.

Clinton I, despite the issues with his personal life, was an excellent president. We don’t know for sure yet how much of what surrounds Clinton II is genuine, and how much is hyped by those wanting to defeat her at the ballot box. Either way, she demonstrates the skills that would make her a good president.

Peace has broken out in Iraq and the Middle East, you say? Who knew! If that’s your idea of peace and peace-making, you may wish to consult a dictionary.

Anyone who would boast with a straight face about our country’s improved “image” abroad, at a time when delusional ex-KGB thugs, repressive ayatollahs, and senile Caribbean despots all spit in our leader’s eye, may have lost contact with reality.

You overstate job creation by about 140%. The number is lower yet if you subtract: low-wage, part-time work; the artificial and unsustainable effects of years of free money; oil and gas jobs created IN SPITE OF Obama, not because of him; etc. You also have to ignore declining workforce participation and the 93% of the country that is still in recession.

And no, balanced budgets are nowhere in sight. According to the latest CBO estimate, Obama’s big-government, anti-growth ideology, along with the failure to reform entitlements, have us on track to accumulate another 9 TRILLION dollars in deficits over the next decade.

Thank goodness we have just enough intransigent, obstructionist, freedom-loving elected representatives to do exactly what we the people have asked of them, namely to serve as a check on the damage Obama and his extremist entourage can do.

I do find your comment about ethics heartening, since it implies at least you won’t be supporting Clinton II under any circumstances.