Obamas new budget – Deficit to $1.75 Trillion

Obama sent his first budget to Congress today. A proposal that increased the deficit to $1.75 Trillion – a 35% increase over the Bush budget plan.

This coming, just days after a speech where Obama was promising a pay-as-you-go strategy and promised to cut the deficit, he unveiled a $3.55 trillion budget plan for 2010 as well as changes that would push 2009 spending to $3.94 trillion. Almost half of next year’s budget would be money he doesn’t have.

The budget not only includes massive spending increases, but also raises taxes on charitable contributions for the wealthy.

…taxpayers in the current top tax bracket of 35 percent would see their tax deduction for every $1 given to charity drop from 35 cents to 28 cents.

Increasing tax rates on the wealthiest tax payers may be an acceptable way of raising revenue, but discouraging them from contributing to charities doesn’t seem like a great strategy in these troubled economic times. We may all be standing in soup lines before too long…

Obama Stimulus package in historical terms

The stimulus package that just passed both legislative houses of the government is set at $789bn. This cost, along with previous stimulus packages and the guarantees the government has made to back some financial institutions could bring the total costs of this bailout, in a worst case scenario, to over 9 trillion dollars.

Just to put things in perspective, here is an analysis by Jim Bianco of Bianco Research of what the largest historical US government projects cost in today’s dollars.

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

The New Deal, which was created to get us out of the worst depression this country has experienced and which included the construction of numerous parks, roads, buildings, dams, power plants, airports and other projects which are still in use today would ONLY cost $500 billion today. That’s less than 2/3 of the plan President Obama has managed to push through congress this week, and only a drop in the bucket compared to all the guarantees the government has made.

We can only hope that this money doesn’t go to bonuses, office remodels for CEOs and other perks for the upper class like the last round of bailout money did.

Verizon Math Fail

It seems like there must be something wrong with the American education system when multiple people can’t figure out the difference between 0.002 dollars and 0.002 cents. Those units art just tricky.

My favorite part is when the manager says ‘it’s obviously a difference of opinion’. Math is not opinion, at least it wasn’t when I was in school.

Super Bowl – Cardinals vs Steelers

Just got home from watching a history making Super Bowl 43. This game was one for the ages before it even started with the appearance of Kurt Warner – only the 2nd quarterback to ever lead two different teams to a Super Bowl (the other being the infamous Broncos QB – Craig Morton). This simple fact puts Kurt in the running (in my mind at least) for the title of ‘Best Quarterback Ever’.

This was a fantastic game with back and forth swings, a safety and an eventual win by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it was not without it’s frustrations and controversies.

First off, what was with the blurriness in the camera work? This may have only been on the HD feed that we were watching, but each time the camera went to the field to show a play it started out blurry and in a second or less cleared up to the crystal clarity that we expect from the high priced HD. Initially I thought this was due to some camera malfunction, but since it went on the whole game I’m guessing it was some cutesy camera work by NBC who hasn’t televised a Super Bowl in 11 years and has apparently forgot it wasn’t supposed to have weird effects.

The second frustration was the advertisements. They were extraordinarily lame. NBC had difficulty selling them out, and the advertisers must have had problems thinking up ideas. Even the highly promoted 3-D Monsters vs. Aliens promo was pretty lame (I hadn’t researched it and thought it would be a super cool AVP sequel, not a Dreamworks cartoon).

Finally, and most importantly, was the ‘fumble’ by Kurt Warner at the end of the game. With 5 seconds left on the clock LaMarr Woodley’s tackled Kurt Warner causing what might have been a fumble. The replay clearly showed the ball in Warner’s hand and moving forward, but the booth declined to force a review. If this call had been overturned, and the 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty been enforced, the Cardinals might have scored on the final play of the game. Instead the Steelers downed the ball and the game ended.

It’s only fitting that in a season full of officiating controversy that the championship game would end on yet another flub by the referees.

Super Bowl 43 was one of the most exciting ever, and I offer a hearty congratulations to both teams; the Pittsburgh Steelers for a great win and the Arizona Cardinals for playing right down to the last second. Hopefully Roger Goodell will take work out some of the problems with the refs and review process, the commercials will be back to what we expect next year and the game will go back to FOX where it belongs.