I heard it's around $12 Trillion- This can't be true can it? I mean they are such conservatives!
I heard it's around $12 Trillion- This can't be true can it? I mean they are such conservatives!
Define 'debt'
Reagan added about 1.3 trillion.
Bush added about 4.9 trillion.
http://www.multpl.com/u-s-federal-deficit-percent/
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?c...z1092Fy4n1pmqF
(just a random site I found with a google search)
The raw debt number isn't that meaningful due to inflation. How fast it is growing or shrinking is more meaningful. Chart I linked is deficit/GDP
Can see that during Carter it jumped form the historic (post WW2) 0-2.5% to 2.5-5%. Then during Reagan it jumped even further above 5%. This could be due to taxes being cut without cutting spending or just increasing spending but either way he raised the bar on what was an acceptable deficit.
Can see everything ramp down during Clinton, by the time he was done we were at historic surplus levels.
Then the .com bubble went pop and Bush2 came along. Deficits went right back to Reagan's level then started getting better.
Then everything fell apart again and the deficit is now back to historic levels not seen since WW2.
Everyone since Carter has been spending like mad, except Clinton. And Clinton didn't have a nice 'crisis' during his term.
On your chart, "down" is bad. Your chart does not appear to include in its calculations the borrowing from social security surpluses. Also deficit isn't debt. Debt is the accumulated deficits.
yep, negative numbers bad. Just harder to quickly say 0 to (-2.5%) so I figured folks would get it. Total number, borrowing from a surplus is just a fancy way of saying tax. Especially when people start talking about means testing SS.
I still care about the deficit number because if that sits at 0 and the economy keeps growing the actual debt drops thanks to inflation. Inflation sure isn't going away.
Ans I suppose my point is that every leader in my lifetime except Clinton has been happy to spend and spend (R) or (D). And Clinton had a nice peace dividend combined with a new tech bubble.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/polit...debt.asp#photo
http://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/debt2.jpg
Have a graph...
Reagan left with 3 trillion in the hole
Bush Jr came in +3 trillion surplus, and left around 8-10 trillion in the hole depending on who you ask.
In fact if it wasn't for George Sr. tax hike (which got him voted out) we would be in a lot bigger trouble.
All Clinton did was ride the surplus created by GHWB.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/polit...debt.asp#photo
http://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/debt2.jpg
Have a graph...
Reagan left with 3 trillion in the hole
Bush Jr came in +3 trillion, and left around 8-10 trillion in the hole depending on who you ask.
Thanks for the explanation guys; since many conservatives won't admit it, i thought I would ask.
So then this graph is correct: http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
Regan did increase the debt, no doubt about it. Based upon your sig line/resume you are too young to remember. Regan cut taxes and the economy boomed. This is a fact. Now stay with me. To get what he wanted in terms of building up the military he had to compromise with Tip O'Neal (speaker of the house at the time) and we increased all manor of social spending.Quote:
Originally Posted by 10mm-man
You are right, Regan increased the debt due to spending, not due to government receipts (I don't call taxes revenue for the gubmint).
Tax cuts will grow the economy every time. BUT spending increased as well.
If you personally double your salary but quadruple your spending you're still in trouble. That in a nut shell is what DC has been doing for a long time.
Way to long!! We are stuck with this shit, and my son too.... getting sick of it fast..... Both sides blaming the other, when they are both doing it!Quote:
Originally Posted by low drag
No, that graph is a load of crap. Reagan DID sacrifice his desired fiscal conservatism to get Tip O'Neill and company to support his fight against Communism but it was the Democrat program expansion that seriously increased the deficit. Reagan's tax RATE reductions actually increased tax revenues but Congress (which declared Reagan's proposed budget DOA every year) spent $1.86 (IIRC) for every additional dollar of tax revenue brought in.Quote:
Originally Posted by 10mm-man
There is no way the deficit as a %GDP would have dropped to zero in continuing the Democrat programs. Clinton's fabled surplus was nothing of the kind -- he and Newt conspired to call it that but they practiced Enron-style accounting by "borrowing" from the "Social Security Trust Fund" and counting that as income while never recording the future debt of paying back that "IOU". On the bright side, while it was nothing but a myth, they DID reduce how fast the deficit was growing.
That chart also blames Bush the Younger for the vast increase in spending pushed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid after the 2006 elections when they took control of both houses of Congress. GWB unfortunately had the same lesson Reagan did: they had to accept Dem spending increases to avoid what they thought would be greater evils. Personally, I wish both had pulled a Clinton and shut down the government until Congress gave them responsible authorization and spending bills.
The original graph is false as Snopes reveals in its usual partisan way. There was no 3 trillion surplus when G.W. Bush came to office. That's ridiculous. In fact, there was no surplus at all when he entered office as Clinton's last budget FY 2000 was not projected to be in surplus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delfuego
No, that graph is false. Just as one example, it blamed FY 09 on G.W. Bush when Congress did not pass the FY 09 budget until four months late, for Obama to sign after inauguration in Jan 09 and then Obama subsequently added hundreds of billions to its deficit with his faux "stimulus" bill.Quote:
Originally Posted by 10mm-man
That graph is a fraud.
Sweet mercy, there was no surplus when G. Ddub junior came into office his first term. The number Clinton and the Dem's were spouting to the public were "projected numbers" that everyone took as fact. Once Dubya was in there was no surplus at all, and the debt started accumulating due to the major funding we NEEDED for our Military... and yes, stupid pork barrel spending as well. Did everyone forget that little piece of awesome? The over 1/3rd our military shrunk by? The credit card bubble that was created during the 90's when EVERYONE was allowed to get an insane credit limit, even if you didn't have a dollar to your name?
I know both parties are to blame for their own crap, but goodness, quit talking about this imaginary surplus that never existed in the first place.
Budget surplus, not debt surplus.
Sure its all Tip O'Neill's fault... Quit looking at the world with rose colored lenses. Reagan was not the conservative saint he is portrayed as today. In fact if he was alive now, he would be branded as California left-winger by many people here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aloha_Shooter
I have a question about the calculations during President Shrub and the Bummer. When we started our imperial wars I understand they were not in the budget. They were emergency that came off budget to make the picture look better. It's a loathsome way of accounting and I believe Bummer followed Bush the Lesser's methods. Does this turn up in these figures?
Steve
In 2009 they were officially were accounted for.
Attachment 14823
This is based on misrepresentations made by the Democrats. The Iraq and Afghanistan operations were not included in the budget but rather funded by supplemental appropriations. Their costs were included in the deficit figures. By not including the operations in the budget, their costs were not considered "baseline" spending. And so not baked into the future Federal budget projections that are run out to 10 years. But the costs were not hidden in any way. They were always "accounted for".Quote:
Originally Posted by CrufflerSteve
When Obama heralded putting the operations into the budget, that just meant that when those operations ended as intended, that he'd claim that the disappearance of the spending was a "budget reduction". Which it plainly wasn't.
Note that since the Democrats have failed to actually pass a budget since FY 2009, as an intentional political strategem, they have not had to produce a document with that 10 year projection at all. And avoiding the responsibility of the required statutory 10 year budgeting provisions of Federal law is the purpose of not passing a budget. Pretending that including the war operations in the base budget was a virtue and then not producing a budget really puts paid to the fiction of Democrats being more fiscal responsible.
Yeh.. everything is someone else's fault. Nobody ever seems to take responsibility in this country.
How do you dispute that the Democrats have passed no budgets, not even voting for their President's, as an assertion of "someone else's fault" ? Its a fact that the Democrats in both houses intentionally failed to pass a budget during the 2010 election cycle and its a fact that since the House has been controlled by the GOP that the House has passed budgets that the Senate - controlled by Democrats - won't pass even in amended form.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delfuego
This failure to meet their most basic constitutional and statutory duty - that of adopting a budget - is simply a fact.
At no other time in US history have we cut taxes and gone to war. It was and is being proven today to be pure insanity. You all want to fix the debt and avoid a dollar melt down. Go back to the tax structures from Roosevelt till Reagan. Our economy was booming back then. The middle class was receiving pay increases that mirror the increases in productivity. After Reagan we went into astronomical debt and today it takes two income earners to earn what my father did in purchasing power in 1979. Reagan was the beginning of the end for the middle class. Time to learn from that mistake and move forward.
What do you mean way too long?Quote:
Originally Posted by 10mm-man
This makes no sense at all. You've associated things that are simply not associated and filled your comment with non sequiturs. Our economy has boomed since the Reagan era tax reforms as well. There were tax reforms in the JFK administration too.Quote:
Originally Posted by nynco
If you've a specific tax proposal make it, but your vague belief that there was something special about pre-Reagan tax structure is nonsensical. Tax rates were higher, but applied to less income. Do you have any idea what the practical differences were?
Tax foundation refutes your claims rather handily.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/com...-bush-tax-cuts
No the economy boomed for one section of the US population. For the rest of us today it takes two wage earners to have the same purchasing power as one in 1979. I don't measure a boom by how the richest do. I look at the total picture, which the total pictures shows that the vast majority of the population did not feel the boom since Reagan one bit. Other than a boom as in broke.
Also At no other time in US history have we cut taxes and gone to war
That is a fact
Again, nynco, your claims are simply false. This class warfare rhetoric remains nonsense.
The reality was that after the George W. Bush tax rate cuts, the "rich" were paying a larger share of income tax than the lower income quintiles. Those tax rate changes actually increased their share of tax revenues.
I did not argue that but I could. So don't put words in my mouth. Also the class warfare thing, well that is your words. The facts are the facts, since 1980 wages for the vast majority of the population wages have not kept up with gains in productivity or cost of living. If that is class warfare well then they 1% won over 3 decades ago. No amount of crying that the other side is waging class war fare will change the facts.
False, below is a chart of real disposable income per capita over the last half century.Quote:
Originally Posted by nynco
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2...229RX0?cid=110
Honestly, I don't trust that chart because the inflation index has been messed with to hide the buying power loss to the general public. The most glaring example is the cost of a house today in relation to average income. That number today is far worse than it was in 1979.
Also here is a chart to the metric I was talking about. You will see that wages kept up with productivity increases all the way till Reagan... then wages stagnated.
http://www.zompist.com/lib2.jpg
Pre-WW2 and immediately after the typical American Family did not use credit, nor did they have 2 cars, a TV in every room of the house, etc. We lived within our means, as the saying goes. If you did not work, you did not eat. Welfare was provided for by the Church, and healthcare was provided for the needy by the charity of the doctors.
What changed?
We became a credit based economy
Charity from doctors and other organizations went away when they figured out they would be sued for their kindness at any moment
Our propganda machine has convinced every single American that at 16 you are owed a newer model car, that children do not need to work in addition to study, and that its OK to be in debt.
Our welfare programs are no longer locally based, but a huge government entity that is played like a fine instrument by the dregs of our society.
It is a sincere mis-step to blame this on the politicians, when it is society itself that propagates this mentality.
Want to restore our economic might? Try family values and the idea that discipline is a cornerstone of society, and that includes the teaching of children to not be a waste of humanity. Stop blaming political parties and start looking around and blaming your neighbor who collects foodstamps and a disability check while riding around in a new Escalade. Become involved in your local community without expecting anything from it. Chastise, and I literally mean embarass the hell out of those who prey upon the system and when a Liberal whackjob is appalled that you spoke the truth, embarass them for being so weak minded as to think that giving people what they want is the answer, and that if it hurts your feelings to be called a name, or to be told to go get a job, well then perhaps you are better off living in the woods away from the rest of us.
But its time to stop this bullshit of claiming the two parties are the same. Conservatism and being a Republican are not the same as being a Liberal, and it is simply beyond stupid the way some of you attempt to justify blaming both parties. Do you understand how politics work? Because I get a sincere feeling that few of the third partiers and malcontents that comment in these threads have any idea of anything except to complain and spew out canned arguments. Having dealt with professional organizations, clubs, etc. for most of my life I have more knowledge than I ever wanted about politics and how one gets things done, so it is second nature to me to look into the heart of an issue and see the truth behind it before placing blame.
People always make the mistake of mixing up receipts to the US Treasury with outputs spent by congress. I understand what you're saying, those on the left that haven't gotten it yet won't.Quote:
Originally Posted by spqrzilla
when we get done celebrating diversity and being whatever-Americans, pool together and just become Americans, when we stop fighting and bickering among ourselves, we can get out of this.
Until then we will continue to tear this country apart.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -Abraham Lincoln
It was a lot.
Oh, sorry...the other guys spent a lot too! Sometimes more!
Have to tow the party line.
FIFY-Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancho Villa
Also, I get that you think its cool to be some sort of radical, but the reality is that in reading your posts, I, and I believe most others, come to the conclusion your simply full of crap. You chastise a guy for investing in stocks, but have nothing to back up your criticism. You criticize the political parties, yet offer up no reasonable solutions or alternatives. Maybe its time you woke up and faced the reality of the situation, and started to act like a responsible human being and offer solutions and solid input instead of snide comments and regurgitated drivel.
The cost of a house today - even after the bubble collapsed - is "higher" because people expect to live in larger houses with more amenities. And to do so with smaller household sizes. You are the one that are comparing gilded apples to skinny oranges and don't realize it.Quote:
Originally Posted by nynco
And then you give us a chart that is inflation indexed itself. And has absolutely nothing to do with living standards or anything. It only compared GDP growth per capita to median income. It does nothing to establish your points but is a non sequitur as I pointed out earlier.Quote:
Also here is a chart to the metric I was talking about. You will see that wages kept up with productivity increases all the way till Reagan... then wages stagnated.
http://www.zompist.com/lib2.jpg
Quote:
Originally Posted by spqrzilla
This- and lets not forget that houses are built to be much more energy efficient, almost all newer houses have central HVAC, built-in cable/satellite, multi-pane windows... the list goes on. Not sure how old you are but I have lived in old houses where the floor was bowed and slanted due to settling, with no insulation to speak of and single-pane windows. I remember vividly only having heat in specific rooms of the house because it was too expensive to heat them all, and literally closing off some rooms during the winter to conserve heat. I remeber never wanting to be inside any more than necessary because the house had no ac, and hanging clothes on a clothes line to save a little on the utility bill, and a lot of other things that would send current folks over the edge. When I was growing up we had ONE TV for the entire house, and my parents dictated when and what we watched on it.
We are a land of privileged people who believe that they are entitled to whatever they want, whether they earned it or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dwalker460
SO WHAT... this still does not address the point I made. The average cost of a house today is significantly MORE today when compared to the average wages earned. Thats a fact jack. You accuse me of nonsequinter and then charge right into your own head on. Project much? Even then all those things you cite are next to meaningless. I could outfit my whole house with TVs for 1/10th the cost in relation to wages of the one TV you grew up on. Thats because technology drops in price. Heck drive around cap hill for a few hours and I could do it for free. The cost of those building supplies back then was just as much. They were just old tech compared to the stuff now.
You old guys are just out of touch and blame everyone for not having to walk uphill both ways to school. I got news for you -todays generation is worse off because of you selfish people before them. The me generation that wanted everything now, well they elected people who gave you tax breaks and put the bill on a credit card.
Utter nonsense. First of all, his comment directly addressed your point. You just don't understand it. You compare the cost of housing but don't realize that your comparison fails because you are not comparing equivalents. When its pointed out to you, you don't even pay attention.Quote:
Originally Posted by nynco
Second, today's generation is not worse off in terms of living standards. Today's generation expects to enjoy things that previous generations could not afford to have if they even existed. When I was growing up, no one had cell phones. Only the elite had mobile phones, which were fixed installations in cars. If you wanted to call someone while away from home or office, you used pay phones. Today's generation probably never even uses pay phones if they could even find them.
The point about housing was specifically that you compare the amount of income spent on housing but you fail to compare how that housing is larger, has more amenities, and often has smaller households in it. Young people today think that they are entitled to separate housing at earlier ages. The distribution of home ownership expanded greatly during the housing bubble. There are equivalents at all levels. Personal music players to cars that last longer and need less service to theater quality home video.
But this all goes over your head.
I can buy a TV right now for 10 dollars on craigs list used. In fact I can pick them up free all day long. There is no equivalent to having a house full of TVs today and only one when you were a kid. Heck I gave 3 away in the last year myself. So yeah I can afford to enjoy what you did not have or barely had. That is how the world works. Cost of those "luxories" went down. What todays generation enjoys that you did not is the debt you left, the college school system that has risen over 800% more in cost than inflation, A system that forces them to take loans that can NEVER BE BANKRUPTED OUT OF... which basically is the modern form of share cropping, wages that have half the purchasing power and houses that cost 3 times as much..... whooo hoooo its all about a TV though.
If it is going over any ones head it is right over yours.
Your paragraph rather well demonstrated who is not understanding the basics. In it, you wrote at the beginning "There is no equivalent to having a house full of TVs today and only one when you were a kid." and later you wrote "... wages that have half the purchasing power ..." and you don't understand how you are contradicting yourself.
When you isolate out the true basics - food, energy and basic shelter - those differences in purchasing power disappear and in fact invert.
(Although its tough to even compare food well, since in recent decades we enjoy food variety unseen in the past generations as we get fruits and vegetables year round from global trade. Older cookbooks had to account for what foods were "in season". Today, no one even thinks about it.)