Is President Obama wrong when he says...

[carpro]

I think the point is being missed. What President Obama had to say had nothing to do with credit rating. He merely said that no matter how one discredited financial group rates the US it is still a AAA nation in reality.

Even with Obama lipstick, a pig is still a pig.

The US is headed straight for national bankruptcy. We will never see another balanced budget.

AA+ is being generous.

 

[Eric B]

Remember that $4 is just for interest, then we still have to pay for the rest of the govt - or should I say welfare. ( from the link - see which dept spends the most (& if you say defense you would be wrong)

OK, just looking this up, first, by "welfare"; it's not what we normally think of as "welfare, which would be the TANF or former AFDC program (which has actually shrunk to a quarter of what it was at the time of reform, though in the last couple of years, it has started to climb a bit, due to the economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANF).
The number is for the entire Health & Human Services Department (which does include TANF and other things like that, but not Food Stamps, which is Agriculture, and actually very small on the graph!).

I find that that is not an official govt. site, but rather appears to be some independent conservative site.

I see that they did get that bar graph from these figures: http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0711.pdf

However, the HHC site itself: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fy2010_department_health/ lists only $78 billion budget, rather than the 700 to almost 900 we see in the outlay chart. It does mention "a reserve fund of $635 billion to help finance health reform", and I'm wondering if that might be much of the difference.

So is this saying that health care reform is where most of that money is going?
I looked to see if I could find a breakdown of which programs HHC's money is divided into, but that last link was the best I could find so far.

 

[carpro]

Remember that $4 is just for interest, then we still have to pay for the rest of the govt - or should I say welfare. ( from the link - see which dept spends the most (& if you say defense you would be wrong)

and the debt will keep growing by the trillions

Does your "welfare" amount include the welfare program run through the IRS.

It's $50 billion a year. But I see it nowhere on the chart.

Eric's figure of $78 billion obviously doesn't include it.

Where is it hidden in the budget or list of expenditures?

 

[J.D.]

If Ronald Reagan said it, I would take it as a euphemism for America's greatness. Coming from Obama it sounds like a dictatorial warning to S&P and to creditors.