Obama’s Budget Banter Omission: The Banks Broke the Bank

Nomi Prins
Zero Hedge
February 15, 2011

Since the White House announced its 2012 budget, the requisite punditry stream has been breaking down its specific pluses and minuses. I could grab illustrative quotes from various places and people, or add to the analytical details, but for the most part, it boils down to something like this:

GOP and GOP supporters: Obama didn’t make enough spending cuts, he’s not taking this whole budget thing seriously. Oh, and about the cuts he did suggest with regard to corporate tax benefits, high-end mortgage-holder deductions and (his-own) extension of wealthy individual Bushian tax breaks – well, that’s just plain anti-American and – will kill jobs. (The fact that corporations were contributing just 6.6% and 7.2% in 2009 and 2010, of the total federal tax receipts, a 50% drop relative to the rate before the financial crisis, or about $150 billion per year, isn’t relevant in the scheme of things.) Now, where can we cut another $100 billion?


DEMs and DEM supporters: Obama inherited a bum economy, bum budget and bum deficit from Bush. And, he’s turning around the crap hand he was dealt, slowly.  That means he has to cut back on some important programs, but he’s gonna champion a high-speed railway, electric cars (to drive along side the high-speed railway?), and clean energy initiatives, and those will most certainly put millions of people back to work. Yes, he appointed Tim Geithner, one of the lead bank bailout builders, whose Treasury department colluded with the Fed, under Ben Bernanke, the other guy Obama kept on deck to help the economy, to increase the amount of US Treasury debt to $9.4 trillion from $5.4 trillion since the financial system began inhaling subsidies in the fall of 2008, and went on to post record bonuses and profits. But, he had no choice.