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US Has Been In Recession Since December 2007
The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the US has been in a recession since December 2007. The NBER is a private, nonprofit research organization of academic economists who determine business cycles. The stock market took a dip on the news that reached double-digit percentages for some tech stocks.
It is this kind of partisan willful ignorance on the part of many that has enabled the political agenda among some to drive the notion that the US is in a severe recession caused by the ineptness and reckless irresponsibility of the Bush administration, when the US had nothing but growth in the GDP until only a month ago. If you asked most people how long they thought the economy had been shrinking for negative, they'd probably say things like, "A year? Two years?"
Why do you jump to the defense of Bush? Where did anyone attack Bush for this? Is it in the article? Are you responding to ... to what exactly? Yeah, when shit hits the fan, people tend to blame those in charge ... but where is he being blamed?
From the article:
The Bush administration won approval from Congress on Oct. 3 for a $700 billion rescue package for the financial system. Bush said in an interview with ABC's "World News" to be aired Monday that he would support additional intervention if necessary to end the recession.
Note: you are one of the last hard core republicans with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears screaming "I CAN'T HEAR YOU" as my relatives that don't have high paying jobs are having to pawn stuff and as my friend's fathers become unemployed.
Capitalistic systems only work when the participants have faith in the system -- when that faith collapses, for whatever reason, you get a recession. And that's a normal and accepted part of the cycle.
You must think you're a lot smarter than the economists like Alan Greenspan because they've been going on and on this whole time thinking we could forever avoid another shrinking of the economy. And the people who all said we needed that package to reverse/save us from this recession? They must be idiots if it's only "a normal and accepted part of the cycle." Who exactly has accepted this, by the way? I would like to know so I can better manage my 401k in the future (half my retirement funds are now gone).
My work here is dung.
The system as it existed worked on faith. Not facts. Faith that an industry that produces nothing and adds no value can be the most significant industry nonetheless and make EVERYTHING else secondary. It is not the first time.
During the internet bubble, real businesses that produced real goods that real people bought with real money were considered to be worthless. The future was in... well pets.com and what not. Pipe dreams, ad based revenue. It became hard for ordinary businesses to even find investment because they didn't promise the sky.
Of course, you can't say that the financial industry is much the same, that all these speculators add nothing, are fluff. But that is what happened, we had the financial industry fluffing itself up by selling itself its own products over and over again. This whole mortage reselling would be similar to Ford and Chrysler (apologies if they are the same) buying each others cars over and over and counting that as total production. The financial industry obtained a far larger share of the total market then it really is supposed to have. It worked because everyone believed it, believed that Wall Street really is important. It isn't.
Then it collapsed, people did indeed loose fate. Somewhere someone burst the bubble. What we got now is not so much a reccesion, as a re-appreasal. We now got to decide what exactly the role of the financial industry is supposed to be. Is it a service industry to the rest of the industry (exactly like say a cleaning company is a service industry) or is everyone else in the service of the financial industry.
Do we want banks to be just banks, lend our money to others for a profit that they partly keep and partly give to us or speculators, driving up prices, investing only in their own profit margins rather then investing long term in other industries.
A few economists, even as high up as the world bank are daring to question the system right now. That perhaps we should see the bank again as it once was, a service to society rather then the controller of the entire economy. No longer should the financial industry have a 40% share of the economy but rather something closer to 4%, back to REAL industry that actually produces value being the motor again, not shoveling money around.
Frankly I been watching the developments with great intrest. Right now I think a LOT of goverments are showing their true colors, bailing out banks that were never trustworthy, never played by the rules to help out the rich who put their money in their high risk accounts at the cost of the working mans taxes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wrong.
Last quarter.
Why, then, did President Bush sign H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 on February 13?
"They" have known the economy was in trouble for at LEAST a year and likely longer. But they knew one thing for sure -- if they announced or reported it as such, the economy's floor would have dropped out. So instead, the news and other outlets have been dropping hints and skirting the big picture by talking about failing elements of the economy hoping everyone will start to form their own conclusions. And every time the word recession was asked far beyond a year ago, the only answer was "not yet" and they kept hoping things would get better.
The Bush economic stimulus package worked to some degree. Many people horded it -- stuck it in the bank. Other people paid bills with it. But the over-all result was measurably positive... and the government did not commit trillions to making that effect. If that notorious $700bn were committed in the same way, we would see a HUGE rebound in the economy... instead, the money is given to banks to encourage them to do things they are unwilling to do... and what's worse, the government isn't getting the money back!
So basically, you like to take your name off things when you're going to make a personal attack. Guess they call it AC for a reason.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This year, like the previous year, and the year before that, I will definitely NOT shop my ass off for Christmas, nor will I stuff my face silly on Christmas, only to feel bloated the next day and have to diet so I can stomach New Year's eve binge (which, in case you didn't guess, I never do either).
Christmas, like Halloween, father/mother/grandma/grandpa days, are commercial inventions, fake joy and fake happiness destined to make you shell out your hard-earned money and, since the great Bank Robbery^H^H^H^Hbailout plan, supposedly help the economy recover.
Well, I paid my loans, I don't live on credit, I spend my money cautiously, even when there's no "crisis", so I fail to see why I must buy Christmas junk to support those who don't.
(half my retirement funds are now gone).
Like most things in your post thats wrong. Stop believing in the Obama campaign as the source of all your financial info. The correct statements would be pick one:
My retirement fund is now worth half what it was
This recession has actually caused my retirement fund to shrink
Or my personal fave:
What the hell ! You mean we can't buy big houses, SUV's and rack up credit debt endlessly ?!?! What do you mean we have to 'compete' for jobs ? Whats this crap ?? Dont choo kno I'm an American !!!
Its time to sort the wheat from the chaff. Man the fuck up. (and spread that to your friends, and their parents too - the great depression was FAR FAR FAR worse than this and they were not whining as much as people now either.)
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
So, I'm assuming that the outfit that decided that present conditions constitute "recession" rather than something else is working from publicly available information, not some super-secret oracle. In that case, why would the markets react to their giving a label to a set of phenomena that were already present(and thus presumably reacted to)?
FFS you "rational actors", you'd better get your act together or I'm going to have to start paying attention to behavioral economists!
I refuse to participate in any recession.
As long as I work and earn, I will save and spend just as I always did. My family's economy won't be dictated to by some namby-pamby report by a bunch of gloom and doom busybodies.
Seriously.
If you practice fiscal responsibility (something the U.S. government seems unwilling to do, hence the current mess), work hard and consistently, keep your skills updated and always marketable, you'll stay out of trouble... or at least be nimble enough to make whatever moves are necessary to get out of trouble very quickly.
Some folks want to wail and gnash their teeth at the falling sky. Hey, whatever floats their boat.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
The great depressions didn't just become "great" overnight. It took YEARS and YEARS and 2 presidents before it turned around.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Why, then, did President Bush sign H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 on February 13?
Because there are lot of other indicators that you might be heading for a recession -- like decreasing growth, for example.
But the definition of a recession is two quarters of negative growth, which we haven't had yet. By another definition, we haven't even had a declaration of being in a recession by one of the bodies that makes such declarations until yesterday.
So then why have we heard constant talk about how the US is in a recession for over a year now?
Answer: political opportunism, plain and simple. If you can make people believe we're in a recession and that the party of the current president caused it, in the midst of a presidential campaign, that bodes very well for the opposing party.
No matter your politics, you should consider that incredibly irresponsible. Aside from very real economic issues, we've also had nothing but recession...recession...RECESSION -- with the implication being that it's Bush's fault, and sometimes that being explicitly stated, depending on the pundit at hand -- hammered into our collective heads for nearly the entire campaign cycle.
When McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," (emphasis mine) he was -- and still is -- 100% correct.
Unfortunately, it was better for some liberals to push the idea of a recession, which will now end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. How long do you have to hear things are terrible before you believe they are, and start making changes in your own life? And then start feeling the effects of millions of other people making those changes, and people losing jobs, and businesses closing, and this vicious cycle causing a downward spiral?
Disclaimer:
1. I didn't vote for Bush.
2. I voted for Obama.
So assuming I'm a die-hard Republican because I'm saying something you likely disagree with isn't going to work.
It is this kind of partisan willful ignorance on the part of many that has enabled the political agenda among some to drive the notion that the US is in a severe recession caused by the ineptness and reckless irresponsibility of the Bush administration, when the US had nothing but growth in the GDP until only a month ago. If you asked most people how long they thought the economy had been shrinking for negative, they'd probably say things like, "A year? Two years?"
Megadittos.
Here's the thing. What you just said isn't true. One column I read regularly is that of Robert J. Samuelson. He's been writing about economic issues since 1977 and his column is carried several major newspapers such as the Washington Post, Newsweek, the L.A. Times and the Boston Globe. Hardly a non-mainstream guy. Go ahead, read what Samuelson has to say about the recession and its causes. Hell, read this article about the banking collapse. Many of the contributing factors were already in place well before W took office.
Now, I'm no ardent Bush supporter, and I'm definitely not a conservative in the mainstream sense of the word. But I have to agree with Samuelson because if you do the research yourself, you'll find his logic is sound.
This is what the mainstream media has touted, not that it's all Bush's fault. To sit there and play victim is exactly what Republicans and conservatives tend to do when they lose elections. It's predictable.
Reality is something else entirely.
My blog
You haven't actually lost anything until you decide to sell at the lower value. The market will come back, it always does.
That's great, unless I'm 65 and expected to live on the money I get from selling my house, moving to an apartment, and liquidating my investments. The stock market, had I got in 10 years ago and invested in a safe S&P 500 index fund, has done absolutely nothing. Zero return in ten years. Ten years is pretty close to "long term" in my book.
"day traders" are responsible for all the major flux in the markets, and at all times. they should be put to the wall
Day traders are responsible for the unprecedented and unequaled liquidity in the US stock markets. They are the reason you can *always* sell or buy a stock. AIG and other bailout recipients have problems because they held onto assets, like CDS, that now are completely illiquid. They can't sell at any price. What they need is a CDS market filled with day traders who are willing to speculate on those assets and are willing to buy them at *some* price. Without speculating day traders, there is no market for you "long term" investors.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
It doesn't matter how many times you repeat this stupid lie, it's still a lie. (A reasonable summary of Cards bullshit: http://adastrum.kansascity.com/?q=node/408).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
"They" have known the economy was in trouble for at LEAST a year and likely longer. But they knew one thing for sure -- if they announced or reported it as such, the economy's floor would have dropped out. So instead, the news and other outlets have been dropping hints and skirting the big picture by talking about failing elements of the economy hoping everyone will start to form their own conclusions. And every time the word recession was asked far beyond a year ago, the only answer was "not yet" and they kept hoping things would get better.
The Bush economic stimulus package worked to some degree. ...
Huh? The April hand-out? As far as I've heard, it had almost no effect at all.
(it was too small and too untargeted to have any significant effect on the economy-- it essentially was a very small tax cut, primarily at the lower income levels. Might have prevented one or two bankrupcies, if it happened to hit somebody right on the razor's edge, but wasn't enough to save anybody's house.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Yes, and we should be so hurt that an industry that benefits from peoples' being careless enough to live under mountains of debt should not like us.
"Deadbeats" indeed.
I personally don't like the idea of metrics you can substantially alter by simply borrowing a few hundred billion dollars from China.
There are some people who think you can replace economic growth in the private sector with economic growth in the public sector and it's the same thing. That may be true in Soviet Russia, but in the free world, pork financed with debt is an inflationary measure that doesn't increase the actual size of the economy.
My personal metrics don't really change. In my personal finances I don't pretend debt = income, I'm not about to let the federal government pretend the same.
It's been a long time.
Just that the GDP growth was entirely funded by federal debt. We're in a time of nearly unprecedented (inflation adjusted)debt growth. Nixon managed to shrink the inflation adjusted size of the debt. Ford let it go nuts. Carter managed to shrink it. Reagan let it explode. Bush let it explode. Clinton tried to reduce the hemmoraging, but George W. Bush and the two congresses have spent more than any president since World War II.
Real GDP growth ceases to be a meaningful number when such a large part of it is just the congress throwing money they borrowed from China around.
It's been a long time.
I pity people who think that the government is responsible for managing the overall economy. That's called socialism. It's supposed to be a -free- market.
No. Socialism is the government *running* certain industries (and no, "high taxes" are not socialism, despite what the moron wing of my Republican party believes).
The government is responsible for managing the *overall* economy through laws and regulation and monetary policy. It is not responsible for picking winners and losers -- *that's* socialism.
And a totally free market without any government intervention would be completely stupid. Even rabid Libertarians (at least the ones who have a clue what an economy actually is) don't want that. That means no government-enforced contracts. That means no control of monopolies. That means no control of corporate corruption and collusion. A completely free market basically becomes an end-game of Monopoly -- control all the money and resources, "Standard Oil"-style. A functioning free market depends on their being a market, where new players can enter and old players can leave on a regular basis.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I don't think you know anyone with children. I have two small ones, and have a group of friends with small children. Lots of single income families. Sure they are married with 2 kids in a 2 bedroom condo, and they are driving used cars, but they get by on one income. The reality is, child care is expensive, and unless both earners have professional careers or a successful business, it's hard to net out ahead of child care costs. A 20k-25k second income, after the tax bite, and paying for childcare for 2-3 children, quickly goes negative.
Middle class subsistence? You've got to be kidding. A small 50s era starter home or small apartment, one or two used cars, and careful grocery shopping, you absolutely can do it... That's what middle class subsistence WAS, now if you think middle class subsistence is 2 cars 4 years old, a 4 bedroom house of 3000 square feet and a yard, 400 channels of Cable/Satellite, high speed Internet, multiple computers, meat EVERY NIGHT, then yeah, you can't do it on one income.
I like that latter life, and my wife and I both have masters degrees, and both work. But I don't pretend that it's subsistence, and trying to have the lifestyle that I remember as a child (when I was 8 or 9) and doing it with toddlers means more leverage to have things earlier in life. Plenty of families get by on a single income... but they live modest lives in inexpensive areas.
Seriously...isn't any excuse to be happy and have fun a worthwhile one? Life it too short to spend it being 'down' or cynical, or asleep. Frankly, I look at probably Halloween as the start of my fun time season. The heat has broken (was nice to actually put on a sweater a couple weeks ago)...and there are reasons to hang with family and friends for food and parties through T-Day, Xmas, New Years and right on into Mardi Gras. Take a break after that to recoup, the start looking forward to vacations, Jazzfest and other things that pop out during the warm weather days.
I really hope you aren't as miserable as your post sounds...man, really life is WAY too short....take advantage of any chance you can to get out and enjoy it. I'm not even saying you have to celebrate Xmas itself, but, no reason to not have fun with othere just to make a 'point' ya know? Doing that hurts no one but yourself.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The value of money is subjective, so when the market as a whole starts to view something to be of lesser value, suddenly the value of that something is lower.
There is some intrinsic value in something like gold, which is shiny, heavy, and with good conductive properties, but mostly it's because people treat gold as a store of value. If other people don't want your gold buillon, you've just got a lump of shiny,heavy,conductive metal rather than the ability to buy hundred of thousands of dollars worth of products you want to have.
Same goes for the green paper, same goes for the stock number, and it even applies to houses. They're valuable in that they provide a place to live, but the housing bubble came from the growth of value far beyond the intrinsic value of the house as a place of living. It's not a business that grows and earns interest, it's just a place to live that people might want to buy in the future when you move out. Some return is possible because of increasing demand to live in that spot as population grows, but people believed in endless /high/ returns on a simple home.
Then they leveraged that imagined value to borrow and they used borrowed money as leverage to get more imagined value, which they used to borrow more, etc...and the numbers all went up. The imagined value got passed around through everone's hands while numbers soared, until eventually people started to wonder when to pull out before others realize these things aren't really worth that much...then the crash comes.
Now banks found that their asset's imagined value has collapsed, now they don't have the surplus of money they thought they had, so they cling to their reserves and fear lending it out so they can stay solvent when a client asks to make a withdrawal.
Tight times decreases loans, without loans, businesses have difficulty growing and functioning, and the crunch on everyone's savings has them reducing their spending, so businesses get fewer customers, reducing their purchases from supplier businesses, it all just loops continually throughout the economy. It's hard to see the exact end result or when it will all end.
I applaud your efforts. Also, it is impressive you can separate the Christmas madness that starts after Thanksgiving from the actual holidays of Dec. 23rd to 31st.
Personally, I have given up on the distinction. I HATE the holidays. I hate the insipid music, the rampant consumerism, the insufferable group think, the over indulgences, the peer-pressure induced family traditions, the bell ringing beggars in front of the stores that think somehow now, instead of the rest of the year, is the time to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
I hate them all; every mindless, consumption-driven holiday that the populous slides into as a Pavlovian response to the day on the calendar. I find them similar to hazing rituals that one generation went through so now they can't wait to inflict it upon the next. A sort of "Pay it Backwards" system of traditions our ancestors use to shackle us to their own superstitions from beyond the grave.
The indignity of the whole thing sends me into a blind frothing rage and causes me to cry out.
RISE UP! Oh, oppressed people ground under the jackboots of Santa Claus. We will be cleansed in the blood of carolers and bell-ringers. FIGHT ON! FIGHT ON! Free our righteous minds from the tyranny of low low prices, today only, on plasma screens and blue-ray DVD players. We will snuff the multi-colored lights from the trees and eaves and find sanctuary in the darkness once again my brothers and sisters. FOR I AM THE WRATH OF GOD!!!!... who is with me?
--
I'm really a glass half full kind of guy.
Subprime lending has very little to do with the current recession. The default rate is only slightly higher than average. The real problems have to do with derivatives, naked shorting and other financial shenanigans that Washington has refused to regulate. When we repackage debt, and insurance on said debt, and resell both dozens of times over, even a slight increase in defaults will knock over the whole house of cards. When we allow people to sell stocks they don't even own, and haven't even borrowed as in regular shorting, nothing but chaos can ensue.
In short, it is not the poor, who were simply patsies, who caused this mess. It was, as always, the greedy rich. Blaming the poor and those who try to help them get a fair shake is simply despicable.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Why is this a troll post?
Mod parent insightful.
I'm also a sucker. I similarly stayed out of debt, didn't take part in the dangerously overinflated housing market, used credit cards responsibly and generally lived within my means. Not that it was painful, I've got reasonable means as a software engineer. But I didn't join in the great-big-debt-party with everyone else.
Why am I a sucker? Because the government will now tax me to prop up people that did get too far in, that did take that dumbass high multiple on a house, that did get into debt. We can't have the people of the country actually paying for their actions, no. Rest assured, I really am a sucker for thinking that keeping my own finances in order was an advantage.
How about the New York Times? Is that good enough?
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Note the date on the article: September 30, 1999
The government can't save you.
Per person it's 2884.48. For a family of 4, that works out to $11.5k, almost half the poverty line in the USA. For a lot of families, that sort of money would be enough to get high interest debts out of the way, increasing available income, and digging a lot of people out of the hole they've dug themselves into.
It's been a long time.
Giving risky loans to people less likely to be able to repay them is what caused the crisis.
Lies spread by those wanting to continually blame the poor and minorities. I see the shit on here about how it's blacks that caused it because of Clinton's push for loans to minorities. Yet the simple fact is that risky loans to people less likely to repay them has been going on for centuries. It wasn't a problem. It isn't a problem. It has never been a problem. Those with higher risk, pay higher interest, covering others in the "pool." There are only two reasons why this would fail. Either the rich white bankers failed to properly assess risk (and thus failed in their primary job) or they lied. There can be no other cause. For if they had properly assessed and recorded risk, there would be no issue. To blame it on the people that got the loans is stupid. Yeah, they are the ones not repaying, but that's been the case for centuries as well (ok, millenia, but who's counting). This particular crisis seems to be caused by bankers not assessing the crap economy causing a spike in defaults by all and large amounts of lies told in repackaging loans to sell to others. Were there other factors? Sure, but it comes down to one thing, the people that are supposed to gauge risk failed at it. And now people are going back and blaming the poor to divert blame from what caused the real crisis, the bankers themselves.
Learn to love Alaska
I'll grant that we can argue the semantics of whether or not the US is officially in a recession. However, I will take issue with your agreement that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong".
First, lack of a formally declared recession does not mean that the economy is strong or fundamentally sound. In reading your numerous posts in this discussion, I see you arguing the definition of a recession and how you believe the media and politicians have used FUD, but I find nothing to actually support a sound economy. In fact, even a layman's understanding of economics and the US economy would show real problems with the base upon which the US has lived for decades.
Real domestic production - e.g. manufacturing - has declined significantly, yet the economy continued to grow on the back of massive debt at all levels (individual consumers, businesses, and government) and the real estate market. While the real estate market certainly generated some ancillary real growth via construction, most of the so-called growth was simply magic money created by the financial industry. Now we see a lot of that supposed equity evaporating, which has further exacerbated the massive levels of debt undertaken.
Given that the US economy has in just the last three or four decades shifted from producer to consumer and financed it with massive debt, how can you suggest that the fundamentals are strong?
No, its not.
That's a common rule of thumb regarding recessions, not "the definition of a recession".
See the NBER FAQ and the NBER's announcement of the current recession for further discussion on why this popular rule of thumb is not used by the NBER.
(Also note that the BEA GDI measure, which is a different measurement mechanism than the BEA GDP measurement, but which attempts measure a quantity which is by definition identical to the GDP, did show two consecutive quarters of decline in Q4 '07 and Q1 '08, one quarter of weak growth in Q2 '08, and decline again in Q3 '08.)
Because other economists who look at the same indicators that the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee looks at, but that do project (which NBER doesn't) and which do give educated, informed opinions of current conditions rather than waiting until a rock solid peak date can be announced (unlike NBER's BCDC which won't announce a recession until not only is the recession itself clear, but they've got a pretty firm peak date, which is why they've never revised a dating since the BCDC was formed) look at the indicators and say, looking at this, its pretty likely we are currently heading for or in a recession.
It wasn't just Democrats (much less partisan Democrats) that were stating that it appeared we were in a recession.
It was pretty much anyone who had half a clue about the economy.
There might be some bizarre definition of "fundamentals" under which that is correct (certainly, the McCain campaign trotted out a few after he was widely criticized), but under any normal, reasonable definition, it was completely false.
One of the indicators the NBER BCDC considered in declaring the recession is that every month since December 2007 showed declining employment.
My guess is that that's a bigger factor in popular perceptions of the economy, since people feel it directly, than media talk. People know when they are out of a job, or people they know are out of jobs.
Except that the people losing their jobs, the business closing, etc., all were going on before the recession talk started and caused the talk, not the other way around.
Anyone can claim that, and its absolutely unprovable. Acting as if that adds weight to your argument is rather silly.
What your saying is downright ignorant on its key points (definition of recession, order of events in the recent economic downturn, etc.), regardless of your actual, much less your claimed, political affiliation.
Yes, you are a sucker. But because you believe that welfare and the bailout are the main reason the government is taking your money.
Military spending eclipses any other program by 2 to 1. So, first, you should be complaining about the defense shield program, which won't work, the Iraq war, which didn't work, and all of the other investments in destruction that enrich corporations and their owners, and do nothing for the people that pay those taxes. To put it in perspective, you'd have to have a 500 billion dollar bailout every single year added together with health care, welfare, and other social services in order to match military spending. If we paid the average per capita that other nations do, we'd spend around 180 billion instead of 1000 billion.
If you didn't want higher taxes, I hope you didn't support the war. Taxes will go back to normal levels, because someone has to pay for the three billion dollars that are flushed down the toilet in Iraq every week, on top of all of the other idiotic military spending programs that are never criticized. Even talking about military spending is anti-American, but criticizing taxes that improve the lives of the taxed is considered patriotic. How's that for some cognitive dissonance.
So, in conclusion, I'll repeat something I heard quite a bit in 2003. If you don't want your taxes spent on programs that you don't want, just remember, this is America: love it or leave it.